the militia, on which they
rested all future hopes of an uncontrolled authority.

* Nalson, vol. ii. p. 512.

** Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 428.

*** Rush. vol. v. p. 489. Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 385.

The commons were sensible that monarchical government, which during so
many ages had been established in England, would soon regain some degree
of its former dignity, after the present tempest was overblown; nor
would all their new invented limitations be able totally to suppress an
authority to which the nation had ever been accustomed. The sword alone,
to which all human ordinances must submit, could guard their acquired
power, and fully insure to them personal safety against the rising
indignation of their sovereign. This point, therefore, became the chief
object of their aims. A large magazine of arms being placed in the
town of Hull, they despatched thither Sir John Hotham, a gentleman of
considerable fortune in the neighborhood, and of an ancient family, and
they gave him the authority of governor. They sent orders to Goring,
governor of Portsmouth, to obey no commands but such as he should
receive from the parliament. Not content with having obliged the king to
displace Lunsford, whom he had appointed governor of the Tower,[*] they
never ceased soliciting him till he had also displaced Sir John Biron,
a man of unexceptionable character, and had bestowed that command on Sir
John Conyers, in whom alone, they said, they could repose confidence.
After making a fruitless attempt, in which the peers refused their
concurrence, to give public warning, that the people should put
themselves in a posture of defence against the enterprises of "Papists
and other ill-affected persons,"[**] they now resolved, by a bold and
decisive stroke, to seize at once the whole power of the sword, and to
confer it entirely on their own creatures and adherents.

* Rush. voL v. p. 459.

** Nalson, vol. ii. p. 850.

The severe votes passed in the beginning of this parliament against
lieutenants and their deputies, for exercising powers assumed by all
their predecessors, had totally disarmed the crown, and had not left
in any magistrate military authority sufficient for the defence and
security of the nation. To remedy this inconvenience now appeared
necessary. A bill was introduced, and passed the two houses, which
restored to lieutenants and deputies the same powers of which the votes
of the commons had bereaved the