--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.[b] 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[b]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. April 30.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1647. May 8.]

distempers, but of many grievances, and that of these they demanded
immediate redress.[1]

Whitelock, with his friends, earnestly deprecated a course of proceeding
which h