, but he was not sure
that they were all perfectly clear of the connexion on all its sides.
At all events, he knew that their policy of starving the Army had
given the enemy their best opportunity. Fortunately, he had already
some of the chief home-conspirators in custody, and the Cavalier part
of the plot might explode when it liked.[1]

[Footnote 1: Speech IV (Carlyle, III 75-81.)]

The chief of those in custody when Cromwell spoke was the Republican
Major-General Overton. He had been under suspicion before, as we have
seen, but had cleared himself sufficiently to Cromwell, and had been
sent back to Scotland as second in command to Monk (Sept. 1654).
Since then, however, he had relapsed into the Anti-Oliverian mood,
and had become, it was believed, the head of the numerous
Anti-Oliverians or Republicans in Monk's Army, The proposal was to
seize Monk, make Overton the commander-in-chief, and march into
England, But, information having been received in time, there had
been the necessary arrests of the guilty officers (Dec. 1654). Most
of them had been kept in Edinburgh to be dealt with by Monk; but the
chiefs had been sent at once to London, and among them Overton, whose
arrest had taken place at Aberdeen. He was committed to the Tower
Jan. 16, 1654-5. The clue having thus been furnished, further
investigation had disclosed more. In concert with the Anti-Oliverian
movement in the Army of Scotland, and depending on that movement for
help, there had been plottings in England, in which Harrison, Colonel
Okey, Colonel Alured, Colonel Sexby, Adjutant-General Allen, Admiral
Lawson, Major John Wildman, Lord Grey of Groby, Carew, and even
Bradshaw, Hasilrig, and Henry Marten, were, or were said to be, more
or less involved. The aim seems to have been a combination of the
Anabaptist Levellers with the more eminent Republicans,--the
Levellers, or some of them, quite willing to combine also with the
Royalists, and indeed in confidential negotiation with them. How the
scheme, or medley of schemes, would have turned out in the working,
was never to be known. It was frustrated by the arrest, in January
and February, of most of the suspected. The most important arrest was
that of Major Wildman, the undoubted chief of the Levelling section
of the conspiracy. When arrested in Wiltshire, he was found in the
act of dictating a "Declaration of the Free and Well-affected People
of England now in arms against the tyrant Oliver Cromwell, Es