But Lambert, to whom, as was said, Oliver had promised the succession, and who as well as the Rump knew the way to the Protectorship by Oliver’s own footsteps, was resolved to proceed in it upon the first opportunity; which presented itself presently after. Besides some plots of royalists, whom after the old fashion they again persecuted, there was an insurrection made against them by Presbyterians in Cheshire, headed by Sir George Booth, one of the secluded members. They were in number about 3,000, and their pretence was for a free Parliament. There was a great talk of another rising, or endeavour to rise, in Devonshire and Cornwall at the same time. To suppress Sir George Booth, the Rump sent down more than a sufficient army under Lambert; which quickly defeated the Cheshire party, and recovered Chester, Liverpool, and all the other places they had seized. Divers also of their commanders in and after the battle were taken prisoners, whereof Sir George Booth himself was one. This exploit done, Lambert, before his return, caressed his soldiers with an entertainment at his own house in Yorkshire, and got their consent to a petition to be made to the House, that a general might be set up in the army; as being unfit that the army should be judged by any power extrinsic to itself. _B._ I do not see that unfitness. _A._ Nor I. But it was, as I have heard, an axiom of Sir Henry Vane’s. But it so much displeased the Rump, that they voted, that the having of more generals in the army than were already settled, was unnecessary, burthensome, and dangerous to the commonwealth. _B._ This was not Oliver’s method; for though this Cheshire victory had been as glorious as that of Oliver at Dunbar, yet it was not the victory that made Oliver general, but the resignation of Fairfax, and the proffer of it to Cromwell by the Parliament.