518. Whitelock, 251. Holles, 252.]
[Footnote 2: Nottingham's Letter in the Lords' Journals, ix. 253.]
and the monopoly of power. To Fairfax, therefore, under God, they appealed
to become the saviour of his country, to be the mediator between it and the
two houses. With this view, let him keep his army together, till he had
brought the incendiaries to condign punishment, and extorted full redress
of the grievances so severely felt both by the army and the people.[1]
The chiefs, however, who now ruled at Westminster, were not the men to
surrender without a struggle. They submitted, indeed, to pass a few
ordinances calculated to give satisfaction, but these were combined with
others which displayed a fixed determination not to succumb to the dictates
of a mutinous soldiery. A committee 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.
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