166.

Clarendon, vol.iii.p.

119.
And having now in the eye of the law been guilty of treason, by levying war against their sovereign, it is evident that their fears and jealousies must on that account have multiplied extremely, and have rendered their personal safety, which they interwove with the safety of the nation, still more incompatible with the authority of the monarch.
Though the gentleness and lenity of the king's temper might have insured them against schemes of future vengeance, they preferred, as is no doubt natural, an independent security, accompanied too with sovereign power, to the station of subjects, and that not entirely guarded from all apprehensions of danger.[*] [12] The conferences went no further than the first demand on each side.
The parliament, finding that there was no likelihood of coming to any agreement, suddenly recalled their commissioners.
A military enterprise, which they had concerted early in the spring, was immediately undertaken.

Reading, the garrison of the king's which lay nearest to London, was esteemed a place of considerable strength in that age, when the art of attacking towns was not well understood in Europe, and was totally unknown in England.

The earl of Essex sat down before this place with an army of eighteen thousand men, and carried on the siege by regular approaches.