e was established with power to raise
forces for the defence of the nation: the favourite general Skippon was
appointed to provide for the safety of the capital; and the most positive
orders were sent to Fairfax not to suffer any one of the corps under his
command to approach within forty miles of London. Every day the
contest assumed a more threatening aspect. A succession of petitions,
remonstrances, and declarations issued from the pens of Ireton and Lambert,
guided, it was believed, by the hand of Cromwell. In addition to their
former demands, it was required that all capitulations granted by military
commanders during the war should be observed; that a time[a] should be
fixed for the termination of the present parliament; that the House of
Commons should be purged of every individual disqualified by preceding
ordinances;

[Footnote 1: Lords' Journals, 260, 263, 277. Holles says that these
petitions were drawn by Cromwell, and sent into the counties for
subscriptions.--Holles, 256.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. June 14.]

and, in particular, that eleven of its members, comprising Holles, Glyn,
Stapleton, Clotworthy, and Waller, the chief leaders of the Presbyterian
party, and members of the committee at Derby House, should be excluded,
till they had been tried by due course of law for the offence of
endeavouring to commit the army with the parliament. To give weight to
these demands, Fairfax, who seems to have acted as the mere organ of the
council of officers,[1] marched successively to St. Alban's, to Watford,
and to Uxbridge.[a] His approach revealed the weakness of his opponents,
and the cowardice, perhaps hypocrisy, of many, who foresaw the probable
issue of the contest, and deemed it not their interest to provoke by a
useless resistance the military chiefs, who might in a few hours be
their masters.[b] Hence it happened that men, who had so clamorously and
successfully appealed to the privileges of parliament, when the king
demanded the five members, now submitted tamely to a similar demand, when
it was made by twelve thousand men in arms. Skippon, their oracle, was one
of the first deserters. He resigned the several commands which he held,
and exhorted the Presbyterians to fast and pray, and submit to the will of
God.[c] From that time it became their chief solicitude to propitiate the
army. They granted very ingeniously leave of absence to the eleven accused
members; they ordered the new levies for the defen