Were they to meet no more, agitate no more?
Was the great Army of the Commonwealth to be degraded, for the benefit of this new Protector, into a mere collection of men paid for bestriding horses and handling pikes and ramrods?
So reasoned the rank and file and the subalterns; but the chiefs, while sharing the general feeling, had additional alarms of their own.

They had left actions behind them, done in their major-generalcies or other commands for Cromwell, for which they might be called to account under a civilian Protectorate, or other merely constitutional Government.

There had actually been signs in the present Parliament of a tendency to the re-investigation of cases of military oppression and the impeachment of selected culprits.

Were the Army-men to consent, in such circumstances, to give up their powers of self-defence and corporate action?
No! Oliver's son might deserve consideration; but Oliver's Army had prior claims.
Hitherto, Fleetwood, Desborough, and the rest of the Wallingford-House Party, had been content with private remonstrances with Richard on Army grievances in general, or particular grievances occasioned by his own exercise of Army-patronage.

A saying of Richard's in one of these conferences had been widely reported and had given great offence.