e 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