not keep his promise, though made sincerely, any more than he kept those which were forcibly extorted from him. Strafford's head fell, and Hollis plunged into the whirlwind which swept over the country.

He was sincere, resolute, and high-spirited. He asserted and defended the liberties of England, just as a gentleman would assert and defend his own personal rights. In his eyes the Parliament was the people, and the House of Commons the Parliament. To secure the decided and continual preponderance of the House of Commons in the Parliament, while paying due respect to the Crown and the House of Lords, was, in his opinion, and in that of all the Presbyterian party, first, the right of the country, and secondly, the only means of abolishing the tyranny of the King, the Church, and the Court. Hollis marched forward to this object, ever in the foremost rank, by all ways, over all obstacles, accepting, that he might surmount them, sometimes the assistance of an insurrection, and at others the subtleties of legists. And when, after two years' duration, the parliamentary struggle ended in the civil war, Hollis no more hesitated to maintain his rights by arms than he had formerly hesitated to assert and demand them. He raised a regiment, took his position, as colonel, in the army under the command of the Earl of Essex, and on the 12th of November, 1642, his regiment, though unassisted, stopped the march of the royal army for some time at Brentford, seven miles from London, and prevented it from falling unexpectedly upon the city.

Neither Hollis nor his party entertained any subversive designs, either against royalty or English society; they merely intended to maintain the legal government of their country; but they were far from suspecting what a difficult and dangerous transformation that government would have to undergo, before the House of Commons could become its mainspring; and their error was to believe that, by appealing to force, they alone would be the gainers, and could measure its employment at their will. When force, however, has once taken possession of society, no one can tell what it will do, whither it will go, or who will make use of it, and with what intentions. There begins at once a series of unlimited and obscure occurrences which surpass the foresight and will of men; occurrences which sometimes ennoble nations and found good governments, but from which contem

poraries, very erroneously, hope to educe a success much more prompt and personal than the advantage of their posterity.

When the Presbyterians saw that their hopes were deceived they were astounded, and quite unwilling to suppose that their faults had anything to do with their reverses; and soon they found fresh cause for indignation, in the discovery that the Independents, the Republicans, the army, and Cromwell were employing against them the same artifices and the same violence which they had themselves put in practice against the king's partisans. What marvel that one portion of the Parliament believed itself justified in making war against another, when the Parliament had itself made war against the king, an integral part of every parliament! Why should not the Independents have eliminated the Presbyterians from the House of Commons, when the Presbyterians had already eliminated therefrom so many royalists, for no other reason than that they were hampered and hindered by their resistance? The design of the Independents was, it is true, subversive of the entire fabric of English society, and contrary to the wishes of the nation; that of the Presbyterians was moderate and national: thus, one of the two parties passed by like a terrible accident, the other resumed vigour to oppose its enemies, and finally gained the victory. But as for the means employed, as for the illegal and tyrannical use of force, one had opened out the way for the other; it was by walking in the footsteps of the Presbyterians that the Independents learned to tread them under foot.

Parties will never acknowledge such a similarity; and, of his faction, Hollis would have been the last to recognise it, for he was the most passionate of all the moderate reformers. But passion is full of both blindness and penetration. If it conceals faults, it discovers perils. Hollis quickly perceived the gravity of the dangers which the Independents and Cromwell were preparing for the Presbyterians. Peace and the reconciliation of the king with the Parliament were the only sure means of averting them. Hollis was early favourable to peace, as he was wearied with embarrassment and anxiety, and weighed down by the shackles imposed upon him by his recent conduct, the still furious contest, and, above all, the necessity of defending himself against the king even whilst becoming reconciled with him; but he was as ardent and sincere in his efforts for reconciliation as he had been in his

resolution for war. In 1644 he was sent to Oxford, with eight other commissioners, to attempt a negotiation; and on the very evening of his arrival he went, with the consent of his colleagues, and in company with Whitelocke, to pay a visit to the Earl of Lindsey, a nobleman of the king's household, and their mutual friend. The king came to Lord Lindsey's suddenly, while they were there, and, advancing towards them with great affability, said: "I am sorry, gentlemen, that you could bring to me no better propositions for peace, nor more reasonable than these are." "Sir," replied Hollis, "they are such as the Parliament thought fit to agree upon, and I hope a good issue may be had out of them." "I know," continued the king, “you could bring no other than what they would send. But I confess I do not a little wonder at some of them; surely, you yourselves cannot think them to be reasonable or honourable for me to grant.” "Truly, sir," said Hollis, "I could have wished that some of them had been otherwise than they are, but your majesty knows that those things are all carried by the major vote.' "I know they are," answered the king, "and am confident that you who are here and your friends (I must not say your party) in the House endeavoured to have had them otherwise, for I know you are well-willers to peace." "I have had the honour," observed Whitelocke, "to attend your majesty often heretofore upon this errand, and am sorry it was not to better effect." I wish, Mr. Whitelocke," replied the king, "that others had been of your judgment, and of Mr. Hollis's judgment, and then I believe we had had an happy end of our differences before now; for I do earnestly desire peace, and, in order to it, and out of the confidence I have of you two that are here with me, I ask your opinion and advice what answer will be best for me to give at this time to your propositions, which may probably further such a peace as all good men desire." "Your majesty will pardon us," said Hollis, "if we are not capable in our present condition to advise your majesty." "We now by accident," added Whitelocke, "have the honour to be in your majesty's presence, but our present employment disables us from advising your majesty, if we were otherwise worthy to do it in this particular.'" "For your abilities," answered the king, "I am able to judge, and I now look not on you in your employments from the Parliament, but as friends and

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my private subjects, I require your advice." Sir," said Hollis, "to speak in a private capacity, your majesty sees that we have been very free; and, touching your answer, I shall say further, that I think the best answer would be your own coming amongst us." "How can I come thither with safety ?" asked the king. "I am confident," returned Hollis, "there would be no danger to your person to come away directly to your Parliament.' "That may be a question," said the king; "but I suppose your principals who sent you hither will expect a present answer to your message." "The best present and most satisfactory answer," urged Whitelocke, "would be your majesty's presence with your Parliament." "Let us pass by that," answered the king, "and let me desire you two, Mr. Hollis and Mr. Whitelocke, to go into the next room, and a little to confer together, and to set down somewhat in writing which you apprehend may be fit for me to return in answer to your message, and that in your judgments may facilitate and promote this good work of peace." "We shall obey your majesty's commands," replied Hollis.*

They went together into an adjoining room, and having carefully disguised their handwriting, drew up a paper containing the advice which the king had requested. But their good-will was as powerless as it was dangerous. At Oxford, their advice produced no result. At London, denounced by Lord Savile, a courtier and traitor in both camps by turns, this advice became the text of a serious accusation which was vigorously urged against them, in the House of Commons, by the Independent party. Hollis was the special object of their abhorrence. They endeavoured to separate Whitelocke from his companion, and promised to free him from any evil consequences. Whitelocke had some dislike for Hollis, whose first answers in the House had been, in his opinion, too open and haughty. But, for a man like Whitelocke, prudent and sensible even in his pusillanimity, the hour of defection had not yet arrived. He continued faithful to Hollis, ably defended their common cause, and after a long examination, in spite of the efforts of the Independent party to leave the matter at least in suspense, the House decided that no proceedings should be taken upon the accusation.†

* Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 113 (London, 1732).
† Ibid., p. 161.

From this moment Whitelocke retired from the struggle, and Hollis engaged in it with redoubled ardour. He became the declared and personal adversary of Cromwell, Ireton, and all the leading Independents, attacking them in the House, denouncing them to the people; incessantly employed in predicting their crimes and unveiling their plots; provoking against them sometimes secret conferences, and sometimes public resolutions; and caring little if he envenomed their hatred against himself, provided that his own antipathy, though powerless, had free course.

Accordingly, when the Independents triumphed, when Cromwell became supreme in the Parliament as well as in the army, Hollis was one of the first proscribed. In August, 1647, excluded from the House of Commons, and accused of high treason, he took refuge in France, at Sainte-Mère-Eglide, in Normandy, near the coast; as if he were still determined to watch, from the other side of the ocean, what was going on in his own country, and unable to detach his soul from the cause he was no longer able to defend. For one moment, the battle-field opened to him again; the Presbyterians regained their ascendancy in the House of Commons. Hollis crossed over to England immediately, and resumed, with his former earnestness, his conflict with the Independents and Cromwell, and his exertions for peace with the king. "One day, Commissary-General Ireton speaking something concerning the secluded members, Mr. Hollis thinking it to be injurious to them, passing by him in the House, whispered him in the ear, telling him it was false, and he would justify it to be so if he would follow him, and thereupon immediately went out of the House, with the other following him. Some members who had observed their passionate carriage to each other, and seen them hastily leaving the House, acquainted the Parliament with their apprehensions; whereupon they sent their serjeantat-arms to command their attendance, which he letting them understand, as they were taking boat to go to the other side of the water, they returned; and the House taking notice of what they were informed concerning them, enjoined them to forbear all words or actions of enmity towards each other, and to carry themselves for the future as fellow-members of the same body, which they promised to do."*

This pacification was as false as Hollis's victory in a duel with * Ludlow's Memoirs, pp. 94-95 (London, 1751).