that he was willing to support, if the soldiers would promise perfect obedience to his orders. This satisfied all the regiments but one, which showed signs of mutiny. Cromwell then rode along its armed front, looking the men literally in the face. Eleven, whose looks he did not like, he ordered out of the ranks. The men acquiesced. Three were then tried on the field and condemned to die. One only, however, was shot, and the rest pardoned. Thus at the loss of a single life the plague of mutiny was for the time stayed. The secret of the good temper of the army was a renewed assurance that their leaders would not again imperil the cause of the Lord’s people by ‘carnal conferences’ with his crowned enemy. The king was followed to Carisbrook by four bills, which formed the ultimatum of the parliament. They represent the predominance of independency in the house, which the efforts of Cromwell and his friends had at last attained. They make no more mention of religion, but simply secure the supremacy of the commons. These Charles rejected, while at the same time, swallowing his zeal for bishops and liturgy, he signed a treaty with the Scots, which, at the price of the establishment of presbyterianism, secured him a Scotch army to deliver him from the sectaries and restore him to London on terms that would have made him virtually irresistible. This was the beginning of the end. On January 3, 1648, Cromwell writes to Governor Hammond, evidently in high spirits: ‘The House of Commons is very sensible of the king’s dealings, and of our brethren’s (the Scots), in this late transaction.... It has this day voted as follows: 1st, they will make no more addresses to the king; 2nd, none shall apply to him without leave of the two houses, upon pain of being guilty of high treason; 3rd, they will receive nothing from the king.’ Henceforth there could be but two {323} alternatives. Either the new royalist rising would prevail and restore a short-lived tyranny of presbyters to end in a longer one of priests, or it would fail, and on its wreck be established a military republic. LECTURE III.