an the risk
of forfeiting the confidence of both, had employed Ashburnham to make
proposals to the Independents through Sir Henry Vane. What the king asked
from them was to facilitate his access to parliament. Ample rewards were
held out to Vane, "to the gentleman, who was quartered[d] with him,"[2] and
to the personal friends of both; and an assurance was given, that if the
establishment of Presbyterianism were still made an indispensable condition
of peace, the king would join his efforts with theirs "to root out of the
kingdom that tyrannical government." From the remains of the correspondence
it appears that to the first communication Vane had replied in terms
which, though not altogether satisfactory, did not exclude the hope of his
compliance; and Charles wrote to him a second time,

[Footnote 1: These particulars appear in the correspondence in Clarendon
Papers, 221-226. Montreuil left Oxford on Friday; therefore on the 3rd.]

[Footnote 2: This gentleman might be Fairfax or Cromwell; but from a letter
of Baillie (ii. 199, App. 3), I should think that he was an "Independent
minister," probably Peters.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1646. April.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1646. April 18.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1646. April 20.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1646. March 2.]

repeating his offers, describing his distress, and stating that, unless he
received a favourable answer within four days, he must have recourse to
some other expedient.[1] The negotiation, however, continued for weeks; it
was even discovered by the opposite party, who considered it as an artful
scheme on the part of[a] the Independents to detain the king in Oxford,
till Fairfax and Cromwell should bring up the army from Cornwall; to amuse
the royal bird, till the fowlers had enclosed him in their toils.[2]

Oxford during the war had been rendered one of the strongest fortresses
in the kingdom. On three sides the waters of the Isis and the Charwell,
spreading over the adjoining country, kept the enemy at a considerable
distance, and on the north the city was covered with a succession of works,
erected by the most skilful engineers. With a garrison of five thousand
men, and a plentiful supply of stores and provisions, Charles might have
protracted his fate for several months; yet the result of a siege must have
been his captivity. He possessed no army; he had no prospect of assistance
from without; and within, famine would in the end compel him to surrender.
But where was he to