19th
December following his discharge, he left a sum of L200 for the purchase
of lands or tenements the rents of which were to be devoted to the
preaching of a sermon on the 16th October of every year in the church of
St. Catherine Cree in commemoration of the testator's escape from a lion
whilst travelling in Africa. The sermon is preached to this day and is
commonly known as the "Lion Sermon."(849)

(M421)

In the meanwhile matters assumed a gloomy aspect for the Independents,
culminating in the news that an army was in course of being raised in
Scotland. The object for which this step was being taken was declared to
be the establishment of the Presbyterian form of religion in England, the
suppression of heresy and the Book of Common Prayer, the disbandment of
Fairfax's army of sectaries, and the opening of negotiations with Charles,
who was to be brought for the purpose to the neighbourhood of London.(850)

(M422)

Matters were made worse by the continued ill-feeling between the City and
the English army, whose pay was still largely in arrear. No threats of
Fairfax or of parliament had succeeded in making the inhabitants of the
city pay up their arrears of assessments, and unless these were paid the
soldiers had no alternative but to starve or render themselves obnoxious
to the nation by living at free quarters. The City had been already
charged with withholding money for the express purpose of driving the army
to the latter alternative, that so the nation might the quicker be free of
it. The army was fast losing patience, and there was some talk of it
taking the law into its own hands.

(M423) (M424)

On the 24th April the mayor informed the citizens assembled in Common
Council that he had received information from one John Everard of certain
matters which the informer pretended to have overheard at Windsor greatly
affecting the city. He had examined Everard on oath, and the result of the
examination being then openly read, it was resolved to lay the same before
parliament.(851) Accordingly, on the 27th, Everard's information, which
was nothing more nor less than a threat which he had overheard some
officers make of disarming and plundering the city, was laid before both
Houses, together with a petition from the municipal authorities that the
chains which had been recently removed from the streets of the city by
order of parliament might be restored for the purpose of defence, that the
army should be removed