from Carisbrook by getting out of a barred window at night, but he found that the bars were too close for him to slip the whole of his body through, and after this he was more closely watched than he had been before. Fairfax put down the insurrection in Kent and Essex. Cromwell put it down in Wales and then marched northwards and caught the Scots at Preston, where he defeated them entirely. The soldiers came back from their victory with anger in their hearts against Charles. They felt that he had tricked them by raising war against them at a time when words of peace were in his mouth. They resolved to bring him to trial. To do this they wanted to find a court to sit in judgment on him. None of the judges would do anything of the kind. Parliament would not make a new court. The soldiers turned out about ninety members of the House of Commons, and those who were left did as they wished and voted that there should be a High Court of Justice to try the king, The House of Lords refused to have anything to do with the matter, and they were turned out too. When Charles was summoned before the new court he refused to answer. He said that it had no right to try him. He was nevertheless condemned to death, and his head was cut off on a scaffold outside the windows of his own palace at Whitehall.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE

PROTECTORATE.

(1649-1660.)

1. The Commonwealth.-The Government of England was now to be a Commonwealth; that is to say, there was to be no king. The country was to be ruled by a few men who were chosen year by year by the body called the Parliament. In this Parliament, however, there was no House of Lords, and the House of Commons consisted of only about eighty members who had remained sitting, whilst the rest had either left Westminster to fight for the king in the course of the war, or had been turned out at different times by the soldiers.

2. Cromwell in Ire land. In the first year of the Commonwealth Crom well was sent to Ireland. Ever since the rebellion in Ulster, eight years before, Ireland had been full of bloodshed. It is difficult to say which were most savage, the English or the Irish. Cromwell came to restore peace. There was a brutal slaughter by his orders of the defenders of Drogheda, and another brutal slaughter, not by his orders, of the defenders of Wexford. Others carried on the work which he had begun. Thousands of Irish were driven away from their homes to live as well as they could in the desolate regions of Connaught. There was peace

in Ireland, but peace which was produced by mere conquest without justice was not likely to last long.

3. The War with Scotland.—The next year Cromwell had to lead his army to Scotland. The Scots were shocked at the execution of the late king, and they sent for his son, whom they crowned as Charles II. Cromwell was shut up at Dunbar between the sea and the hills on which the Scottish army lay. He could not fight and he could not get away. One day the Scottish army came down towards him. Early the next morning he fell upon it. Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered,' he cried, as his troopers, never conquered yet, plunged into the ranks of their enemies. The Scots turned and fled, and the victory was won. Cromwell gained Edinburgh, but he did not gain all Scotland. In the next year, 1651, a Scottish army, taking young Charles with them, slipped past him and invaded England. They marched steadily southwards, calling on the English Royalists to join them. Cromwell was at their heels, and he caught them at Worcester, where he scattered them to the winds. ‹ The dimensions of this mercy,' he wrote,' are above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy.' Cromwell was right. As long as he lived, neither Scots nor Royalists ever lifted up their heads again in England. The young king escaped to the Continent. At one time he hid himself in an oak whilst Cromwell's troopers were riding underneath.

4. Expulsion of the Long Parliament. The eighty members who called themselves a Parliament did not govern England well. They were fond of giving

offices to the friends and relations of the members and they were hard upon Royalists who did not bribe them. Cromwell wanted them to dissolve themselves and to order fresh elections; but he and they did not agree upon the way in which these

which he did not like, see Protestant nations One day in 1653 he

into a war with the Dutch, because he did not like to fighting with one another. came to the house, summoned in a number of soldiers, turned all the members out and locked the door.

Nobody in England was sorry for what had happened, 'We did not see a dog bark at their going,' said Cromwell not long afterwards.

5. The Barebones Parliament.-Cromwell and the officers invited a number of men to meet together to consider what was to be done. This assembly, which was not a real Parliament, is generally known by the nickname of the Barebones Parliament, after a certain Praise-God Barebones who was a member of it. It did not accomplish anything, but after sitting some months it gave up all its power to Cromwell.

6. Cromwell's First Parliament.-Cromwell was now to be Lord Protector; that is to say, he was to rule like a king without the title. He was to have a Parliament of one House. As soon as the Parliament met, it began to be troublesome, and to want to settle everything in its own way. Cromwell dissolved it and tried to rule without it.

7. Cromwell's Government.-At home Cromwell allowed all Puritans to worship as they liked. But he would not allow the members of the Church of England to meet to pray out of the Prayer Book, because he knew that they wanted to have the young king back to rule over them. Abroad he joined France in a war against Spain. His soldiers took part in a battle in which the Spaniards were beaten, and he received Dunkirk as a reward for the assistance which he gave. At sea Blake, the great sailor, was victorious over the Spaniards. Cromwell could do great things, but he was not liked by the mass of English people. He and the Puritans wanted everybody to be like themselves, and they tried to stop a great many amusements

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