Cromwell,  now  freed  from  all  anxiety  in  regard  to  the
custody  of  the  king's  person,  and  being  superior  to  the  par-
liament, applied  himself  seriously  to  quell  those  disorders
in  the  army  which  he  himself  had  raised.  He  issued  or-
ders for  discontinuing  the  meetings  of  the  agitators  ;  but
these  levellers,  as  they  were  called,  joined  in  seditious  re-
monstrances and  petitions ;  and  Cromwell,  at  the  time  of
a  review,  seizing  the  ringleaders  before  their  companions,
caused  one  mutineer  instantly  to  be  shot,  and  struck  such
terror  into  the  rest,  that  they  quietly  returned  to  discipline
and  duty.  ♦

Cromwell  paid  great  deference  to  the  counsels  of  Ireton,
a  man  who  had  grafted  the  soldier  on  the  lawyer,  and  the
statesman  on  the  saint ;  and  by  his  suggestion,  he  secretly
called  a  council  of  the  chief  officers  at  Windsor,  where  was
first  opened  the  daring  design  of  bringing  the  king  to  con-
dign punishment  for  mal-administration.  This  measure
being  resolved  on,  it  was  requisite  gradually  to  conduct  the
parliament  from  one  violence  to  another,  till  this  last  act
of  atrocious  iniquity  should  appear  inevitable.  At  the  in-
stigation of  the  independents  and  army,  that  assembly
framed  four  proposals,  to  which  they  demanded  the  king's
positive  assent,  before  they  would  deign  to  treat.    The  first


CHARLES   I.  ri

was,  that  he  should  invest  the  parliament  with  the  military
power  for  twenty  years ;  the  second,  that  lie  should  recal
all  his  proclamations  and  declarations  against  the  parlia-
ment, and  acknowledge  that  assembly  to  have  taken  arms
in  their  just  and  necessary  defence ;  the  third,  that  he
should  annul  all  the  acts,  and  void  all  the  patents  of  peer-
age, which  had  passed  the  great  seal,  since  the  commence-
ment of  the  civil  wars  ;  and  the  fourth,  that  he  should  give
the  two  houses  power  to  adjourn  as  they  thought  proper.
