As neither the remnant of the Long Parliament nor Cromwell and Fairfax were doing anything to set up this new constitution, Lilburne proceeded to lay a remonstrance before parliament, and to follow this up by his two pamphlets on “England’s New Chains.” He now urged that “committees of short continuance” should supersede the Council of State, that the Self-denying Ordinance should be put in force, “seeing how dangerous it was for one and the same persons to be continued long in the highest commands of a military power,”[118] that a new parliament should be elected, and the “Agreement of the People” proceeded with heartily. At the same time he called for army reform by a reconstruction of the General Council and the election of agitators. The expulsion of five troopers from the army for directly petitioning parliament provoked another pamphlet--“The Hunting of the Foxes from Newmarket to Whitehall by five small beagles late of the army.” The argument here was that Cromwell, Ireton, and Harrison ruled the council of officers, and that the council of officers ruled parliament and the nation. “The old king’s person and the old lords are but removed, and a new king and new lords with the commons are in one House, and so we are under a more absolute arbitrary monarchy than before.” There was only one answer to be made to Lilburne’s pen, and that was to arrest the man who held it, for the commonwealth had no one on its side who could reply to him. At the end of March Lilburne and three of his supporters, Walwyn, Prince, and Richard Overton were arrested as traitors, “England’s New Chains” having been voted by parliament seditious and destructive of the government, and were committed to the Tower to await trial. At once a petition was got up and signed by 80,000 persons for Lilburne’s release, and a fortnight later--April 18th--another petition was taken to the bar of the House of Commons to the same effect. Parliament promised that the prisoners should have a legal trial, but declared the course of justice must not be interfered with. A large deputation of women also appeared at Westminster on April 23rd with a similar petition; but these were forbidden to enter the House, and, admonished by members to “go home and wash their dishes,” answered they would soon have no dishes to wash.[119] Lilburne was not brought to trial till October, and in the six months’ interval, though the output of democratic pamphlets continued from the Tower, the Leveller movement in the army ended in open mutiny and defeat. Carlyle tells the story accurately enough of the mutiny in Whalley’s regiment in Bishopsgate, London, on April 25th: