from Ireland, it could make no head against the Parliamentary army under
such men as Cromwell and Fairfax. The King's eldest son, the Prince of
Wales, came over from Holland with nineteen ships (a part of the English
fleet having gone over to him) to help his father; but nothing came of
his voyage, and he was fain to return. The most remarkable event of this
second civil war was the cruel execution by the Parliamentary General, of
SIR CHARLES LUCAS and SIR GEORGE LISLE, two grand Royalist generals, who
had bravely defended Colchester under every disadvantage of famine and
distress for nearly three months. When Sir Charles Lucas was shot, Sir
George Lisle kissed his body, and said to the soldiers who were to shoot
him, 'Come nearer, and make sure of me.' 'I warrant you, Sir George,'
said one of the soldiers, 'we shall hit you.' 'AY?' he returned with a
smile, 'but I have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time, and you
have missed me.'

The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army--who demanded
to have seven members whom they disliked given up to them--had voted that
they would have nothing more to do with the King. On the conclusion,
however, of this second civil war (which did not last more than six
months), they appointed commissioners to treat with him. The King, then
so far released again as to be allowed to live in a private house at
Newport in the Isle of Wight, managed his own part of the negotiation
with a sense that was admired by all who saw him, and gave up, in the
end, all that was asked of him--even yielding (which he had steadily
refused, so far) to the temporary abolition of the bishops, and the
transfer of their church land to the Crown. Still, with his old fatal
vice upon him, when his best friends joined the commissioners in
beseeching him to yield all those points as the only means of saving
himself from the army, he was plotting to escape from the island; he was
holding correspondence with his friends and the Catholics in Ireland,
though declaring that he was not; and he was writing, with his own hand,
that in what he yielded he meant nothing but to get time to escape.

Matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy the Parliament,
marched up to London. The Parliament, not afraid of them now, and boldly
led by Hollis, voted that the King's concessions were sufficient ground
for settling the peace of the kingdom. Upon that, COLONEL RICH and
COLONEL PRIDE went down