1647] Presbyterians and Independents 161
the House they shall lay down their arms whenever it shall command them."
Cromwell's action during the last few months, continued Lilburn, had filled him with grief and amazement. Could it be that he was held back by temporising politicians, " covetous earthworms," such as Vane and St. John, or bribed into inaction by the estate Parliament had given him ? Let him pluck up resolution " like a man that will persevere to be a man for God/' and risk his life to deliver his fellow soldiers from ruin, and his country from vassalage and slavery.
Cromwell turned a deaf ear to these appeals. He feared to encourage the intervention of soldiers in politics, and dreaded still more the anarchy which might follow a breach between Parliament and the army. In May, he went to the headquarters of the army at Saffron Walden with his three colleagues, examined carefully the grievances of the petitioners, communicated the votes of Parliament, and did his best to persuade officers and soldiers to submission.
" Truly, gentlemen/' he said to the officers, " it will he very fit for you to have a very great care in making the best use you can both of the votes, and of the interest that any of you have in your regiments, to work in them a good opinion of that authority that is over both us and them. If that authority falls to nothing, nothing can follow but confusion."
The commissioners reported that they found the whole army " under a deep sense of some sufferings "