Excerpt from The Clarke Papers, Vol. 2: Selections From the Papers of William Clarke, Secretary to the Council of the Army, 1647-1649, and to General Monck and the Commanders of the Army in Scotland, 1651-1660 Fairfax naturally refused to listen to these demands. He was neither inclined to limit the power of the general officers over their subordinates, nor to take any steps which would have revived, under any form, the representative council of agitators and officers which had given him so much trouble in 1647. It is evident from reading the debates that Lilburne's third proposal was aimed at Ireton, of whose predominance in the Council he elsewhere speaks with great wrath (appendix, p. In the debate of December 14 Ireton made five speeches of considerable length, answering the Independent divines and the representatives of the Levellers with equal effect. His remarks on the origin of commonwealths, on the end of the state (p. And on the extent to which biblical prece dents could be applied in drawing up modern constitutions are of particular interest (pp. 113, 122. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.