But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never returned. In August, 1643, he sat down before the city of Gloucester. That city was defended by the inhabitants and by the garrison, with a determination such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been shown by the adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was excited. The train-bands of the city volunteered to march wherever their services might be required. A great force was speedily collected and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised; the Royalists in every part of the kingdom were disheartened; the spirit of the Parliamentary party revived; and the apostate lords, who had lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster. And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in the Parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects from which the majority of that party would have shrunk with horror. These men were, in religion Independents. They conceived that every Christian congregation had, under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things spiritual; that appeals to provincial and national synods were scarcely less unscriptural than appeals to the court of arches or to the Vatican; and that popery, prelacy, and Presbyterianism were merely three forms of one great apostasy. In politics, the Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, root and branch men, or, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, radicals. Not content with limiting the power of the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old English polity. At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers and in weight; but before the war had lasted two years they became, not indeed the largest, but the most powerful, faction in the country. Some of the old Parliamentary leaders had been removed by death; and others had forfeited the public confidence. Pym had been borne, with princely honors, to a grave among the Plantagenets. Hampden had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavoring, by his heroic example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cavalry of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. Northumberland was known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieutenants had shown little vigor and ability in the conduct of military operations. At such a conjuncture it was that the Independent party, ardent, resolute, and uncompromising, began to raise its head, both in the camp and in the House of Commons.