Cromwell returned to London. He found the House of Commons a prey to the most violent agitation. Every one imputed to him the audacious stroke of seizing upon the king. He passionately resented the suspicions, taking God, the angels, and men to witness that, before that day, Joyce was as much a stranger to him as the light of the sun to the child in the womb of its mother. All these protestations did not convince the Presbyterians. Hollis and Grimstone sought everywhere for proofs against Cromwell, being determined to demand his arrest. Two officers came to see Grimstone. "Lately," they said to him, "at a meeting of officers it was discussed whether it would not be advisable to purge the army. 'I am sure of the army,' the lieutenant-general said; 'but there is another body which it is more urgent to purge, that is the House of Commons, and the army alone can do it.'" {160} Grimstone took them to Westminster; they repeated their speech before the House. Cromwell rose, then fell upon his knees, bursting into tears, with a vehemence of speech, sobs, and gestures which overcame with emotion and surprise all present; praying the Lord to wreak upon his head all His vengeance if any man in all the kingdom was more faithful than he to the House. Then, rising, he spoke for two hours, being humble and audacious, prolix and impassioned, with so much success that, when he sat down, the paramount influence had passed over to his friends, and that, "if he had wished," Grimstone himself said, thirty years afterwards, "the House would have sent us to the Tower, the officers and myself, as calumniators." On that very evening Cromwell secretly quitted London, and, repairing to the army assembled at Triploe Heath, near Cambridge, he openly placed himself at the head of the Independents and soldiers. A few days after his arrival the army was marching towards London, and consternation reigned in the Houses which had received the "humble remonstrance" of the soldiers. It was no longer a question of the exposition of their own grievances, it was the haughty expression of their demands regarding the general reform of the state. They demanded, besides, the expulsion of eleven members of the Commons, including Hollis, Stapleton, Maynard, the enemies, they said, of the army. They advanced, complaining as they went. They were already at St. Alban's, when the Common Council of the city wrote to Fairfax to demand that the army should remain forty miles from London. It was too late, the general replied; they wanted a month's pay. The Houses granted the pay, persisting that the army should go away. The troops continued their march. {161}