1644. Dec. 2.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1644. Dec. 9.]

and of all whose patience had been exhausted by the quarrels among
the commanders; and, when an exemption was suggested in favour of the
lord-general, it was lost on a division by seven voices, in a house of
one hundred and ninety-three members.[a] However, the strength of the
opposition encouraged the peers to speak with more than their usual
freedom.[b] They contended, that the ordinance was unnecessary, since the
committee was employed in framing a new model for the army; that it was
unjust, since it would operate to the exclusion of the whole peerage from
office, while the Commons remained equally eligible to sit in parliament,
or to fill civil or military employments. It was in vain that the lower
house remonstrated.[c] The Lords replied that they had thrown out the bill,
but would consent to another of similar import, provided it did not extend
to commands in the army.

But by this time the committee of both kingdoms had completed their plan of
military reform, which, in its immediate operation, tended to produce the
same effect as the rejected ordinance.[d] It obtained the sanction of the
Scottish commissioners, who consented, though with reluctance, to sacrifice
their friends in the upper house, for the benefit of a measure which
promised to put an end to the feuds and delays of the former system, and to
remove from the army Cromwell, their most dangerous enemy. If it deprived
them of the talents of Essex and Manchester, which they seem never to have
prized, it gave them in exchange a commander-in-chief, whose merit they had
learned to appreciate during his service in conjunction[e]

[Transcriber's Note: Footnote 1 not found in the text]

[Footnote 1: Journals, Dec. 9, 17; Jan. 7, 10, 13. Lords' Journals, 129,
131, 134, 135. Rushworth, vi. 3-7.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1644. Dec. 17.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1644. Dec. 21.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1645. Jan. 15.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1645. Jan. 9.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1645. Jan. 21.]

with their forces at the siege of York. By the "new model" it was proposed
that the army should consist of one thousand dragoons, six thousand six
hundred cavalry in six, and fourteen thousand four hundred infantry in
twelve regiments, under Sir Thomas Fairfax as the first, and Major-General
Skippon as the second, in command. The Lords hesitated;[a] but after
several conferences and debates they returned it with a few amendments
to the Commons, a