hurch, and to his promising never to
permit the exercise of the Catholic religion in any part of his
dominions. Charles agreed to everything demanded of him, having all the
time no intention whatever of keeping his promises. While he was
swearing to observe everything the Scots asked of him, he was writing to
Ormonde to tell him that he was to mind nothing he heard as to his
agreement with the Scots, for that he would do all the Irish required.
Charles, indeed, although but a young man of twenty, was as full of
duplicity and faithlessness as his father, without possessing any of the
virtues of that unfortunate king, and the older and wiser men among his
followers were alienated by his dissolute conduct, and by the manner in
which he gave himself up to the reckless counsels of men like Buckingham
and Wilmot.

Harry heard with deep regret the many stories current of the evil life
and ways of the young king. Had it not been for the deadly hatred which
he felt to Cromwell and the Puritans for the murder of Sir Arthur
Ashton, and the rest of the garrison and people of Drogheda, in cold
blood, he would have retired altogether from the strife, and would have
entered one of the continental armies, in which many Royalist refugees
had already taken service. He determined, however, that he would join in
this one expedition, and that if it failed he would take no further part
in civil wars in England, but wait for the time, however distant, when,
as he doubted not, the people of England would tire of the hard rule of
the men of the army and conventicle, and would, with open arms, welcome
the return of their sovereign.

Early in June the king sailed for Scotland, accompanied by the regiment
which Harry had raised, and a few hundred other troops. He landed there
on the 16th. The English Parliament at once appointed Cromwell
captain-general and commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and to
be raised within the commonwealth of England. A few days later he left
London, and on the 23d of June entered Scotland with sixteen thousand
men. King Charles, to whom Harry had been presented by Prince Rupert as
one of his father's most gallant and faithful soldiers, received him at
first with great cordiality. As soon as he found, however, that this
young colonel was in no way inclined to join in his dissipations, that
his face was stern and set when light talk or sneers against religion
were uttered by the king's companions, Charles grew co