les, and emoluments; and by the parliament, which sought chiefly the
permanence of its own authority. It was now time for the oppressed to
arise, to take the cause into their own hands, and to resolve "to part with
their lives, before they would part with their freedom."[2] These doctrines

[Footnote 1: Clarendon, iii. 70-72-75. Ashburnham, ii. 94. Of the
disposition of the Scottish parliament, we have this account from Baillie:
"If the king be willing to ratify our covenant, we are all as one man to
restore him to all his rights, or die by the way; if he continue resolute
to reject our covenant, and only to give us some parts of the matter of it,
many here will be for him, even on these terms; but divers of the best and
wisest are irresolute, and wait till God give more light."--Baillie, ii.
260.]

[Footnote 2: Clarendon Papers, ii. App. xl. Walker, History of
Independents, 194. Rushworth, vii. 845. Hutchinson, 287. Secretary
Nicholas, after mentioning the Rationalists, adds, "There are a sect of
women lately come from foreign parts, and lodged in Southwark, called
Quakers, who swell, shiver, and shake; and when they come to themselves
(for in all the time of their fits Mahomet's holy ghost converses with
them) they begin to preach what hath been delivered to them by the
spirit"--Clarendon Papers, ii. 383.]

were rapidly diffused: they made willing converts of the dissolute, the
adventurous, and the discontented; and a new spirit, the fruitful parent
of new projects, began to agitate the great mass of the army. The king was
seldom mentioned but in terms of abhorrence and contempt; he was an Ahab or
Coloquintida, the everlasting obstacle to peace, the cause of dissension
and bloodshed. A paper[a] entitled "The Case of the Army," accompanied with
another under the name of "The Agreement of the People," was presented to
the general by the agitators of eleven regiments. They offered,[b] besides
a statement of grievances, a new constitution for the kingdom. It made no
mention of king or lords. The sovereignty was said to reside in the people,
its exercise to be delegated to their representatives, but with the
reservation of equality of law, freedom of conscience, and freedom from
forced service in the time of war; three privileges of which the nation
would never divest itself; parliaments were to be biennial, and to
sit during six months; the elective franchise to be extended, and the
representation to be more equally dist