account have multiplied extremely, and have
rendered their personal safety, which they interwove with the safety of
the nation, still more incompatible with the authority of the monarch.
Though the gentleness and lenity of the king's temper might have insured
them against schemes of future vengeance, they preferred, as is no doubt
natural, an independent security, accompanied too with sovereign power,
to the station of subjects, and that not entirely guarded from all
apprehensions of danger.[*] [12]

The conferences went no further than the first demand on each side.
The parliament, finding that there was no likelihood of coming to any
agreement, suddenly recalled their commissioners.

A military enterprise, which they had concerted early in the spring, was
immediately undertaken. Reading, the garrison of the king's which lay
nearest to London, was esteemed a place of considerable strength in that
age, when the art of attacking towns was not well understood in Europe,
and was totally unknown in England. The earl of Essex sat down before
this place with an army of eighteen thousand men, and carried on the
siege by regular approaches. Sir Arthur Aston, the governor, being
wounded, Colonel Fielding succeeded to the command. In a little time,
the town was found to be no longer in a condition of defence; and though
the king approached with an intention of obliging Essex to raise the
siege, the disposition of the parliamentary army was so strong as
rendered the design impracticable. Fielding, therefore, was contented to
yield the town, on condition that he should bring off all the garrison
with the honors of war, and deliver up deserters. This last article was
thought so ignominious and so prejudicial to the king's interests, that
the governor was tried by a council of war, and condemned to lose his
life for consenting to it. His sentence was afterwards remitted by the
king.[**]

* See note L, at the end of the volume.

** Rush. vol. vi. p. 265, etc. Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 237,
238, etc.

Essex's army had been fully supplied with all necessaries from London;
even many superfluities and luxuries were sent them by the care of the
zealous citizens; yet the hardships which they suffered from the siege
during so early a season had weakened them to such a degree, that they
were no longer fit for any new enterprise. And the two armies for some
time encamped in the neighborhood of each other, without attempting o