CHARLES I.

85

and army; that, within eight and forty hours,the Scots should dismiss their forces; that theking’s forts should be restored to him, his authoritybe acknowledged; and a general assembly and aparliament be immediately summoned , in orderto compose all differences What were thereasons , which engaged the king to admit suchstrange articles of peace, it is in vain to inquire :For there scarcely could be any. The causes ofthat event may admit of a more easy explication.

The malecontents had been very industrious,in representing to the English the grievances,under which Scotland labored, and the ill coun-sels, which had been suggested to their sovereign.Their liberties, they said , were invaded: Theprerogatives of the crown extended beyond allformer precedent: Illegal courts erected; Thehierarchy exalted'at the expense of national pri-vileges: And so many new superstitions introducedby the haughty tyrannical prelates, as begat ajust suspicion that a project was seriously formedfor the restoration of popery. The king’s conduct,surely, in Scotland, had been, in every thing,except in establishing the ecclesiastical canons,more legal than in England; yet was there sucha general resemblance, in the complaints of bothkingdoms, that the English readily assented to allthe representations of the Scottish malecontents,and believed that nation to have been driven,by oppression, into the violent counsels, which

4! Rushworth, vol. iii. p. 94$.

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HAP.

LIII.

1639 >