ill the rejection of the officers' proposals had left little
hope of conciliation that the army acted, but its action was quick and
decisive. It set aside for all political purposes the Council of
Officers, by which its action had hitherto been directed, and elected a
new Council of Agitators or Agents, two members being named by each
regiment, which summoned a general meeting of the army at Triploe Heath,
where the proposals of pay and disbanding made by the Parliament were
rejected with cries of "Justice." While the army was gathering, in fact,
the Agitators had taken a step which put submission out of the question.
A rumour that the king was to be removed to London, a new army raised by
the Parliament in his name, and a new civil war begun, roused the
soldiers to madness. Five hundred troopers appeared on the fourth of
June before Holmby House, where the king was residing in charge of
Parliamentary Commissioners, and displaced its guards. "Where is your
commission for this act?" Charles asked the cornet who commanded them.
"It is behind me," said Joyce, pointing to his soldiers. "It is written
in very fine and legible characters," laughed the king. The seizure had
in fact been previously concerted between Charles and the Agitators. "I
will part willingly," he told Joyce, "if the soldiers confirm all that
you have promised me. You will exact from me nothing that offends my
conscience or my honour." "It is not our maxim," replied the cornet, "to
constrain the conscience of any one, still less that of our king." After
a first burst of terror at the news, the Parliament fell furiously on
Cromwell, who had relinquished his command and quitted the army before
the close of the war, and had ever since been employed as a mediator
between the two parties. The charge of having incited the mutiny fell
before his vehement protest, but he was driven to seek refuge with the
army, and on the twenty-fifth of June it was in full march upon London.
Its demands were expressed with perfect clearness in an "Humble
Representation" which it addressed to the Houses. "We desire a
settlement of the Peace of the kingdom and of the liberties of the
subject according to the votes and declarations of Parliament. We desire
no alteration in the civil government: as little do we desire to
interrupt or in the least to intermeddle with the settling of the
Presbyterial government." What they demanded in religious matters was
toleration; but "not to open a