While Lambert hastened back to the capital,
his army followed by slow marches; and at Derby the officers subscribed[b]
a petition, which had been clandestinely forwarded to them from Wallingford
House. In it they complained that adequate rewards were not conferred on
the deserving; and
[Footnote 1: Journals, Sept. 16. Clar. Pap. iii. 551. Carte's Letters, ii.
210, 236. Pepys' Memoirs, i. 157.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. August 22.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1659. Sept. 14.]
demanded that the office of commander-in-chief should be given to Fleetwood
without limitation of time, and the rank of major-general to their
victorious leader; that no officer should be deprived of his commission
without the judgment of a court-martial; and that the government should be
settled in a house of representatives and a permanent senate. Hazlerig,
a man of stern republican principles, and of a temper hasty, morose, and
ungovernable, obtained a sight of this paper, denounced[a] it as an attempt
to subvert the parliament, and moved that Lambert, its author, should be
sent to the Tower; but his violence was checked by the declaration of
Fleetwood, that Lambert knew nothing of its origin; and the house contented
itself with ordering all copies of the obnoxious petition to be delivered
up, and with resolving[b] that "to augment the number of general officers
was needless, chargeable, and dangerous.
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