And the great success which had already attended the arms of the parliament, and the greater which was soon expected, confirmed them still further in this obstinacy.
Sir Henry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver St.John, the solicitor-general, were regarded as the leaders of the Independents.
The earl of Essex, disgusted with a war of which he began to foresee the pernicious consequences, adhered to the Presbyterians, and promoted every reasonable plan of accommodation.

The earl of Northumberland, fond of his rank and dignity, regarded with horror a scheme which, if it took place, would confound him and his family with the lowest in the kingdom.
The earls of Warwick and Denbigh, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir William Waller, Hollis, Massey, Whitlocke, Maynard, Glyn, had embraced the same sentiments.

In the parliament, a considerable majority, and a much greater in the nation, were attached to the Presbyterian party; and it was only by cunning and deceit at first, and afterwards by military violence, that the Independents could entertain any hopes of success.
The earl of Manchester, provoked at the impeachment which the king had lodged against him, had long forwarded the war with alacrity; but being a man of humanity and good principles, the view of public calamities, and the prospect of a total subversion of government, began to moderate his ardor, and inclined him to promote peace on any safe or honorable terms.

He was even suspected in the field not to have pushed to the utmost against the king the advantages obtained by the arms of the parliament; and Cromwell in the public debates revived the accusation, that this nobleman had wilfully neglected at Dennington Castle a favorable opportunity of finishing the war by a total defeat of the royalists.

"I showed him evidently," said Cromwell, "how this success might be obtained; and only desired leave, with my own brigade of horse to charge the king's army in their retreat; leaving it in the earl's choice, if he thought proper, to remain neuter with the rest of his forces: but, notwithstanding my importunity, he positively refused his consent; and gave no other reason but that, if we met with a defeat, there was an end of our pretensions we should all be rebels and traitors, and be executed and forfeited by law."[*] * Clarendon, vol.v.p.