 On 9 August 1642 an inquest into the looming civil conflict was held at the Exeter Assizes the jury of which appealed to Bourchier as a man of "eminency and known interest in his Majesty's favour to use his good offices toward an accommodation between his Majesty and Parliament and that war, the greatest and worst of evils, be not conceived and chosen for a means to heal our distempers rather than a parliament, the cheapest and best remedy".The local population viewed the commission of array as an act of royal aggression against them, whilst ignoring the royalist argument that it had been resorted to as a defense to the Militia Ordinance passed unconstitutionally by Parliament without Royal Assent.The two competing and contradictory orders had brought unrest and tension to the county.