Duckinfield, then in London, to be given, with a letter, to Fleetwood as Commander-in-chief, that so it might be brought before the General Council of Officers.  On the 22nd the House, having heard of the nature of the Petition, required that the original document should be forthcoming for inspection, and that Fleetwood should at once produce his copy.  The copy sufficed for all purposes of information.  The Petition consisted of a Preamble and five Articles.  It was full of a spirit of dissatisfaction, with complaints of the prevalence everywhere of “apostates, malignants, and neuters”; but its specific demands were two.  One was that the semi-Cromwellian petition of the General Council of Officers at Wallingford House of date May 12, 1659 (ante pp. 449-450), “may not be laid asleep, but may have fresh life given unto it.”  The other was that Fleetwood, whose term of office was just expiring, should be fixed in the Commandership-in-chief, that Lambert should be made general officer and chief commander next under him, that Desborough should be third as chief officer of the Horse, and Monk fourth as chief commander of the Infantry.  On the 23rd these demands, and the attitude which they signified, were discussed in the House, with shut doors, and in great excitement, Hasilrig leading the fury.  Here was latent Cromwellianism, or threatened single-person Government over again, the soft Fleetwood to stop the gap meanwhile, but Lambert, once he was made general officer and nominally second, to emerge as the new Cromwell!  This was what was felt, if not said; and it was resolved “That this House doth declare that to have any more general officers in the Army than are already settled by the Parliament is needless, chargeable, and dangerous to the Commonwealth.”  A motion for censoring the Petition was negatived by thirty-one to twenty-five (Neville and Scott telling for the minority); but it was ordered that Fleetwood should communicate the Resolution to the officers of the Army and admonish them of their irregular proceedings.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Commons Journals of dates; Parl.  Hist., III. 1562; Phillips, 654-656 (where the Petition itself is given).]

Wallingford House itself now took up the controversy, There were meetings and meetings of the General Conncil of the officers, cautious at first, but gradually swelling into a chorus of anger over the indignity put upon their brethren of Lambert’s northern expedition.  There were dissenters who wanted to wait and have Monk’s advice, but they were overborne.  On the 5th of October Desborough and some others were in the House with a petition signed by 230 officers then about London.  It consisted of a long preamble and nine proposals.  The preamble complained generally of the misrepresentation, by some, “to evil and sinister ends,” of the petition and proposals of the faithful officers of Lambert’s brigade, and avowed the continued fidelity of the Army officers to Commonwealth principles, their repudiation of single-person