ABSTRACT
Although Holies was a highly partisan commentator it is clear from the evidence of parliamentary divisions that during the years 1646 and 1647 there was a major shift of opinion in favour of the Presbyterian faction after it had suffered some initial setbacks. Bulstrode Whitelocke writes that many sober men in the Commons were anxious to accept the peace propositions which the king forwarded from Newcastle in May 1646 but they were outvoted, mainly because the newly elected MPs came out in opposition. The possibility that the army might seek to become a political force in its own right was less readily appreciated even in the early months of 1647. In 1659, however, Sir Arthur Hesilrige would attribute the king’s execution to the ‘wonderful hand of God’ and in a reference to the political revolution which had taken place entreat his parliamentary colleagues not to set up what God had pulled down ‘lest we be said to build against God’.
