The Commons ordered all officers to attend their regiments, and sent down Commissioners to inform the army of the votes of the two Houses. The army gave the Commissioners such a reception as no Commissioners had ever witnessed before. Twenty-one thousand men had assembled to a rendezvous on Triploe Heath, near Royston; and the General and the Commissioners rode to each regiment, to acquaint them with the Parliamentary votes as to their instalment of pay, their disbanding, and their not approaching within twenty-five miles of London. The answer was sent up in shouts of "Justice! justice!" A petition also from the well-affected people of Essex was delivered on the field to the General in presence of the Commissioners, against the disbanding, declaring "that the Commonwealth had many enemies, who watched for such an opportunity to destroy the good people." A memorial was, moreover, drawn up and signed by the General and all the chief officers, to the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London, warning them against false representations of the intentions of the army, for that the war being at an end, all that they desired and prayed for was that the peace of the kingdom should be settled according to the declarations of Parliament before the army was called out, and that being done, the army should be paid before it was disbanded.
So far from pacifying the Parliament, these proceedings alarmed it infinitely more, and it issued an order that the army should not come within forty-five miles of the capital. On its part, the army collected addresses from Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and the surrounding counties, praying the purgation of the House from all such members as were disqualified from sitting there by corruption, delinquency, abuse of the State, or undue election; and on the 16th of June, from its headquarters at St. Albans, the army formally impeached of high treason eleven of the most active Presbyterian members. This impeachment was presented to the House by twelve officers of the army—colonels, lieutenant-colonels, majors, and captains. Within a few days the General and officers sent a letter to the House, informing it that they would appoint proper persons to conduct the impeachment, and make good their charges; and desired the House to suspend the accused forthwith, as it was not fitting that those persons who had done their best to prejudice the army should sit as judges of their own actions.
This, says Clarendon, was an arrow out of their own quiver, which the Commons did not expect; and though it was a legitimate consequence of the impeachments of Strafford, Laud, and others, they endeavoured to set it at defiance. The Parliament and its army were, in fact, come to the pass which the brave old Royalist, Sir Jacob Astley, had foreseen when he surrendered his regiment at Stowe, in 1646:—"You have done your work, my masters, and may go and play, unless you will fall out amongst yourselves."
The army, to settle the matter, marched from St. Albans to Uxbridge, and at that sight the eleven members withdrew from the House of Commons, and the Commons assumed a modest and complying behaviour, voting the army under Fairfax to be the real army of England and worthy of all respect. They sent certain proposals to Fairfax, which induced him to remove his headquarters from Uxbridge to Wycombe. The eleven members, looking on this as a degree of submission to Parliament, immediately plucked up courage, and Holles and the rest appeared in their places, preferring charges in return against the officers, and demanding a fair trial. But they soon perceived their mistake, and, soliciting the Speaker's leave of absence and his passport to go out of the kingdom, disappeared.
The struggle between the army and Parliament—that is, between the Presbyterian and Independent interests—was all this time raging. For six weeks the army was advancing or retiring, according as the Parliament acted; the Parliament only giving way through intimidation. According as affairs stood, the City was either peaceful or in alarm, now shutting its shops, now carrying on much negotiation; the army lying still near, and paid more regularly, out of terror, by the Parliament. At length the army had so far succeeded as to have the insulting declaration of Holles—"the blot of ignominy"—erased from the journals of the House, and the ordinance of the 4th of May—procured by Holles—for the placing of the militia of the City in more exclusively Presbyterian hands—revoked. But towards the end of July the strong Presbyterian element in London was again in such ferment that it forgot its terrors of the army, and proceeded to daring extremities. The Presbyterian faction demanded that conventicles—that is, the meeting-houses of all classes, except Presbyterians—should be closed, and called on the citizens to meet in Guildhall to hear the Covenant read, and sign an engagement—soldiers, sailors, citizens, and apprentices—to drive away the army and bring the king to Westminster, and make a treaty with him. A hundred thousand signatures were put to this paper, and had the courage been half as great as the bluster the army had been swept to destruction. On the 26th of July, a few days afterwards, a vast rabble surrounded the Houses of Parliament, calling on both Lords and Commons to restore the order regarding the City militia; they crowded into the Houses with their hats on, crying, "Vote! vote!" and their numbers keeping the doors open. Under this intimidation both Lords and Commons voted the restoration of the Presbyterian ordinance for the change of the militia, and adjourned to Friday.
On Friday the two Houses met, but were astonished to find that their Speakers had fled, accompanied by several members of both Houses, and were gone to the army. It was found that Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Warwick, and other Lords and Commoners were gone. Had it been only Sir Henry Vane and the Independents who had gone, it would have astonished nobody; but neither Lenthall, the Speaker of the Commons, nor the Earl of Manchester, the Speaker of the Lords, was suspected of any great leaning to the army, whilst Warwick was a staunch Presbyterian, and Northumberland so much in the favour of that party as to have the care of the royal children. This circumstance showed the violence of the mob which had forced Parliament, and rendered moderate men resolved to escape rather than submit to be its puppets. There were no less than fifteen Lords and a hundred Commoners who had thus resented mob intimidation.
On making this lamentable discovery, the two Houses elected temporary Speakers, and issued orders forbidding the army to advance, recalling the eleven fugitive members, and ordered Massey, Waller, and Poyntz to call out the militia and defend the City.
No sooner had Fairfax heard the news of these proceedings than he instantly sent the king to Hampton Court, and marched from Bedford to Hounslow Heath, where he ordered a general rendezvous of the whole army. On Hounslow Heath, at the appointed rendezvous, the Speakers of the two Houses, with their maces, and attended by the fugitive Lords and Commons, stated to the general that they had not freedom in Westminster, but were in danger of their lives from tumult, and claimed the protection of the army. The general and the officers received the Speakers and members with profound respect, and assured them they would reinstate them in their proper places, or perish in the attempt. Nothing, in fact, could have been such a godsend to the army; for, besides their own grievances, they had the grievances of the coerced members to redress, and the sanctity of Parliament to defend. They ordered the most careful accommodation for the comfort of the members, and a guard to attend them, consulting them on all their measures. Fairfax quartered his army about Hounslow, Brentford, Twickenham, and the adjacent villages, at the same time ordering Colonel Rainsborough to cross the Thames at Hampton Court with a brigade of horse and foot and cannon, and to secure Southwark and the works which covered the end of London Bridge.
Meanwhile, never was London in more terrible confusion. The Commons, having no mace of their own, sent for the City mace. The colonels were in all haste calling out the militia. On Saturday and Monday, August 1 and 2, the shops were all shut, nothing going on but enlisting and mustering. St. James's Fields were in a stir with drilling; news constantly coming of the approach of the army. "Massey," says Whitelock, "sent out scouts to Brentford; but ten men of the army beat thirty of his, and took a flag from them. The City militia and Common Council sat late, and a great number of people attended at Guildhall. When a scout came in and brought news that the army made a halt, or other good intelligence, they cried, 'One and all!' But if the scouts brought word that the army was advancing, then they would cry as loud, 'Treat! treat! treat!' and thus they spent the night."
Tuesday, August the 3rd, was a fearful day. The people of Southwark declared that they would not fight against the army, and went in crowds to Guildhall, demanding peace, at which Poyntz lost all patience, drew his sword, and slashed many of them, some mortally.