way to licentious living under pretence
of obtaining ease for tender consciences, we profess, as ever, in these
things when the State has made a settlement we have nothing to say, but
to submit or suffer." It was with a view to such a settlement that they
demanded the expulsion of eleven members from the Commons, with Holles
at their head, whom the soldiers charged with stirring up strife between
the Army and the Parliament, and with a design of renewing the civil
war. After fruitless negotiations the New Model drew close upon London;
the terror of the Londoners forced the eleven to withdraw; and the
Houses named Commissioners to treat on the questions at issue.

[Sidenote: The Army negotiates with the King.]

Though Fairfax and Cromwell had been forced from their position as
mediators into a hearty co-operation with the army, its political
direction rested at this moment with Cromwell's son-in-law, Henry
Ireton, and Ireton looked for a real settlement, not to the Parliament,
but to the king. "There must be some difference," he urged bluntly,
"between conquerors and conquered"; but the terms which he laid before
Charles were terms of studied moderation. The vindictive spirit which
the Parliament had shown against the Royalists and the Church
disappeared in the terms exacted by the New Model; and the Army
contented itself with the banishment of seven leading "delinquents," a
general Act of Oblivion for the rest, the withdrawal of all coercive
power from the clergy, the control of Parliament over the military and
naval forces for ten years, and its nomination of the great officers of
State. Behind these demands however came a masterly and comprehensive
plan of political reform which had already been sketched by the army in
the "Humble Representation," with which it had begun its march on
London. Belief and worship were to be free to all. Acts enforcing the
use of the Prayer-Book, or attendance at Church, or the enforcement of
the Covenant were to be repealed. Even Catholics, whatever other
restraints might be imposed, were to be freed from the bondage of
compulsory worship. Parliaments were to be triennial, and the House of
Commons to be reformed by a fairer distribution of seats and of
electoral rights; taxation was to be readjusted; legal procedure
simplified; a crowd of political, commercial, and judicial privileges
abolished. Ireton believed that Charles could be "so managed" (says Mrs.
Hutchinson) "as to comply wit