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In the event, this was the shortest formal peace negotiation of the war. Discussion opened on 30 January and was over in three weeks. The three principal topics were religion, the militia and Ireland, to be discussed for three days each in rotation. There was no progress on any of them. The prospects of agreement, of course, were nil – the bargaining position on religion was Presbyterianism, something to which Charles could not, in conscience, agree.73 Charles wrote in a private letter on 6 February: ‘I should think if in your private discourses… with the London commissioners you would put them in mind that they were arrant rebels, and that their end must be damnation, ruin, and infamy except they repented and found some way to free themselves from the damnable way they are in… it might do good’.74 At the eleventh, or perhaps thirteenth, hour, the King made an offer of places to some of the leading parliamentarians (but not at the expense of current, honest incumbents) and to come to London on condition that the armies disbanded. He may have been encouraged to play for time in this way by news of another victory for Montrose in Scotland. The suggestion that he might come to London, extremely unlikely to be accepted at Westminster, was strongly opposed by Henrietta Maria.75

The failure of the negotiations, recognized on 22 February, considerably weakened moderate royalism, and in the following years hardliners such as Digby and Henrietta Maria were very prominent in the King’s counsels, despite the latter’s exile, at least if the letters between husband and wife are to be believed. A royalist Western Association was formed to stiffen the sinews of the English war effort, to which Hyde and Sir John Colepeper were sent as advisers to the Prince of Wales in early March. This effectively exiled two principal moderates from the court without giving them much influence in the Western Association.76 As the negotiations faltered militant parliamentarianism had also prospered: on 13 February the Lords finally accepted the New Model Ordinance and it was passed two days later. There were subsequent delays over naming commands, and the Self-Denying Ordinance was not passed until April, but vigorous military action was once again in hand.77

The formation of the New Model Army and the passage of the Self-Denying Ordinance served military purposes but have been invested with a more than military significance. A national standing army had been created from which aristocratic command had been excluded. It was to be the New Model Army which carried through a coup in 1648 leading directly to the trial and execution of the King. Disappointment at the failure to follow up the victory at Marston Moor was expressed by some in criticism of aristocratic leadership. It seems clear that the greater mobility of the King’s forces and the more decisive leadership that was offered had allowed him to recover a seemingly desperate situation between July and October. These things – concern about the commitment of Essex and Manchester, the lack of mobility and co-ordination in the parliamentary forces – came together in the New Modelling of the Parliamentary army over the winter of 1644–5. But they were also, of course, connected with religious and political positions. Vigorous prosecution of the war by Parliament was not simply a matter of logistics and organization but also one of political commitment.

What these negotiations demonstrate, above all, is how politicized the war effort had become. Presbyterianism was associated with order and with a desire for an early settlement. This was partly because many prominent Presbyterians, concerned about what they perceived to be an escalating threat from Independency, did indeed want a quick settlement, but the match between Presbyterian beliefs and political moderation was not exact. It fitted with the polemical construction of the sects, however, and as the Uxbridge negotiations foundered the controversy