All these assumptions the Independents denied, and would not admit any authority over the free action of individual congregations. The Commons, through the influence of Selden and Whitelock, proposed to the Assembly of Divines nine questions respecting the nature and object of the divine right to which they aspired, and before they could answer these, the army and the Independents, its leaders, had effected still more embarrassing changes. The king being conquered, and the Scots having withdrawn, the contest lay no longer between the king and Parliament, but between the Presbyterians and Independents, or, what was nearly synonymous, the Parliament and the Army. The king was conducted to Holmby by easy journeys, and treated by his attendants with courtesy. The people flocked to see him, and showed that the traditions of royalty were yet strong in them. They received him with acclamations, uttered prayers for his preservation, and not a few of them pressed forward to be touched for the "evil." On his arrival at Holmby, he found a great number of ladies and gentlemen assembled to welcome him, with every demonstration of pleasure, and his house and table well appointed and supplied. He passed his time in reading, in riding about the country, and in different amusements--as chess and bowls, riding to Althorpe, or even to Harrowden, because there was no good bowling-green at Holmby. One thing only he complained of, and requested to have altered. The Parliament sent him clergymen of their own persuasion to attend him; he begged that any two out of his twelve chaplains might be substituted, but was refused. The Presbyterian ministers allotted him were Thomas Herbert, and Harrington, the author of "Oceana," with whose conversation Charles was much pleased on all subjects but religion and form of government. But though Charles passed the bulk of his time in relaxation, he was not insensible to his situation; and when he had been left there for three months without notice, he addressed to Parliament a letter in which he proposed to allow Presbyterian Church government for three years, his own liberty of worship being granted, and twenty clergymen of the Church of England admitted to the Westminster Assembly; the question of religion at the end of that period was to be finally settled by himself and the two Houses in the usual way, and the command of the army was also to be left to Parliament for ten years, and then to revert to him. The Lords gladly assented to this offer, but the Commons did not entertain it, and other matters soon claimed their attention.