ence on
the 16th he sent a message offering Presbyterianism for three years and
the militia for his lifetime to the parliament, but insisting on the
maintenance of episcopacy. On the 28th of December he refused his assent
to the Four Bills, which demanded the militia for parliament for twenty
years and practically for ever, annulled the honours recently granted by
the king and his declarations against the Houses, and gave to parliament
the right to adjourn to any place it wished. On the 3rd of January 1648
the Commons agreed to a resolution to address the king no further, in
which they were joined by the Lords on the 15th.

Charles had meanwhile taken a further fatal step which brought about his
total destruction. On the 26th of December 1647 he had signed at
Carisbrooke with the Scottish commissioners the secret treaty called the
"Engagement," whereby the Scots undertook to invade England on his
behalf and restore him to the throne on condition of the establishment
of Presbyterianism for three years and the suppression of the
sectarians. In consequence the second civil war broke out and the Scots
invaded England under Hamilton. The royalist risings in England were
soon suppressed, and Cromwell gained an easy and decisive victory over
the Scots at Preston. Charles was now left alone to face his enemies,
with the whole tale of his intrigues and deceptions unmasked and
exposed. The last intrigue with the Scots was the most unpardonable in
the eyes of his contemporaries, no less wicked and monstrous than his
design to conquer England by the Irish soldiers; "a more prodigious
treason," said Cromwell, "than any that had been perfected before;
because the former quarrel was that Englishmen might rule over one
another; this to vassalize us to a foreign nation." Cromwell, who up to
this point had shown himself foremost in supporting the negotiations
with the king, now spoke of the treaty of Newport, which he found the
parliament in the act of negotiating on his return from Scotland, as
"this ruining hypocritical agreement." Charles had engaged in these
negotiations only to gain time and find opportunity to escape. "The
great concession I made this day," he wrote on the 7th of October, "was
made merely in order to my escape." At the beginning he had stipulated
that no concession from him should be valid unless an agreement were
reached upon every point. He had now consented to most of the demands of
the parliament, including the