[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. March 21.]
Ireland; but instead of a positive answer, inquiries were made and explanations demanded, while a remonstrance against the treatment of the army was circulated for signatures through the several regiments. In it the soldiers required an ordinance of indemnity to screen them from actions in the civil courts for their past conduct, the payment of their arrears, which amounted to forty-three weeks for the horse, and to eighteen for the infantry; exemption from impressment for foreign service; compensation for the maimed; pensions for the widows and families of those who had fallen during the war, and a weekly provision of money, that they might no longer be compelled to live at free quarters on the inhabitants. This remonstrance was presented to Fairfax to be forwarded by him to the two houses. The ruling party became alarmed: they dreaded to oppose petitioners with swords in their hands; and, that the project might be suppressed in its birth, both houses sent instructions to the general, ordered all members of parliament holding commands to repair to the army, and issued a declaration,[a] in which, after a promise to take no notice of what was past, they admonished the subscribers that to persist in their illegal course would subject them to punishment "as enemies to the state and disturbers of the public peace."[1]
The framers of this declaration knew little of the temper of the military. They sought to prevail by intimidation, and they only inflamed the general discontent. Was it to be borne, the soldiers asked each other, that the city of London and the county of Essex should be allowed to petition against the army,
[Footnote 1: Journals, ix. 66, 72, 82, 89, 95, 112-115. Commons', v. March 11, 25, 26, 27, 29.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647 March 29.]
and that they, who had fought, and bled, and conquered in the cause of their country, should be forbidden either to state their grievances or to vindicate their characters? Hitherto the army had been guided, in appearance at least, by the council of officers; now, whether it was a contrivance of the officers themselves to shift the odium to the whole body of the military, or was suggested by the common men, who began to distrust the integrity of their commanders, two deliberating bodies, in imitation of the houses at Westminster, were formed; one consisting of the officers holding commissions, the other of two representatives from every troop and company, calling themselves adjutators or helpers; a name which, by the ingenuity of their enemies, was changed into that of agitators or disturbers.[1] Guided by their resolves, the whole army seemed to be animated with one soul; scarcely a man could be tempted to desert the common cause by accepting of the service in Ireland; each corps added supernumeraries to its original complement;[2] and language was held, and projects were suggested, most alarming to the Presbyterian party. Confident, however, in their own power, the majority in the house[a]
[Footnote 1: Hobbes, Behemoth, 587. Berkeley, 359. This, however, was not the first appearance of the agitators. "The first time," says Fairfax, "I took notice of them was at Nottingham (end of February), by the soldiers meeting to frame a petition to the parliament about their arrears. The thing seemed just; but not liking the way, I spoke with some officers who were principally engaged in it, and got it suppressed for that time."—Short Memorials of Thomas Lord Fairfax, written by himself. Somers's Tracts, v. 392. Maseres, 446.]
[Footnote 2: Several bodies of troops in the distant counties had been disbanded; but the army under Fairfax, by enlisting volunteers from both parties, royalists as well as parliamentarians, was gradually increased by several thousand men, and the burthen of supporting it was doubled.—See Journals, ix. 559-583.]
[Sidebar a: A.D. 1647. April 27.]
resolved that the several regiments should be disbanded on the receipt of a small portion of their arrears. This vote was scarcely past, when a deputation from the agitators presented to the Commons a defence of the remonstrance. They maintained that by becoming soldiers they had not lost the rights of subjects; that by purchasing the freedom of others, they had not forfeited their own; that what had been granted to the adversaries of the commonwealth, and to the officers in the armies of Essex and Waller, could not in justice be refused to them; and that, as without the liberty of petitioning, grievances are without remedy, they ought to be allowed to petition now in what regarded them as soldiers, no less than afterwards in what might regard them as citizens. At the same time the agitators addressed to Fairfax and the other general officers a letter complaining of their wrongs, stating their resolution to obtain redress, and describing the expedition to Ireland as a mere pretext to separate the soldiers from those officers to whom they were attached, "a cloak to the ambition of men who having lately tasted of sovereignty, and been lifted beyond their ordinary sphere of servants, sought to become masters, and degenerate into tyrants." The tone of these papers excited alarm; and Cromwell, Skippon, Ireton, and Fleetwood were[a] ordered to repair to their regiments, and assure them that ordinances of indemnity should be passed, that their arrears should be audited, and that a considerable payment should be made previous to their dismissal from the service. When these officers announced, in the words of the parliamentary order, that they were come to quiet "the distempers in the army," the councils replied, that they knew of no