Page "Long Parliament" Paragraph 12

In March 1642 with the King absent from London and the war clouds gathering, Parliament decreed that its own Parliamentary Ordinances were valid laws, even without royal assent.

The Militia Ordinance was passed on 5 March by Parliament which gave Parliament control of the local militia called Trained Bands.

Control of the London trained bands was the most strategically critical, because they could protect the radical members of Parliament from armed intervention against them by any soldiers which Charles had near the capital.

In response to the Militia Ordinance, Charles revived the Commissions of Array as a means of summoning an army instead.