The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 06 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
The King in the meantime, till his residence was settled at Hampton
Court, was carried from place to place, not without some ostentation;
but with much more liberty, and with more respect shewn him by far, than
when he was in the hands of the Parliament’s commissioners; for his own
chaplains were allowed him, and his children and some friends permitted
to see him. Besides that, he was much complimented by Cromwell, who
promised him, in a serious and seeming passionate manner, to restore him
to his right against the Parliament.
_B._ How was he sure he could do that?
_A._ He was not sure; but he was resolved to march up to the city and
Parliament, to set up the King again, and be the second man, unless in
the attempt he found better hope, than yet he had, to make himself the
first man by dispossessing the King.
_B._ What assistance against the Parliament and the city could Cromwell
expect from the King?
_A._ By declaring directly for him he might have had all the King’s
party, which were many more now since his misfortune than ever they were
before. For in the Parliament itself, there were many that had
discovered the hypocrisy and private aims of their fellows: many were
converted to their duty by their own natural reason; and their
compassion for the King’s sufferings had begot generally an indignation
against the Parliament: so that if they had been by the protection of
the present army brought together and embodied, Cromwell might have done
what he had pleased, in the first place for the King, and in the second
for himself. But it seems he meant first to try what he could do without
the King; and if that proved enough, to rid his hands of him.
_B._ What did the Parliament and city do to oppose the army?
_A._ First, the Parliament sent to the general to redeliver the King to
their commissioners. Instead of an answer to this, the army sent
articles to the Parliament, and with them a charge against eleven of
their members, all of them active Presbyterians: of which articles these
are some: 1. That the House may be purged of those, who, by the
self-denying ordinance, ought not to be there; 2. That such as abused
and endangered the kingdom, might be disabled to do the like hereafter;
3. That a day might be appointed to determine this Parliament; 4. That
they would make an account to the kingdom of the vast sums of money they
had received; 5. That the eleven members might presently be suspended
sitting in the House. These were the articles that put them to their
trumps; and they answered none of them, but that of the suspension of
the eleven members, which they said they could not do by law till the
particulars of the charge were produced: but this was soon answered with
their own proceeding against the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl
of Strafford.
The Parliament being thus somewhat awed, and the King made somewhat
confident, he undertakes the city, requiring the Parliament to put the
militia of London into other hands.