began far less favourably for Charles than the two
last, principally owing to the alliance now made between the Scots and
the parliament, the parliament taking the Solemn League and Covenant on
the 25th of September 1643, and the Scottish army crossing the border on
the 19th of January 1644. No attempt was this year made against London,
and Rupert was sent to Newcastle's succour in the north, where the great
disaster of Marston Moor on the 2nd of July ruined Charles's last
chances in that quarter. Meanwhile Charles himself had defeated Waller
at Cropredy Bridge on the 29th of June, and he subsequently followed
Essex to the west, compelling the surrender of Essex's infantry at
Lostwithiel on the 2nd of September. With an ill-timed leniency he
allowed the men to go free after giving up their stores and arms, and on
his return towards Oxford he was confronted again by Essex's army at
Newbury, combined now with that of Waller and of Manchester. Charles
owed his escape here from complete annihilation only to Manchester's
unwillingness to inflict a total defeat, and he was allowed to get away
with his artillery to Oxford and to revictual Donnington Castle and
Basing House.

The negotiations carried on at Uxbridge during January and February 1645
failed to secure a settlement, and on the 14th of June the crushing
defeat of the king's forces by the new model army at Naseby practically
ended the civil war. Charles, however, refused to make peace on Rupert's
advice, and considered it a point of honour "neither to abandon God's
cause, injure my successors, nor forsake my friends." His chief hope was
to join Montrose in Scotland, but his march north was prevented by the
parliamentary forces, and on the 24th of September he witnessed from the
walls of Chester the rout of his followers at Rowton Heath. He now
entered into a series of intrigues, mutually destructive, which,
becoming known to the different parties, exasperated all and diminished
still further the king's credit. One proposal was the levy of a foreign
force to reduce the kingdom; another, the supply through the marquis of
Ormonde of 10,000 Irish. Correspondence relating to these schemes,
fatally compromising as they were if Charles hoped ever to rule England
again, was discovered by his enemies, including the Glamorgan treaty,
which went much further than the instructions to Ormonde, but of which
the full responsibility has never been really traced to Charles, who on
the