As always, Cromwell's tenderness towards the Republicans or Old Commonwealth's men appeared now in his dealings with the new commotion on that side. Colonel Packer and Captain Gladman, two disaffected officers in his own regiment of horse, appear to have been merely dismissed from their commands; and one hears besides of but a few arrests, with no farther consequences than examination before the Council and temporary imprisonment. Harrison was again arrested, the Fifth-Monarchy men having, of course, lent themselves to the agitation, and Harrison having this time, Whitlocke says, been certainly "deep in it." Among the others arrested were Mr. John Carew, the Regicide and Councillor under the Commonwealth, John Portman, who had been secretary to Blake in the Fleet, a Hugh Courtney, and John Rogers, a preacher. There seems to have been no thought of any proceedings against Hasilrig, Scott, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and the other Anti-Cromwellian leaders in the late Parliament. This, however, is less remarkable than that, with information in Cromwell's possession that some of the members of the Parliament, nominally Commonwealth's men, had actually commissions from Charles II. and were enlisting persons under such commissions for any possible insurrection whatever, he had contented himself with announcing the fact in his Dissolution Speech and so merely signifying to the culprits that their lives were in his hands.[1] [Footnote 1: Ludlow, 599-600; Whitlocke, IV. 330; Godwin, IV. 502-503.] The Royalist project and its ramifications were really very formidable. A Spanish Army of about 8000 men, with Charles II. and his refugees among them, _was_ gathered about Bruges, Brussels, and Ostend, with vessels of transport provided; and the burst of a great Royalist Insurrection at home, in Sussex, London, and elsewhere, _was_ to coincide with the invasion from abroad. The Duke of Ormond himself had come to London in disguise, to observe matters and make preparations. He was in London for three weeks, living in the house of a Roman Catholic surgeon in Drury Lane, till Cromwell, who knew the fact, generously sent Lord Broghill to him with a hint to be gone. This was early in March, some days after a proclamation "commanding all Papists and other persons who have been of the late King's party or his son's to depart out of the cities of London and Westminster," and another proclamation forbidding such persons living in the country to stir more than five miles from their fixed places of abode. On the 12th of that month the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London met his Highness and the Army-officers by appointment at Whitehall, where his Highness explained to them at length the nature of the crisis, informed them particularly of the strength of the Flanders army of invasion, Ormond's visit, &c., and solemnly committed to them the safety of the City. The response of the City authorities was extremely loyal.[1]