[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."[1] From that moment a breach was inevitable.  The house, to gratify the soldiers, had advanced their daily pay; and with the view of discharging their arrears, had raised[c] the monthly assessment from thirty-five thousand pounds to one hundred thousand pounds.[2] But the military leaders were not to be diverted from their purpose.  Meetings were daily and nightly held at Wallingford House; and another petition with two hundred and thirty signatures was presented by Desborough, accompanied by all the field-officers in the metropolis; In most points it was similar to the former; but it contained a demand that, whosoever should afterwards “groundlessly and causelessly inform the house against their servants, thereby creating jealousies, and casting scandalous imputations upon them, should be

[Footnote 1:  Journ., Aug. 23, Sept. 22, 23.  Ludlow, ii. 223, 227, 233, 244.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., May 31, Aug. 18, Sept. 1]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1659.  Sept. 22.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1659.  Sept. 23.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1659.  Oct. 5.]

brought to examination, justice, and condign punishment.”  This was a sufficient intimation to Hazlerig and his party to provide for their own safety.  Three regiments, through the medium of their officers, had already made the tender of their services for the protection of the house; Monk, from Scotland, and Ludlow, from Ireland, wrote that their respective armies were animated with similar sentiments; and a vote was passed and ordered to be published,[a] declaring it to be treason to levy money on the people without the previous consent of parliament, a measure which, as all the existing taxes were to expire on the first day of the ensuing year, made the military dependent for their future subsistence on the pleasure of the party.  Hazlerig, thus fortified, deemed himself a match for his adversaries; the next morning he boldly threw down the gauntlet;[b] by one vote, Lambert, Desborough, six colonels, and one major, were deprived