 This legislation, which forbade members of the Lords or Commons from holding command in the army, was ostensibly intended to improve unity among the bickering Parliamentarian commanders, by preventing conflicts of interest.In practice, it was engineered to remove hereditary peers, many of whom were not hardline anti-Royalists, from their commands as, unlike elected Members of Parliament, they could not resign their political seats to take a commission.At the beginning of 1645, most of King Charles's advisers urged him to attack the New Model Army while it was still forming.