The English Civil War had been raging for nearly an entire decade. After the First English Civil War, the parliamentarians accepted the premise that the King, although wrong, had been able to justify his fight, and that he would still be entitled to limited powers as King under a new constitutional settlement. By provoking the Second English Civil War even while defeated and in captivity, Charles was held responsible for unjustifiable bloodshed. The secret "Engagement" treaty with the Scots was considered particularly unpardonable; "a more prodigious treason", said Oliver Cromwell, "than any that had been perfected before; because the former quarrel was that Englishmen might rule over one another; this to vassalize us to a foreign nation." Cromwell up to this point had supported negotiations with the king but now rejected further negotiations.