PART I

Success of the King in the first Part of the War -- Efforts by the moderate Party for Peace -- Affair at Brentford -- Treaty of Oxford -- Impeachment of the Queen -- Waller's Plot -- Secession of some Peers to the King's Quarters -- Their Treatment there impolitic -- The anti-pacific Party gain the Ascendant at Westminster -- The Parliament makes a new Great Seal -- And takes the Covenant -- Persecution of the Clergy who refuse it -- Impeachment and Execution of Laud -- Decline of the King's Affairs in 1644 -- Factions at Oxford -- Royalist Lords and Commoners summoned to that City -- Treaty of Uxbridge -- Impossibility of Agreement -- The Parliament insist on unreasonable Terms -- Miseries of the War -- Essex and Manchester suspected of Lukewarmness -- Self-denying Ordinance -- Battle of Naseby -- Desperate Condition of the King's Affairs -- He throws himself into the Hands of the Scots -- His Struggles to preserve Episcopacy, against the Advice of the Queen and others -- Bad Conduct of the Queen -- Publication of Letters taken at Naseby -- Discovery of Glamorgan's Treaty -- King delivered up by the Scots -- Growth of the Independents and Republicans -- Opposition to the Presbyterian Government -- Toleration -- Intrigues of the Army with the King -- His Person seized -- The Parliament yield to the Army -- Mysterious Conduct of Cromwell -- Imprudent Hopes of the King -- He rejects the Proposals of the Army -- His Flight from Hampton Court -- Alarming Votes against him -- Scots' Invasion -- The Presbyterians regain the Ascendant -- Treaty of Newport -- Gradual Progress of a Republican Party -- Scheme among the Officers of bringing Charles to Trial -- This is finally determined -- Seclusion of Presbyterian Members -- Motives of some of the King's Judges -- Question of his Execution discussed -- His Character -- Icon Basilike Page 138