c religion. And, when this treaty was
discovered in the carriage of a fighting Irish Archbishop who was killed
in one of the many skirmishes of those days, he basely denied and
deserted his attached friend, the Earl, on his being charged with high
treason; and--even worse than this--had left blanks in the secret
instructions he gave him with his own kingly hand, expressly that he
might thus save himself.

At last, on the twenty-seventh day of April, one thousand six hundred and
forty-six, the King found himself in the city of Oxford, so surrounded by
the Parliamentary army who were closing in upon him on all sides that he
felt that if he would escape he must delay no longer. So, that night,
having altered the cut of his hair and beard, he was dressed up as a
servant and put upon a horse with a cloak strapped behind him, and rode
out of the town behind one of his own faithful followers, with a
clergyman of that country who knew the road well, for a guide. He rode
towards London as far as Harrow, and then altered his plans and resolved,
it would seem, to go to the Scottish camp. The Scottish men had been
invited over to help the Parliamentary army, and had a large force then
in England. The King was so desperately intriguing in everything he did,
that it is doubtful what he exactly meant by this step. He took it,
anyhow, and delivered himself up to the EARL OF LEVEN, the Scottish
general-in-chief, who treated him as an honourable prisoner. Negotiations
between the Parliament on the one hand and the Scottish authorities on
the other, as to what should be done with him, lasted until the following
February. Then, when the King had refused to the Parliament the
concession of that old militia point for twenty years, and had refused to
Scotland the recognition of its Solemn League and Covenant, Scotland got
a handsome sum for its army and its help, and the King into the bargain.
He was taken, by certain Parliamentary commissioners appointed to receive
him, to one of his own houses, called Holmby House, near Althorpe, in
Northamptonshire.

While the Civil War was still in progress, John Pym died, and was buried
with great honour in Westminster Abbey--not with greater honour than he
deserved, for the liberties of Englishmen owe a mighty debt to Pym and
Hampden. The war was but newly over when the Earl of Essex died, of an
illness brought on by his having overheated himself in a stag hunt in
Windsor Forest. He, too, was