From this time it was that the opponents of the King became divided against themselves. The Independents and the Presbyterians had little in common sympathy. The Independents formed the majority in the army, and the Presbyterians, jealous of their power, were now anxious to disband the army. In this difference the Independents, gaining the day, formed a military Parliament, and took possession of the King; but the hope that this raised in the minds of the Royalists, and among them the hopes of the Earl and Countess of Derby, was doomed to be disappointed. The King in the hands of the Independents was merely a puppet to play off against the Presbyterians. The Earl of Derby was all this time being treated with comparative leniency, considering that his loyalty to his party amounted to a passion which no terrors or threats could ever quench. Total inaction was imposed upon him; and policy prompted him to compliance. “Reculer pour mieux sauter” was the watchword now for the ardent-spirited Earl. To attempt to do anything for his royal master’s defence at this time was but to hurry him the faster to his doom; though there was a gleam of hope in the treatment which the King was now receiving. During some months which he spent at Hampton Court, the semblance of kingly state and of loyal respect surrounded him. It was the calm and deceptive tranquillity which precedes the tempest. Like the old _trève de Dieu_ of mediæval days—the oasis which travellers come upon in the desert, and perforce must leave again—those few little months at Hampton Court, with his children once more about him, must have been very blessed to the King. Despite the gloom on all sides of the horizon, sunshine was overhead, sweetness was in the air. Lord Derby during his enforced inactivity took up his pen, and began his “History and Antiquities of the Isle of Man.” He wrote it for the instruction of his son, and its title _in extenso_ explains his intentions in writing it. “With an account of his own proceedings, and losses in the Civil War; interspersed with sundry advises to his son.” The advice is excellent. After some details concerning the early history of the island, its noble chronicler writes: “Sir John Stanley, who was the first of our family to possess it, took out in letters-patent the name of the King of Man. His successors did the same until the time of Thomas, second Earl of Derby, who, for good and wise reasons, decided to relinquish this title. “I know no subject who owns a dominion as important as this,” and then the Earl adds that, lest it may be found to be too important, his son will do well to observe this rule, which will enable him to keep the kingdom uncontested: “Fear God, and honour the King.”