But this was far from being the view of the soldiers themselves. A return to the monotonous routine of civil life, after the thrilling excitements of civil war, had no attractions for them; least of all, a return without their pay. That pay--one shilling a day--was more than double the current wages; and now it was many months behindhand--a whole year in some cases. The suggestions of disbandment were met, accordingly, by the concentration of the troops, including Cromwell's famous regiments, on Triplow Heath, in his own East Anglian district. This was on the 10th of June, 1647. [Illustration: _St. Peter's Church, Duxford._] Commissioners from the Parliament were sent down from Westminster, with offers of two months' pay in cash and debentures for the remaining arrears, contingent on disbandment. But this was not nearly good enough; and the offers were met with cries of "Justice! Justice!" from the men, and with significant hints from the officers of a march on London if their claims were not speedily satisfied, "for a rich city may seem an enticing bait to poor beggarly soldiers to venture far to gain the wealth thereof." And, while the baffled Commissioners returned, to call out the London train-bands to meet the threatened attack (finding them so reluctant to face this new and terrific foe that the death-penalty had to be denounced against all malingerers), the Army took more effective action by despatching Cornet Joyce, with a troop of horse, to seize the King at Holmby House and bring him along as a prisoner; or, as they put it, to rescue him from his Parliamentary jailers, and invite him to trust his person with his faithful soldiers. They might thus be able to sell him again to the Parliament, as the Scots had done, or they might really restore him, for a sufficient consideration, or make their own of him some way. And, while Charles was being thus carried off, as we have already seen, to Chippenham, they struck their camp and marched off along the Icknield Street to Royston, and thence to St. Albans, as a demonstration against London. When the unhappy monarch, a fortnight later, on Midsummer Day, was brought by the same route from Newmarket, crossing Whittlesford Bridge and passing through the midst of Triplow Heath, the scene had already returned to its habitual loneliness. Triplow itself lies to the west of the Heath, and has a far-seen cruciform Church, sister to that in the adjoining village of Foulmire, or Fowlmere as it ought to be spelt. An actual mere, noted for its wealth of wild fowl, existed here till little more than half a century ago. It is now a worthless patch of land, full of springs and runlets. There is also a small prehistoric earthwork, known as "The Round Moats."