POLITICAL HISTORY Mansfeldt, the former Duke of Buckingham, Charles' favourite, and been quartermaster-general in Essex's army, and was probably ready to serve any one who paid him. The unstable condition of affairs is shown by Holland's not being arrested. But the City was in a doubtful mood. At the very time that Holland was rising they petitioned the Parliament in favour of the return of the king in honour and safety to London to treat with the Parliament, and also requested that their trainbands and those of the neighbourhood might be organized as a separate force with cavalry added, so as in fact to raise an army for the party of peace. The rem- nant of the Lords answered their petition favourably. The Commons deferred their reply. There was no doubt that if Holland attained an initial success he would be joined by many waverers, and would almost certainly force Fairfax to raise the siege of Colchester to save London. Plans were laid for seizing Windsor, Winchester and Farnham Castle. Surrey was to be the scene of the rising, and a horse race on Banstead Downs was to serve as an excuse for drawing people together. An actual rising began in Sussex about Horsham ; it was reported to the House on June 29 and helped perhaps to precipitate the crisis. Sir Michael Livesey who commanded some Kentish horse and foot for the Parliament, and Major Gibbons who had part of Colonel Rich's cavalry regiment in Kent, who both had been employed in putting down the remains of the Royalists there, had been ordered into Sussex. On July 2 they were ordered to halt at Sevenoaks ready to move into Surrey. On the same day the Derby House Committee ordered up Captain Pretty, with a troop of Ireton's regiment from Windsor to join them. On July 3 the committee wrote to Fairfax asking for a whole regiment of horse from Colchester. On the 4th Parliament desired the committee to put Farnham, Reigate and Sterborough castles, Merton Abbey and other places in Surrey into a condition in which they could not be made use of for endangering the peace of the kingdom. 1 They were actually dismantled after the affair was all over. For on the evening of the same day Holland, only perhaps half prepared, raised his standard at Kingston accompanied by Dalbier, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Peterborough, Lord Francis Villiers and some 500 or 600 men. He published a manifesto declaring that he was in arms against arbitrary government, for the cause of king and Parliament, religion and the known laws of the country. He was fighting, he said, to prevent the simultaneous overthrow of monarchy and of order, not for tyranny, but for constitutional rule. His declaration is dated July 6, when he was in fact marching through Surrey, and the date indicates perhaps the day on which he had intended to meet his supporters on Banstead Downs if his movements had not been hurried on. An appeal to arms addressed to moderate men in the cause of order has always this weakness in it, that 1 See Letters of Committee of Derby House, and Rushtvorth Collections. Whitekcke"! Memorials cor- rectly, according to the Journals of the House, say that the places were to be dismantled. Rushworth says incorrectly that they were to be secured. Guildford Castle appears not to be thought of as a place of defence. I 4*7 BB
