Never had Parliament been less inclined towards peace. The hundred and thirty new members, who had replaced in the House of Commons those who had followed the king, had increased the power and daring of the Independents, though all did not belong to their party. The severities towards the Royalists were redoubled. The war everywhere became harsher, sometimes cruel. Fairfax alone still preserved the fine humanity which distinguished nearly all the leaders at the opening of the war. Misunderstandings broke out even between the Scots and the Houses. The former complained that their army was not paid; the latter, that an army of allies plundered and devastated, like a hostile body, the counties which it occupied. {144} The strongest fermentation, the deepest hostility, the bitterest and most decisive measures on all hands, left little chance for peace to arrest or even suspend the rapid course of events. The overtures of the king were rejected, and a safe-conduct was refused to the negotiators. Charles persisted, but without success, and as he proposed to repair to Westminster to negotiate in person with Parliament, his enemies solemnly declared that they at length possessed proof of the falsity of his words. The king had concluded a treaty of alliance with the Catholic Irishmen still in revolt. Ten thousand of these barbarians, under the orders of the Earl of Glamorgan, were soon to land at Chester. They had obtained, as the price of their assistance, the complete abolition of the penal laws against the Catholics, and the freedom of their worship. Ireland, in fact, was delivered up to the Papacy. For two months the Committee of the two kingdoms had known of the conspiracy and reserved the publication of it for an important occasion. The day had at length arrived. The king was struck down by this discovery. For two years he had personally conducted this negotiation with the Earl of Glamorgan, the eldest son of the Marquis of Worcester. Brave, generous, thoughtless, passionately devoted to his master in danger, and to his oppressed religion, Glamorgan had plotted in every form, proceeding incessantly from England to Ireland, often entrusted with secret missions unknown to the Marquis of Ormond, lieutenant of the king in Ireland, and alone knowing to what point the concessions of the king might reach. The treaty had been concluded since the 20th of August preceding, and Parliament did not know all that Charles had promised in its name. {145}