Then the apprentices would interfere, blows would be exchanged, and not unfrequently the fanatics were driven in to take refuge with the troops in St.Paul's.
Harry found a small printer of Royalist opinions, and with the assistance of Jacob, strung together many doggerel verses, making a scoff of the sour-faced rulers of England, and calling upon the people not to submit to be tyrannized over by their own paid servants, the army.

These verses were then set in type by the printer, and in the evening, taking different ways, they distributed them in the streets to passers-by.
Day by day the feeling in the city rose higher, as the quarrels at Westminster between the Independents, backed by the army and the Presbyterian majority, waxed higher and higher.

All this time the king was negotiating with commissioners from the army, and with others sent by the Scots, one day inclining to one party, the next to the other, making promises to both, but intending to observe none, as soon as he could gain his ends.
On Sunday, the 9th of April, Harry and his friends strolled up to Moor Fields to look at the apprentices playing bowls there.

Presently from the barracks of the militia hard by a party of soldiers came out, and ordered them to desist, some of the soldiers seizing upon the bowls.
"Now, lads," Harry shouted, "you will not stand that, will you?
The London apprentices were not wont to submit to be ridden rough-shod over by troops.

Has all spirit been taken out of you by the long-winded sermons of these knaves in steeple hats ?" Some of the soldiers made a rush at Harry.