theories of religious freedom which were every day becoming more
popular. But while the Scotch army lay at Newcastle, and while it held
the king in its hands, they could not insist on dismissing their own
soldiers. It was only a withdrawal of the Scots from England and their
transfer of the king's person into the hands of the Houses that would
enable them to free themselves from the pressure of their own soldiers
by disbanding the New Model.

[Sidenote: Surrender of the king.]

In his endeavour to bring these two measures about Holles met with an
unexpected success. Hopeless of success in the projects of accommodation
which they laid before the king, and unable to bring him into Scotland
in face of the refusal of the General Assembly to receive a sovereign
who would not swear to the Covenant, the Scottish army in January 1647
accepted L400,000 in discharge of its claims, handed Charles over to a
Committee of the Houses, and marched back over the Border. The success
of their diplomacy restored the confidence of the Houses. The
Presbyterian leaders looked on themselves as masters of the king, and
they resolved to assert their mastery over the New Model and the
Sectaries. They voted that the army should be disbanded, and that a new
army should be raised for the suppression of the Irish rebellion with
Presbyterian officers at its head. It was in vain that the men protested
against being severed from "officers that we love," and that the Council
of Officers strove to gain time by pressing on the Parliament the
danger of mutiny. Holles and his fellow-leaders were resolute, and their
ecclesiastical legislation showed the end at which their resolution
aimed. Direct enforcement of conformity was impossible till the New
Model was disbanded; but the Parliament pressed on in the work of
providing the machinery for enforcing it as soon as the army was gone.
Vote after vote ordered the setting up of Presbyteries throughout the
country, and the first-fruits of these efforts were seen in the
Presbyterian organization of London, and in the first meeting of its
Synod at St. Paul's. Even the officers on Fairfax's staff were ordered
to take the Covenant.

[Sidenote: Temper of the New Model.]

All hung however on the disbanding of the New Model, and the New Model
showed no will to disband itself. Its attitude can only fairly be judged
by remembering what the conquerors of Naseby really were. They were
soldiers of a different class and