When the letters of Monk arrived in London, on the 28th of October, they caused great commotion. The military leaders had striven to construct a government, and had as yet only succeeded in forming a council of safety, in which the members intrigued against each other. Disorder smouldered in certain regiments. If Monk should act for Parliament, what would ensue? {309} In what direction did he tend? What did he desire? Vane and Whitelocke gave expression to their suspicions that he meditated the return of Charles Stuart. Lambert offered to march against Monk. "It is necessary to send negotiators to him to prevent so dangerous a rupture," it was said. Three commissioners, among whom was Clarges, brother-in-law of Monk, and secretly implicated in all his designs, were commissioned to proceed and confer with him, while Lambert, having been nominated commander of all the forces of the North, set out for his post, being instructed to fight Monk if the attempts at conciliation should collapse. The army of England replied to the army of Scotland. Fleetwood replied to Monk with the affectionate familiarity of an old comrade wounded at heart as well as alarmed. Letters poured down upon Dalkeith, now designed to awaken sympathy, now to sow division. The commissioners reached Monk. The general, for his part, encountered grave embarrassments; the army of Scotland had coldly responded to his advances; the governor of some important towns of which he had wished to take possession had remained faithful to the army of England. In a conversation with his brother-in-law, Clarges, the latter asked him what was really his design. "Do not think," he said, "that after this rupture you might make your peace with the army of England. ... Those people never placed confidence in you." "I must have a negotiation," said Monk, ever prudent, even with his most confidential friends; "the time is against them." And he immediately convoked the council-general of the officers, to confer with them. {310} The taciturn chief comprehended that in the great undertaking in which he had embarked, the simple obedience of his agents was not sufficient, and that their intelligent and voluntary assistance was necessary. In the council which he formed he allowed anything to be said, but spoke little himself. Two commissioners were chosen by the general at the solicitation of the officers; he refused to designate the third; the commissioner who was nominated did not suit his views, but he did not complain, and the three delegates immediately set out for London, encountering Lambert on the way, who ill-humoredly suffered them to pass, when he learnt that the first condition of the negotiations was the recall of the Parliament which he had expelled.