It boasted of large supplies of money from Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and from France; of cannon, and arms for horse and foot, part of them sent by the King Christian IV of Denmark, some of which were already shipped for Newcastle, and the rest on the point of being embarked with the English queen Henrietta Maria.
Various considerations however impelled him to encourage a renewal of the treaty; of which perhaps the principal was, the necessity of satisfying the importunities of those men of rank, fortune and character amongst his own adherents, whose deep stake in the country rendered them incessantly urgent for the restoration of tranquillity, and to whom he could not with safety avow his real sentiments and designs.
They were tied up so strictly by their instructions as to have no power to alter even a word in the articles, and only twenty days were allowed them; six to arrange a cessation of arms, and the rest to conclude the treaty.
To the cessation the king, by the admission of Clarendon, was totally averse, thinking that if once he agreed to it, he should be unable to avoid consenting to the peace; and he therefor, by a kind of fraud upon his own official advisers, secretly directed "the gentlemen of different counties attending the court" to present him with an address against it.
The commissioners, however, proceeded to the treaty itself; and to smooth difficulties, Mr. Pierpoint, one of the number, secretly made a proposal, that the king should gain the earl of Northumberland favour, by a promise of restoring him after a peace to the office of lord admiral; but Charles professed himself too deeply offended at what he thought the ingratitude of that nobleman to consent.