All men were in expectation with regard to the issue of this extraordinary affair.

The king seemed engaged in honor to support his measure; and in order to prevent all opposition, he had positively declared that he would support it.

The commons were obliged to persevere, not only because it was dishonorable to be foiled, where they could plead such strong reasons, but also because, if the king prevailed in his pretensions, an end seemed to be put to all the legal limitations of the constitution.
It is evident, that Charles was now come to that delicate crisis which he ought at first to have foreseen, when he embraced those desperate counsels; and his resolutions, in such an event, ought long ago to have been entirely fixed and determined.

Besides his usual guards, he had an army encamped at Blackheath, under the command of Mareschal Schomberg, a foreigner; and many of the officers were of the Catholic religion.
His ally, the French king, he might expect, would second him, if force became requisite for restraining his discontented subjects, and supporting the measures which, by common consent, they had agreed to pursue.

But the king was startled when he approached so dangerous a precipice as that which lay before him.