It was proposed by them, that the generals and principal officers should, for their disobedience and usurpations, be proclaimed traitors by the parliament.
But the parliament was dealing with men who would not be frightened by words, nor retarded by any scrupulous delicacy.

The generals, under the name of Fairfax, (for he still allowed them to employ his name,) marched the army to London, and placing guards in Whitehall, the Mews, St.
James's, Durham House, Covent Garden, and Palace Yard, surrounded the parliament with their hostile armaments.
The parliament, destitute of all hopes of prevailing, retained, however, courage to resist.

They attempted, in the face of the army, to close their treaty with the king; and, though they had formerly voted his concessions with regard to the church and delinquents to be unsatisfactory, they now took into consideration the final resolution with regard to the whole.
After a violent debate of three days, it was carried, by a majority of one hundred and twenty-nine against eighty-three, in the house of commons, that the king's concessions were a foundation for the houses to proceed upon in the settlement of the kingdom.
Next day, when the commons were to meet, Colonel Pride formerly a drayman, had environed the house with two regiments; and, directed by Lord Grey of Groby, he seized in the passage forty-one members of the Presbyterian party, and sent them to a low room, which passed by the appellation of "hell;" whence they were afterwards carried to several inns.

Above one hundred and sixty members more were excluded, and none were allowed to enter but the most furious and the most determined of the Independents; and these exceeded not the number of fifty or sixty.
This invasion of the parliament commonly passed under the name of "Colonel Pride's Purge;" so much disposed was the nation to make merry with the dethroning of those members who had violently arrogated the whole authority of government, and deprived the king of his legal prerogatives.
The subsequent proceedings of the parliament, if this diminutive assembly deserve that honorable name, retain not the least appearance of law, equity, or freedom.

They instantly reversed the former vote, and declared the king's concessions unsatisfactory.