The earl of Manchester, provoked at the impeachment which the king had lodged against him, had long forwarded the war with alacrity; but being a man of humanity and good principles, the view of public calamities, and the prospect of a total subversion of government, began to moderate his ardor, and inclined him to promote peace on any safe or honorable terms. He was even suspected in the field not to have pushed to the utmost against the king the advantages obtained by the arms of the parliament; and Cromwell in the public debates revived the accusation, that this nobleman had wilfully neglected at Dennington Castle a favorable opportunity of finishing the war by a total defeat of the royalists. "I showed him evidently," said Cromwell, "how this success might be obtained; and only desired leave, with my own brigade of horse to charge the king's army in their retreat; leaving it in the earl's choice, if he thought proper, to remain neuter with the rest of his forces: but, notwithstanding my importunity, he positively refused his consent; and gave no other reason but that, if we met with a defeat, there was an end of our pretensions we should all be rebels and traitors, and be executed and forfeited by law."[*] * Clarendon, vol. v. p. 561. Manchester, by way of recrimination, informed the parliament, that, at another time, Cromwell having proposed some scheme to which it seemed improbable the parliament would agree, he insisted, and said, "My lord, if you will stick firm to honest men, you shall find yourself at the head of an army which shall give law both to king and parliament." "This discourse," continued Manchester, "made the greater impression on me, because I knew the lieutenant-general to be a man of very deep designs; and he has even ventured to tell me, that it never would be well with England till I were Mr. Montague, and there were ne'er a lord or peer in the kingdom."[*] So full was Cromwell of these republican projects, that, notwithstanding his habits of profound dissimulation, he could not so carefully guard his expressions, but that sometimes his favorite notions would escape him.