This incident--in an early stage of our Civil Wars--of Pym carried to the grave by his fellow patriots, forcibly reminds us of the interment of Mirabeau with similar honours, at the beginning of the French Revolution. Unlike as to moral and religious character, these two eminent men, as to ability for guiding public affairs, and swaying a nation's destinies, had much in common: and whilst we speculate on the probable consequences of the lengthened life of the brilliant Frenchman in curbing party excesses and preventing terrible scenes, we may also conjecture that happy consequences would have followed, had the illustrious Englishman been longer spared. The loss of John Hampden is often deplored, as of one whose wise counsel and force of character might have saved his country a series of mistakes and much suffering, had Divine providence lengthened his days. The loss of John Pym, for reasons of the same kind, is probably still more to be lamented.
At this period, plots were of frequent occurrence.[379] Basil Brooke, a noted Royalist and Roman Catholic, planned a scheme for detaching the City of London from the cause of the Covenant, and from the Scotch alliance. By means of defeating Presbyterian schemes, he aimed at procuring peace favourable to the King. Propositions from his Majesty, and signed by his hand, were to be presented to the Lord Mayor, so that the latter should be obliged to convene a meeting to petition Parliament to treat with the monarch: upon which, should Parliament refuse, "a party in both Houses would appear with the City, and so either carry all to the King, or put all in confusion." The utterly idle conception of achieving a desired result by means in themselves impracticable, or, if even carried out, not such as to ensure the effect contemplated, only led to exposure and defeat. Keen-witted men in Parliament and in the City discovered the plot, and turned it to an account the very opposite of that which the plotters intended.
The court party at the same time endeavoured to intrigue with the Independents, whose want of sympathy in Presbyterian projects had become obvious to all. Flattering offers were made to them if they would break with the Scotch, abandon the Covenant, join the Royalists, and agree to the establishment of a moderate Episcopacy. Toleration was promised upon these conditions, and it was said: "Mr. Nye should be one of the King's chaplains, and several other Independents should be highly preferred and rewarded."[380] With these larger intrigues were mixed up certain minor ones for the purpose of inducing officers of the garrison at Windsor Castle and Aylesbury to betray those places into the King's hands. The person who appears most prominently among the Royalist agents in these schemes was one Serjeant-major Ogle, who had been taken prisoner by the Parliament, and who was lodged in Winchester House. References to him, as a notorious plotter in the service of his Majesty, occur in the publications of that day, and he also figures in that capacity upon the pages of the Parliamentary journals.[381] His own version of the part he played comes to light in the following letter found in the State Paper Office. Giving an account of himself at a later period, he says:--