chains which had lately been fixed in the streets, and to destroy the portcullises and the gates.  After a moment’s hesitation, he resolved to obey, rather than hazard the loss of his commission.  The citizens received him with groans and hisses; the soldiers murmured; the officers tendered their resignations.  He merely replied that his orders left nothing to his discretion; but the reply was made with a sternness of

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1660.  Feb. 9.]

tone, and a gloominess of countenance, which showed, and probably was intended to show, that he acted with reluctance and with self-reproach.[1]

As soon as the posts and chains were removed, Monk suggested, in a letter to the speaker, that enough had been done to subdue the refractory spirit of the citizens.  But the parliamentary leaders were not satisfied:  they voted that he should execute his former orders; and the demolition of the gates and portcullises was effected.  The soldiers loudly proclaimed their discontent:  the general, mortified and ashamed, though he had been instructed to quarter them in the city, led them back to Whitehall.[2] There, on the review of these proceedings, he thought that he discovered proofs of a design, first to commit him with the citizens, and then to discard him entirely.  For the house, while he was so ungraciously employed, had received, with a show of favour, a petition from the celebrated Praise-God Barebone, praying that no man might sit in parliament, or hold any public office, who refused to abjure the pretensions of Charles Stuart, or of any other single person.  Now this was the very case of the general, and his suspicions were confirmed by the reasoning of his confidential advisers.  With their aid, a letter to the speaker was prepared[a] the same evening, and approved the next morning by the council of officers.  In it the latter were made to complain that they had been rendered the instruments of personal resentment against the citizens, and to require that by the following Friday every vacancy in the house should be filled up, preparatory to its

[Footnote 1:  Journ.  Feb. 9.  Price, 761.  Ludlow, ii. 336.  Clar.  Pap. iii. 674, 691.  Gumble, 236.  Skinner, 231-237.]

[Footnote 2:  Journ.  Feb. 9.  Philips, 599.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1660.  Feb. 10.]

subsequent dissolution and the calling of a new parliament.  Without waiting for an answer, Monk marched back into Finsbury Fields:  at his request, a common council (that body had recently been dissolved by a vote of the parliament) was summoned; and the citizens heard from the mouth of the general that he, who yesterday had come among them as an enemy by the orders of others, was come that day as a friend by his own choice; and that his object was to unite his fortune with theirs, and by their assistance to obtain a full and free parliament for the nation.  This speech was received with the loudest acclamations.  The bells were tolled; the soldiers were feasted; bonfires were lighted; and among the frolics of the night was “the roasting of the rump,” a practical joke which long lived in the traditions of the city.  Scot and Robinson, who had been sent to lead back the general to Whitehall, slunk away in secrecy, that they might escape the indignation of the populace.[1]