ned with two missives, one addressed to the commissioners of
the city of London and the other to the mayor, aldermen and Common
Council.(761) In the first Fairfax and the "council of war" declared the
utter impossibility of removing the army to a distance of thirty miles
from London so long as enlistments were being made in the city and suburbs
in addition to the usual trained bands and auxiliaries. A stop must be put
to this, otherwise the army would have to take the matter in hand. In the
second the officers informed the civic authorities that the movements of
the army would greatly depend upon the action parliament took with respect
to certain "papers" now to be submitted to it.

(M369)

By "papers" the writers were referring to a document styled _The
Declaration of the Army_, which had that morning been placed in the hands
of the parliamentary commissioners to be forwarded to the Lords.(762) This
declaration sought to establish the right of the army to speak in the name
of the English people, and demanded the banishment from office of all who
spoke ill of it. To this was added a further demand, viz., the expulsion
from the House of those who had proved themselves unworthy of their seats.
This last demand was followed by a formal charge laid in the name of the
army against eleven members of the House of Commons (of whom Glyn, the
city's Recorder, was one) of having prejudiced the liberties of the
subject, misrepresented the army and raised forces for a new war.

(M370)

As matters turned out the army had little cause to fear the enlistments
that had taken place in the city. An attempt had, it is true, been made to
increase the number of the militia, but it had met with poor success. When
it became known in the city that the army was moving southward from
Royston something like a panic prevailed. The trained bands were called
out on pain of death and shops ordered to be shut, Sir John Gayer, the
lord mayor, being especially active. But when the companies appeared on
parade they were found to be lamentably deficient in numbers, "not ten men
of some companies appeared, and many companies none at all but
officers."(763) The whole affair was treated as a farce by the on-lookers,
who jeered at the troops as they passed; and those who had shut up their
shops at the mayor's command soon opened them again. It was clear that the
citizens had no intention of being engaged in a "new war." Parliament,
finding this to be the ca