These violent dissensions brought matters to extremity, and pushed the Independents to the execution of their designs. The present generals, they thought, were more desirous of protracting than finishing the war; and having entertained a scheme for preserving still some balance in the constitution, they were afraid of entirely subduing the king, and reducing him to a condition where he should not be entitled to ask any concessions. A new model alone of the army could bring complete victory to the parliament, and free the nation from those calamities under which it labored. But how to effect this project was the difficulty. The authority, as well as merits, of Essex was very great with the parliament. Not only he had served them all along with the most exact and scrupulous honor: it was in some measure owing to his popularity that they had ever been enabled to levy an army, or make head against the royal cause. Manchester, Warwick, and the other commanders, had likewise great credit with the public; nor were there any hopes of prevailing over them, but by laying the plan of an oblique and artificial attack, which would conceal the real purposes of their antagonists. The Scots and the Scottish commissioners, jealous of the progress of the Independents, were a new obstacle, which, without the utmost art and subtlety, it would be difficult to surmount.[**] * Clarendon, vol. v. p. 562. ** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 562. The methods by which this intrigue was conducted are so singular, and show so fully the genius of the age, that we shall give a detail of them as they are delivered by Lord Clarendon.[*]