issing his ancient servants, debarring him from visits, and cutting
off all communication with his friends or family. The parliament, though
earnestly applied to by the king, refused to allow his chaplains to
attend him, because they had not taken the covenant. The king refused to
assist at the service exercised according to the directory; because
he had not as yet given his consent to that mode of worship.[*] Such
religious zeal prevailed on both sides; and such was the unhappy and
distracted condition to which it had reduced king and people.

During the time that the king remained in the Scottish army at
Newcastle, died the earl of Essex, the discarded, but still powerful and
popular general of the parliament. His death, in this conjuncture, was
a public misfortune. Fully sensible of the excesses to which affairs
had been carried, and of the worse consequences which were still to be
apprehended, he had resolved to conciliate a peace, and to remedy, as
far as possible, all those ills to which, from mistake rather than any
bad intentions, he had himself so much contributed. The Presbyterian,
or the moderate party among the commons, found themselves considerably
weakened by his death; and the small remains of authority, which still
adhered to the house of peers, were in a manner wholly extinguished.[**]

* Clarendon, voL T. p. 39. Warwick, p. 298.

** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 48.

CHAPTER LIX.

CHARLES I.

{1647.} The dominion of the parliament was of short duration. No sooner
had they subdued their sovereign, than their own servants rose against
them, and tumbled them from their slippery throne. The sacred boundaries
of the laws being once violated, nothing remained to confine the wild
projects of zeal and ambition: and every successive revolution became a
precedent for that which followed it.

In proportion as the terror of the king's power diminished, the division
between Independent and Presbyterian became every day more apparent;
and the neuters found it at last requisite to seek shelter in one or the
other faction. Many new writs were issued for elections, in the room of
members who had died, or were disqualified by adhering to the king; yet
still the Presbyterians retained the superiority among the commons:
and all the peers, except Lord Say, were esteemed of that party. The
Independents, to whom the inferior sectaries adhered, predominated in
the army; and the troops of the new model w