themselves to be governed. From his suggestion,
Cromwell secretly called at Windsor a council of the chief officers,
in order to deliberate concerning the settlement of the nation, and the
future disposal of the king's person.[***]

* Rush. vol. viii. p. 845, 859.

** Rush. vol. viii. p. 875. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 87.

*** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 92.

In this conference, which commenced with devout prayers, poured forth by
Cromwell himself and other inspired persons, (for the officers of this
army received inspiration with their commission,) was first opened the
daring and unheard-of counsel, of bringing the king to justice, and of
punishing, by a judicial sentence, their sovereign, for his pretended
tyranny and maleadministration. While Charles lived, even though
restrained to the closest prison, conspiracies, they knew, and
insurrections would never be wanting in favor of a prince who was so
extremely revered and beloved by his own party, and whom the nation in
general began to regard with great affection and compassion. To murder
him privately was exposed to the imputation of injustice and cruelty,
aggravated by the baseness of such a crime; and every odious epithet
of "traitor" and "assassin" would, by the general voice of mankind, be
indisputably ascribed to the actors in such a villany. Some unexpected
procedure must be attempted, which would astonish the world by its
novelty, would bear the semblance of justice, and would cover its
barbarity by the audaciousness of the enterprise. Striking in with the
fanatical notions of the entire equality of mankind, it would insure the
devoted obedience of the army, and serve as a general engagement against
the royal family, whom, by their open and united deed, they would so
heinously affront and injure.[*]

This measure, therefore, being secretly resolved on, it was requisite,
by degrees, to make the parliament adopt it, and to conduct them from
violence to violence, till this last act of atrocious iniquity should
seem in a manner wholly inevitable. The king, in order to remove those
fears and jealousies, which were perpetually pleaded as reasons for
every invasion of the constitution, had offered, by a message sent from
Carisbroke Castle, to resign, during his own life, the power of the
militia and the nomination to all the great offices; provided that,
after his demise, these prerogatives should revert to the crown.[**] But
the parliament acted entirely a