A large magazine of arms being placed in the town of Hull, they despatched thither Sir John Hotham, a gentleman of considerable fortune in the neighborhood, and of an ancient family, and they gave him the authority of governor.

They sent orders to Goring, governor of Portsmouth, to obey no commands but such as he should receive from the parliament.

Not content with having obliged the king to displace Lunsford, whom he had appointed governor of the Tower,[*] they never ceased soliciting him till he had also displaced Sir John Biron, a man of unexceptionable character, and had bestowed that command on Sir John Conyers, in whom alone, they said, they could repose confidence.
After making a fruitless attempt, in which the peers refused their concurrence, to give public warning, that the people should put themselves in a posture of defence against the enterprises of "Papists and other ill-affected persons,"[**] they now resolved, by a bold and decisive stroke, to seize at once the whole power of the sword, and to confer it entirely on their own creatures and adherents.
* Rush.

voL v.p.

459.
** Nalson, vol.ii.p.