ding
his funeral, and wearing in their hats black and sea-green ribbons
by way of favors. About four thousand assembled at Burford, under the
command of Thomson, a man formerly condemned for sedition by a court
martial, but pardoned by the general. Colonel Reynolds, and afterwards
Fairfax and Cromwell, fell upon them, while unprepared for defence,
and seduced by the appearance of a treaty. Four hundred were taken
prisoners; some of them capitally punished, the rest pardoned. And this
tumultuous spirit, though it still lurked in the army, and broke, out
from time to time, seemed for the present to be suppressed.

Petitions, framed in the same spirit of opposition, were presented
to the parliament by Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn, the person who,
for dispersing seditious libels, had formerly been treated with such
severity by the star chamber. His liberty was at this time as ill
relished by the parliament; and he was thrown into prison, as a promoter
of sedition and disorder in the commonwealth. The women applied by
petition for his release; but were now desired to mind their household
affairs, and leave the government of the state to the men. From all
quarters the parliament was harassed with petitions of a very free
nature, which strongly spoke the sense of the nation, and proved how
ardently all men longed for the restoration of their laws and liberties.
Even in a feast which the city gave to the parliament and council of
state, it was deemed a requisite precaution, if we may credit Walker
and Dugdale, to swear all the cooks, that they would serve nothing but
wholesome food to them.

The parliament judged it necessary to enlarge the laws of high treason
beyond those narrow bounds within which they had been confined during
the monarchy. They even comprehended verbal offences, nay, intentions,
though they had never appeared in any overt act against the state. To
affirm the present government to be a usurpation, to assert that the
parliament or council of state were tyrannical or illegal, to endeavor
subverting their authority, or stirring up sedition against them: these
offences were declared to be high treason. The power of imprisonment,
of which the petition of right had bereaved the king, it was now found
necessary to restore to the council of state; and all the jails in
England were filled with men whom the jealousies and fears of the ruling
party had represented as dangerous.[*] The taxes continued by the new
governm