Presbyterianism, were old unsuccessful Colonels or Generals under Essex; and for very obvious reasons looked askance on this Army, and wished to be, so soon as possible, rid of it. The first rumour of a demur or desire on the part of the Army, rumour of some Petition to Fairfax by his Officers as to the ‘way’ of their disbanding, was by these Old Military Parliament-men very angrily repressed; nay, in a moment of fervour, they proceeded to decree that whoever had, or might have, a hand in promoting such Petition in the Army was an ‘Enemy to the State, and a Disturber of the Public Peace’,—and sent forth the same in a ‘Declaration of the 30th of March,’ which became very celebrated afterwards. This unlucky ‘Declaration,’ Waller says, was due to Holles, who smuggled it one evening through a thin House. ‘Enemies to the State, Disturbers of the Peace’: it was a severe and too proud rebuke; felt to be unjust, and looked upon as ‘a blot of ignominy’; not to be forgotten, nor easily forgiven, by the parties it was addressed to. So stood matters at the end of March.
At the end of April they stand somewhat thus. Two Parliament Deputations, Sir William Waller at the head of them, have been at Saffron Walden, producing no agreement:[1] five dignitaries of the Army, ‘Lieutenant-General Hammond, Colonel Hammond, Lieutenant-Colonel Pride,’ and two others, have been summoned to the bar;[2] some subalterns given into custody; Ireton himself ‘ordered to be examined’;—and no ‘satisfaction to the just desires of the Army’; on the contrary, the ‘blot of ignominy’ fixed deeper on it than before. We can conceive a universal sorrow and anger, and all manner of dim schemes and consultations going on at Saffron Walden and the other Army-quarters, in those days. Here is a scene from Whitlocke, worth looking at, which takes place in the Honourable House itself; date 80th April 1647:[3]
