For considering the Scots' treaty that would be besides, I might have found means to put distractions among them, though I had found none." Such being the spirit that animated the king, there is little reason for surprise that the negotiations came to nothing.

The last hope of the crown was destroyed when, on the 22d of March, Lord Astley, marching from Worcester to join the king at Oxford, was defeated at Stow, in the Wold, and the three thousand Cavaliers with him killed, captured, or dispersed.

Again the king sent a message to Parliament, offering to come to Whitehall, and proposing terms similar to those which he had rejected when the negotiators met at Uxbridge.

His real object, however, was to produce such an effect by his presence in London as would create a reaction in his favor.

Three days after he had sent this message he wrote to Digby: "I am endeavoring to get to London, so that the conditions may be such as a gentleman may own, and that the rebels may acknowledge me king, being not without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the Presbyterians or Independents to side with me for exterminating the one or the other, that I shall be really king again." These offers were rejected by Parliament, and the army of Fairfax advanced toward Oxford.