jurisdiction was it that the
City now desired?(716) The chief opposition came from the inhabitants of
Middlesex, Surrey, Southwark and Westminster, who objected to their
militia being placed under the command of the mayor, aldermen and common
council of the city. All parties were cited to appear before the Star
Chamber on the 31st June, 1646, to support their own contention.(717)
Parliament had already (27 Jan.) expressed itself as willing to sanction
the government of the militia of the city and liberties being vested in
the municipal authorities and to allow that the city forces should not be
called upon to serve away from the city without their own consent,(718)
but this was not enough. What the City desired was nothing more and
nothing less than what had already been proposed to the king at Oxford
with the sanction of both Houses, namely, "the government of the militia
of the parishes without London and the liberties within the weekly bills
of mortality." Parliament had made no scruple about the matter at a time
when it stood in sore need of assistance from the City; and the City did
not intend to let it go back lightly on its word.(719)

(M346)

A petition was accordingly presented to the House of Commons by alderman
Fowke on the 6th February.(720) The petition set out at considerable
length all the proceedings that had taken place since the question of the
militia was first submitted to Charles. It compared the attitude of the
city towards parliament in the late civil war with the part played by the
citizens in a previous civil war, viz., the war of the Barons, when
(according to the petitioners) the Barons were eventually beaten out of
the field owing to the citizens of London staying at home! The petitioners
proceeded to show the necessity of the City being empowered to raise
militia in the adjacent counties for the purpose of keeping open a passage
for victualling the city in times of danger; that since the militia of the
suburbs had been under the command of the City good service had been
rendered to the parliamentary cause, and notably in the relief of
Gloucester; that if it were now removed from the jurisdiction of the City
the suburban forts might be seized and both the city and parliament might
be threatened; and that it was for the better preservation of parliament,
and not for the purpose of rendering the city militia independent of
parliament, that the petitioners appeared before the House. Finally,
Al