Army magnates.
The reviewing by Parliament of all nominations for commissions, the
discharging of this officer and the bringing in of that, the
delivering out of the commissions by the Speaker to the officers
individually, were brooded over as insults. What was the intrinsic
worth of this little so-called Parliament, what were its rights, that
it should so treat the Army that had set it up, and one company of
which could turn it out of doors in five minutes? Though brooding
thus, the Army chiefs had contented themselves with rare attendance
in the House or the Council, and had made no active demonstration.
They were perhaps doubtful whether the spirit of submission to the
Parliament might not be now pretty general among the inferior
officers, all with their bran-new commissions from the Speaker
himself. But the insurrection of Sir George Booth, and the march of
Lambert's brigade into Cheshire to quell it, and the quick and signal
success of that enterprise, had given them the opportunity of testing
the Army's real feelings. Had not the Array now again a title to
remember that it ought to be something more than a mere instrument of
the existing civil authority? Was it not still the old English Army,
always doing the real hard work of the State, and entitled therefore
to some real voice in State-affairs? Where would the Rump have been,
where would the Republic have been, but for this service of Lambert's
brigade? These were the questions asked in Lambert's brigade itself,
more free to put such questions and to discuss them because of the
distance from London; but there were communications between Lambert's
brigade and the centre at Wallingford House, with arrangements for
concerted action.

As was fitting, the first bolt came from Lambert's brigade. At a
meeting of about fifty officers of that brigade, held at Derby on the
16th of September, it was agreed, after discussion, to appoint a
small committee to draw up the sense of the meeting in due form.
Lambert himself then came quietly to London, where he was on the
20th, with several of his leading officers. The issue of the
committee left at Derby was a petition to Parliament in the name of
"the Officers under the command of the Right Honourable the Lord
Lambert in the late northern expedition." The petition was to be
presented to Parliament when fully signed; but meanwhile a copy of it
was sent up to Colonel Ashfield, Colonel Cobbet, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Duckinfield,