Any other instruments seemed better adapted for a treaty of pacification.
When the king presented himself to this company, a great and sensible alteration was remarked in his aspect, from what it appeared the year before, when he resided at Hampton Court.

The moment his servants had been removed, he had laid aside all care of his person, and had allowed his beard and hair to grow, and to hang dishevelled and neglected.

His hair was become almost entirely gray, either from the decline of years, or from that load of sorrows under which he labored; and which, though borne with constancy, preyed inwardly on his sensible and tender mind.
His friends beheld with compassion, and perhaps even his enemies, "that gray and discrowned head," as he himself terms it, in a copy of verses, which the truth of the sentiment, rather than any elegance of expression, renders very pathetic.[****] Having in vain endeavored by courage to defend his throne from his armed adversaries, it now behoved him, by reasoning and persuasion, to save some fragments of it from these peaceful, and no less implacable negotiators.
The vigor of the king's mind, notwithstanding the seeming decline of his body, here appeared unbroken and undecayed.

The parliamentary commissioners would allow none of his council to be present, and refused to enter into reasoning with any but himself.

He alone, during the transactions of two months, was obliged to maintain the argument against fifteen men of the greatest parts and capacity in both houses; and no advantage was ever obtained over him,[v] This was the scene above all others in which he was qualified to excel.