were rapidly diffused:  they made willing converts of the dissolute, the adventurous, and the discontented; and a new spirit, the fruitful parent of new projects, began to agitate the great mass of the army.  The king was seldom mentioned but in terms of abhorrence and contempt; he was an Ahab or Coloquintida, the everlasting obstacle to peace, the cause of dissension and bloodshed.  A paper[a] entitled “The Case of the Army,” accompanied with another under the name of “The Agreement of the People,” was presented to the general by the agitators of eleven regiments.  They offered,[b] besides a statement of grievances, a new constitution for the kingdom.  It made no mention of king or lords.  The sovereignty was said to reside in the people, its exercise to be delegated to their representatives, but with the reservation of equality of law, freedom of conscience, and freedom from forced service in the time of war; three privileges of which the nation would never divest itself; parliaments were to be biennial, and to sit during six months; the elective franchise to be extended, and the representation to be more equally distributed.  These demands of the Levellers were strenuously supported by the colonels Pride and Rainsborough, and as fiercely opposed by Cromwell and Ireton.  The council of officers yielded so far as to require that no more addresses should be made to the king; but the two houses voted the papers destructive

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1647.  Oct. 18.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1647.  Nov. 1.]

of the government, and ordered the authors to be prosecuted; though at the same time, to afford some satisfaction to the soldiery, they resolved[a] that the king was bound to give the royal assent to all laws for the public good, which had been passed and presented to him by the Lords and Commons.[1]

It was now some time since the king had begun to tremble for his safety.  He saw that the violence of the Levellers daily increased; that the officers, who professed to be his friends, were become objects of suspicion; that Ireton had been driven from the council, and Cromwell threatened with impeachment; that several regiments were in a state of complete insubordination; and that Fairfax himself doubted of his power to restore the discipline of the army.  Charles had formerly given his word of honour to the governor, Colonel Whalley, not to attempt an escape:  he now withdrew it under the pretence that of late he had been as narrowly watched as if no credit were due to his promise.  His guards were immediately doubled; his servants, with the exception of Legge, were dismissed; and the gates were closed against the admission of strangers.  Yet it may be doubted whether these precautions were taken with any other view than to lull the suspicion of the Levellers; for he still possessed the means of conferring personally with Ashburnham and Berkeley, and received from Whalley repeated hints of the dangerous designs of his enemies.  But where was he to seek an asylum?  Jersey, Berwick, the Isle of Wight, and the residence of the Scottish commissioners in London were proposed.  At first the commissioners expressed a willingness to