command in the army, attended in great numbers the English camp,
greedily seized, and propagated, and gave authority to these sentiments:
a retreat, very little honorable, which the earl of Holland, with
a considerable detachment of the English forces, had made before a
detachment of the Scottish, caused all these humors to blaze up at once:
and the king, whose character was not sufficiently vigorous or decisive,
and who was apt from facility to embrace hasty counsels, suddenly
assented to a measure which was recommended by all about him, and which
favored his natural propension towards the misguided subjects of his
native kingdom.[*]

Charles, having so far advanced in pacific measures, ought, with a
steady resolution, to have prosecuted them, and have submitted to every
tolerable condition demanded by the assembly and parliament; nor should
he have recommenced hostilities, but on account of such enormous and
unexpected pretensions as would have justified his cause, if possible,
to the whole English nation. So far, indeed, he adopted this plan, that
he agreed, not only to confirm his former concessions, of abrogating the
canons, the liturgy, the high commission, and the articles of Perth,
but also to abolish the order itself of bishops, for which he had so
zealously contended.[**] But this concession was gained by the utmost
violence which he could impose on his disposition and prejudices: he
even secretly retained an intention of seizing favorable opportunities,
in order to: recover the ground which he had lost.[***] And one step
farther he could not prevail with himself to advance. The assembly, when
it met, paid no deference to the king's prepossessions, but gave full
indulgence to their own. They voted episcopacy to be unlawful in
the church of Scotland: he was willing to allow it contrary to the
constitutions of that church. They stigmatized the liturgy and canons
as Popish: he agreed simply to abolish them. They denominated the high
commission, tyranny: he was content to set it aside.[****]

* Clarendon, vol. i. p. 122, 123. May, p. 46.

** Rush. vol. iii. p. 946.

*** Burnet's Memoirs, p. 154 Rush. vol. iii. p. 951.

**** Rush. vol. iii. p. 958, etc.

The parliament, which sat after the assembly, advanced pretensions which
tended to diminish the civil power of the monarch; and, what probably
affected Charles still more, they were proceeding to ratify the acts
of assembly, when, by the