The chiefs, however, who now ruled at Westminster, were not the men to surrender without a struggle. They submitted, indeed, to pass a few ordinances calculated to give satisfaction, but these were combined with others which displayed a fixed determination not to succumb to the dictates of a mutinous soldiery. A committee was established with power to raise forces for the defence of the nation: the favourite general Skippon was appointed to provide for the safety of the capital; and the most positive orders were sent to Fairfax not to suffer any one of the corps under his command to approach within forty miles of London. Every day the contest assumed a more threatening aspect. A succession of petitions, remonstrances, and declarations issued from the pens of Ireton and Lambert, guided, it was believed, by the hand of Cromwell. In addition to their former demands, it was required that all capitulations granted by military commanders during the war should be observed; that a time[a] should be fixed for the termination of the present parliament; that the House of Commons should be purged of every individual disqualified by preceding ordinances; [Footnote 1: Lords' Journals, 260, 263, 277. Holles says that these petitions were drawn by Cromwell, and sent into the counties for subscriptions.--Holles, 256.] [Sidenote a: A.D. 1647. June 14.] and, in particular, that eleven of its members, comprising Holles, Glyn, Stapleton, Clotworthy, and Waller, the chief leaders of the Presbyterian party, and members of the committee at Derby House, should be excluded, till they had been tried by due course of law for the offence of endeavouring to commit the army with the parliament. To give weight to these demands, Fairfax, who seems to have acted as the mere organ of the council of officers,[1] marched successively to St. Alban's, to Watford, and to Uxbridge.[a] His approach revealed the weakness of his opponents, and the cowardice, perhaps hypocrisy, of many, who foresaw the probable issue of the contest, and deemed it not their interest to provoke by a useless resistance the military chiefs, who might in a few hours be their masters.[b] Hence it happened that men, who had so clamorously and successfully appealed to the privileges of parliament, when the king demanded the five members, now submitted tamely to a similar demand, when it was made by twelve thousand men in arms. Skippon, their oracle, was one of the first deserters. He resigned the several commands which he held, and exhorted the Presbyterians to fast and pray, and submit to the will of God.[c] From that time it became their chief solicitude to propitiate the army. They granted very ingeniously leave of absence to the eleven accused members; they ordered the new levies for the defence of the city to be disbanded, and the