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By Root 1066 0

the political prospects of the New Model seemed to deteriorate. Another meeting was held at Saffron Walden church, on 7 May, where it was decided that deals could not be done without representation of the rank and file. Accordingly, each troop or company elected agitators. After a week of consultations with the agitators the officers met the parliamentary commissioners once more, on 15 May. The result was the Declaration of the Army, which bore the signatures of 223 commissioned officers. On 17 May, Cromwell offered reassurances that the Indemnity Ordinance had already passed the Commons and that arrears in addition to the six weeks” already offered would soon be promised. The commissioners were able to report back to Westminster that they found the army to have legitimate grievances.80

The promise of settlement with the King, however, seems to have made the Presbyterians in Parliament even less inclined to generosity towards the army. Rumours circulated in the New Model of a plan to pay off the privates and take revenge on the officers and that, once demobilized, the soldiers would be vulnerable to the press or prosecutions without indemnity: unless the parliamentary declaration that they were enemies of state and disturbers of the public peace was stricken from the record they had little hope of protection under the law. Presbyterians in the Lords invited the King closer to London, to Oatlands (near Weybridge in Surrey), further fuelling distrust of Parliament’s intentions. It was on that day that the Large Petition and its two sequels were ordered to be burnt by the public hangman. On 25 May the Presbyterians decided to proceed with disbandment, not indemnity, and their scheme was adopted by the Lords two days later. They had also taken a number of measures of defence – for better securing the King and bringing arms from Oxford to London, and Sydenham Poyntz was sent to York with orders to prepare for battle with Fairfax. On 28 May, Parliament offered security for the arrears, and redress of grievances after disbandment.81 During May the City loan to pay off the arrears of the New Model was put in the hands of Presbyterian treasurers and one of their centres of operation was Christ Church, Newgate, Thomas Edwards’s church. Here they cashiered, recruited and preached – a nerve centre of a pretty comprehensive assault on the power base of their opponents.82

For the army two matters were now coming to a head – the defence of their collective interests and the control of the King. Their treatment at the hands of Parliament, and their resistance to a strict Presbyterian settlement, was increasingly cementing an alliance with radicals in the City. Against this alliance was arrayed a Presbyterian mobilization which had secured control of Parliament, had a firm base in London’s pulpits and presses, and had the possibility of military support from the London militia and even the Covenanters. Fears about these military forces prompted a move to take control of arms in Oxford and, in a related initiative, of the person of the King.

On 31 May the Presbyterian Committee for Irish Affairs ordered control to be taken of the artillery, and at a meeting at Cromwell’s house the same day Cromwell approved a plan put to him by George Joyce to replace the guards around the King with men of proven loyalty. Their intention was to block the removal of the King. Remarkably, Joyce and the agitators had already put together a force of 1,000 horse – this was a political intervention taking force from the rank and file, not dictated by the officers. These men had already ridden to Oxford on 29 May to secure the artillery. Joyce then sent a detachment north before going to London, presumably to seek Cromwell’s approval. He caught up with the rest of his troops on 1 June, and when they arrived at Holmby they were not resisted by the guards there, or the parliamentary commissioners; and Graves, the parliamentary commander, fled. After a tense day, Joyce wrote to London for further instructions – to whom is not known, although it was claimed that