38 No sooner was intelligence of this tumult conveyed to Reading, than the army was put in motion.

The two houses being under restraint, they were resolved, they said, to vindicate, against the seditious citizens, the invaded privileges of parliament, and restore that assembly to its just freedom of debate and counsel.

In their way to London, they were drawn up on Hounslow Heath; a formidable body, twenty thousand strong, and determined, without regard to laws or liberty, to pursue whatever measures their generals should dictate to them.

Here the most favorable event happened to quicken and encourage their advance.

The speakers of the two houses, Manchester and Lenthal, attended by eight peers and about sixty commoners, having secretly retired from the city, presented themselves with their maces, and all the ensigns of their dignity; and complaining of the violence put upon them, applied to the army for defence and protection.