In the meantime the Committee of Both Kingdoms had been busy drawing up proposals for peace such as would at once satisfy both Houses as well as be acceptable to Charles. At length the proposals were laid before the Commons and read the first time (29 April). The second reading was appointed for the 1st May. Before any further steps were taken in the matter it was but right that the citizens of London, without whose aid the issue of the struggle between king and parliament might have been very different to what it was, should be consulted. A deputation was therefore appointed (3 May) by the House to wait on the mayor, aldermen and common council of the city and to express to them the willingness of parliament to consider any proposals that they might think fit to make on behalf of the city, and to lay them before the king.(638) The City thanked parliament and referred the matter to a committee.(639) (M295) For some time past there had been a flow of dissatisfied royalists from Oxford to London, induced to embrace the parliamentary cause by an offer of pardon made by Essex (30 Jan.) to all who would return to their duty and take the covenant.(640) During 1643 the flow had been in the opposite direction. It now became necessary to see that only genuine converts found their way into the city, and to this end parliament ordered (15 May) the mayor to take steps for the expulsion from the city and lines of communication of all suspicious persons such as had lately come from Oxford, or any other of the king’s quarters, all recusants, the wives of recusants and the wives of those who were in arms against the parliament.(641) (M296) (M297)