be speedily brought to justice for the treason, blood, and mischief of which he had been guilty; that the Lords should be abolished, and the supreme power vested in the Commons; that if the country desired any more kings, they should be elected by the Commons; that a period should be fixed for the close of this Parliament; and that any future king should be sworn to govern by the aid of Parliament alone." This startling remonstrance was signed by Rushworth, the historian, secretary to Fairfax, the general himself accompanying the remonstrance by a letter. A violent debate upon this remonstrance took place in the House; but Cromwell was now fast advancing to the capital, and the House adjourned. [Illustration: ARRIVAL OF CHARLES UNDER GUARD AT HURST CASTLE. (_see p._ 82.)] All these ominous proceedings were lost on Charles; whilst he was negotiating, he was, in his usual manner, secretly corresponding with his party in various quarters, apologising for the smallest concessions, on the principle that he did not mean to abide by them. On the 24th of October, after conceding the command of the army, he wrote to Sir William Hopkins, "To deal freely with you, the great concession I made to-day was merely in order to my escape, of which if I had not hope, I would not have done it." He had written on the 10th of October to Ormond in Ireland, with which country he had agreed to have no further intercourse, telling him that the treaty would come to nothing, and encouraging him privately to prosecute the scheme for a rising there with all his vigour, and to let his friends know that it was by his command, but not openly, or this would, of course, knock the treaty on the head. But a letter of Ormond's fell into the hands of the Independents, by which they discovered for what he had been sent over from France to Ireland, and the Commissioners would not proceed till Charles had publicly written to deny any authority from him to Ormond. All the while that the negotiations were proceeding, he was expecting the execution of a plan for his escape; and he told Sir Philip Warwick that if his friends could not rescue him by the time he had requested relief, yet he would still hold on, till he had made some stone in that building his tombstone. With such a man all treaty had long been hopeless; he would never consent to the demands upon him, and without his consent the whole war had been in vain; nay, did he consent, it was equally certain that, once at liberty, he would break every engagement. What was to be done? The Independents and the army had come to a solemn conviction that there was but one way out of it. The king must be tried for his treason to the nation, and dealt with as any other incorrigible malefactor.