June:Charles taken prisoner by the Army

Realising that the King is central to any peace deal, the Army seizes Charles from the Parliamentarians to strengthen their bargaining power. On June 2nd 1647, Charles was enjoying another day playing bowls with two of the Parliamentary Commissioners who watched over him. A junior officer from the Army, Cornet Joyce, rode up to Holmby House with two troops of cavalry and demanded the King accompany him. When asked by what right he importuned the monarch, Joyce showed Charles his well-armed troop of horse. The King politely acquiesced. He was taken to Cambridge, where for the first time he came face to face with Cromwell, and then on to his hunting lodge at Newmarket, now closely patrolled by Army forces.

The King was still the King. Every party wanted to have him as their own. Parliament, the Army, and the remaining Royalists all wanted control of the body of the monarch. Without him, no one could get the deal they wanted and no-one yet wanted a settlement without a monarch.

Charles himself, ever the opportunist, enjoyed watching the widening gulf within the Parliamentary camp. Once again, he thought he could simply split the difference between his opponents and walk away in triumph. His clumsy game plan was to divide the army from Parliament and seek the best deal from either. He confided to one supporter that his hope was 'to draw either the Presbyterians or the Independents to side with me for extirpating one the other', and then he would 'be really King again.' He saw discontent with Parliament brewing and watched carefully the tensions within the Army. In the face of such splits, he refused any talk of settlements based on religious or political compromise.

Unfortunately for Charles, this wasn't 1640 anymore - the world had moved on. The Civil Wars had bred new ideas and hopes. In his closeted world of country mansions, Charles was living in a previous age. Outside, an increasing number of people, frustrated by the war and the King's refusal to settle, were toying with truly revolutionary ideas. And this included the troops of the New Model Army.

October: Putney Debates commence

A major event in British political history-the grandees of the New Model army deign to discuss political ideals with the ordinary soldiers. Those who continue to 'agitate' after the debates are summarily executed. The battle of ideas which took place at Putney Church in October 1647 profoundly influenced British politics for the next 350 years. Here, ideas emerged which still influence our lives today; ideas took hold which led men to demand a say over their future. They wanted control over their politics and communities - how their money was spent; accountability from those in power. It was here that democratic socialism was born - the right of the lowliest individual to have a say in the shape of their society. It was the start of a process that would end in votes for all and the democracy of the Westminster Parliament.

In October 1647, the General Council of the Army met to debate the Leveller ideas set out in their manifesto, An Agreement of the People. This was a highly radical document which demanded manhood suffrage and an elected Parliament answerable to the people of England. While John Pym had fought a civil war to defend the rights enshrined by Magna Carta against Charles's arbitrary kingship, the Leveller's dismissed it as a "beggarly thing" imposed on the free-born Saxons by the Normans. The Levellers wanted to rebuild the equality and democracy which they believed were the birth-right of all Englishmen. They wanted to rid England of the 'Norman Yoke.' At the heart of that struggle was the vote.

On the other side, Cromwell represented the conservative Grandees. As a substantial landowner, he had always believed in private property and insisted that only property-holders with a 'fixed permament interest' should vote. But the Levellers wanted to extend it further. They wanted nearly all men to have the vote. In the immortal words of Colonel Rainsborough, 'I think the poorest he in England has a life to live as the greatest he.' These are the ideas that inspired British socialism for centuries: the idea that every man has a right to vote and play his part in society; that he deserves a decent education, decent housing, and the same opportunities as the 'greatest he'.

But Cromwell was no socialist. The Leveller demands were far too radical for Cromwell and the Grandees. So they wound the debates up and returned the agitators to their regiments. And when Leveller rebellion flared up again, Cromwell's reaction was swift and merciless. At the army camp in Ware, the Leveller troublemakers were taken out and sentenced to death. This was not a debating society, it was an army. The New Model Army was built on discipline and it was needed now more than ever - because Charles had evaded his captors.

December: Charles concludes an 'Engagement' with the Scots

Charles forms a military alliance with his Scots Presbyterians making the resumption of hostilities inevitable. Ever since they handed Charles back to Parliament, the Scottish Covenanters had become deeply concerned at the strength of religious radicalism in the New Model Army. As the Independent-dominated Army grew in power at the expense of the Presbyterian-dominated Westminster Parliament, the Scottish Covenanters began to fear that their own Presbyterian religious settlement would be at risk. And if the Army ever managed to reach a settlement with Charles for full religious freedom, then Scottish Presbyterianism would be in deep trouble. The Covenanters had to cut a deal with Charles before the Army did.

Charles and the Covenanters came together as two lovers following a long tiff. The very people he had gone to war with in 1639, now offered his only salvation. On the 24th December 1647, Parliament presented its final offer to the King at Carisbrooke. He loftily rejected the terms and on the 26th December, after talks with the Scots Commissioners, signed a treaty with the Covenanters known as 'the Engagement.' Charles agreed to allow Presbyterianism for three years while the Scots would, in return, raise an army to place him back on the throne.

Content last updated: 07/01/2001

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