CHAP. V - The Campaign of 1645

Summary

The King's whole soul was weary of these painful and fruitless negotiations: yet even in the parliamentary assembly which he had once more gathered round him at Oxford, a resumption of them was urged, and proposals suggested, which seemed to the King base and seditious. He breathed more freely when this assembly also was dismissed, and he expressed himself contemptuously about it: he saw with pleasure Wilmot and Percy, who at that time were labouring for peace, quit his neighbourhood, and go to France to the Queen's court.

He himself in the course of the discussions had not only strengthened himself in his own opinion, but came to lean more than ever in the other direction. He once told his wife, with whom he kept up continual deliberation as to the best course, that he was now determined, if he ever again obtained full possession of power, to repeal all penal laws against the Catholics, that if peace came it would be seen that he was the true friend of her friends, especially of the bishops, and that then he would take care, as she repeatedly urged, to get rid of this everlasting Parliament. It is clear that he meant to be thoroughly master.

Without being a born soldier or much of a general, Charles I had developed a taste for the camp. Military successes were the only ones which he had enjoyed for a long time: his victory over Essex filled him with a certain self-satisfaction.