Even after the people were inflamed by a long civil war, the execution of Charles I.could not be deemed a national deed: it was perpetrated by a fanatical army pushed on by a daring and enthusiastic leader; and the whole kingdom had ever entertained, and did still entertain, a violent abhorrence against that enormity.

The situation of public affairs, therefore, no more resembled what it was forty years before, than the prince of Orange, either in birth, character, fortune, or connections, could be supposed a parallel to Cromwell.
The emissaries of France, and among the rest Barillon, the French ambassador, were busy about the king, and they had entertained a very false notion, which they instilled into him, that nothing would more certainly retard the public settlement, and beget universal confusion, than his deserting the kingdom.
The prince of Orange had with good reason embraced a contrary opinion; and he deemed it extremely difficult to find expedients for securing the nation, so long as the king kept possession of the crown.

Actuated, therefore, by this public motive, and no less, we may well presume, by private ambition, he was determined to use every expedient which might intimidate the king, and make him quit that throne which he himself was alone enabled to fill.

He declined a personal conference with James's commissioners, and sent the earls of Clarendon and Oxford to treat with them: the terms which he proposed implied almost a present participation of the sovereignty: and he stopped not a moment the march of his army towards London.
The news which the king received from all quarters, served to continue the panic into which he was fallen, and which his enemies expected to improve to their advantage.

Colonel Copel, deputy governor of Hull, made himself master of that important fortress; and threw into prison Lord Langdale, the governor, a Catholic; together with Lord Montgomery, a nobleman of the same religion.