ALSO IN: _C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 24._ _T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 3, letter 26._ _W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 2, chapter 7-11._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (AUGUST-DECEMBER). The King's "Game" with Cromwell and the army, and the ending of it. After reinstating the Parliament at Westminster, "the army leaders resumed negotiations with the King. The indignation of the soldiers at his delays and intrigues made the task hourly more difficult; but Cromwell ... clung to the hope of accommodation with a passionate tenacity. His mind, conservative by tradition, and above all practical in temper, saw the political difficulties which would follow on the abolition of Royalty, and in spite of the King's evasions, he persisted in negotiating with him. But Cromwell stood almost alone; the Parliament refused to accept Ireton's proposals as a basis of peace, Charles still evaded, and the army then grew restless and suspicious. There were cries for a wide reform, for the abolition of the House of Peers, for a new House of Commons, and the Adjutators called on the Council of Officers to discuss the question of abolishing Royalty itself. Cromwell was never braver than when he faced the gathering storm, forbade the discussion, adjourned the Council, and sent the officers to their regiments. But the strain was too great to last long, and Charles was still resolute to 'play his game.' He was, in fact, so far from being in earnest in his negotiations with Cromwell and Ireton, that at the moment they were risking their lives for him he was conducting another and equally delusive negotiation with the Parliament. ... In the midst of his hopes of an accommodation, Cromwell found with astonishment that he had been duped throughout, and that the King had fled [November 11, 1647]. ... Even Cromwell was powerless to break the spirit which now pervaded the soldiers, and the King's perfidy left him without resource. 'The King is a man of great parts and great understanding,' he said at last, 'but so great a dissembler and so false a man that he is not to be trusted.' By a strange error, Charles had made his way from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight, perhaps with some hope from the sympathy of Colonel Hammond, the Governor of Carisbrooke Castle, and again found himself a prisoner. Foiled in his effort to put himself at the head of the new civil war, he set himself to organize it from his prison; and while again opening delusive negotiations with the Parliament, he signed a secret treaty with the Scots for the invasion of the realm. The rise of Independency, and the practical suspension of the Covenant, had produced a violent reaction in his favour north of the Tweed. ... In England the whole of the conservative