In short, whatever was the cause, August 1, which had been the day fixed for a simultaneous rising in many places, passed with far less demonstration than had been promised.

Mordaunt and a few of his friends tried a rendezvous in Surrey, only to find it useless; in several other places those who straggled together dispersed themselves at once; in Gloucestershire, where Major-General Massey, Lord Herbert, and their associates, did appear more openly, the affair ended in the arrest or surrender of the leaders, Massey escaping after having been taken.

Only in Cheshire, where Sir George Booth was the leader, did a considerable body rise in arms.

Booth, the Earl of Derby, Colonel Egerton, and a number of others, having met at Warrington, issued a proclamation in which no mention was made of the King, but it was merely declared that certain "Lords, Gentlemen, and Citizens, Freeholders and Yeomen, in this once happy nation," tired of the existing anarchy and tyranny, had resolved to do what they could to recover liberty and free Parliamentary Government.

Hundreds and hundreds flocking to their standard, they marched on Chester and took the city without opposition, though the castle held out.