History of the British Army (Vol.1&2). J. W. Fortescue
first great day of the English cavalry. We find, curiously enough, examples of three different schools in the field, the old school of the lance under Thomas Fairfax, the Swedish of mixed horse and musketeers under Goring, and the new English of Rupert and Cromwell; but the greatest of these is Cromwell's. He alone had his men under perfect control, and had trained them not only to charge, but what is far more difficult, to rally.
Little more than a week later came the first sign of an entirely new departure in the Parliament's conduct of the war. In spite of Marston Moor the general position of its affairs was anything but favourable. The inefficiency of local committees and the narrow self-seeking of local forces, combined with the jealousy of rival commanders and the absence of a commander-in-chief, threatened to bring swift and sudden dissolution to the cause. Time had aggravated rather than diminished the evil, and unless it were remedied forthwith, it would be useless to continue the war. Sir William Waller, an able commander, who had frequently suffered defeat less from his own incapacity than from the impossibility of keeping a force together, gave the authorities plainly to understand that unless they formed a distinct permanent army of their own, properly organised, properly disciplined, and regularly paid they could not hope for success.
Mutiny, desertion, and indiscipline had dogged every step of the local levies, as the Parliament very well knew; but experience still more bitter was needed before it could be induced to take Waller's advice. For the present it voted the formation of an army of ten thousand foot and three thousand horse and ordered it to be ready to march in eight days. Ignorance and infatuation could hardly go further than this. Shortly after came a great disaster in the west, nothing less than the capitulation of Essex's whole army. Then came the second battle of Newbury, which left the King in a decidedly improved position. Finally at the close of the campaign the Parliamentary forces sank into a condition which was nothing short of deplorable, the dissensions among the commanders rose to a dangerous height, and as a crowning symptom of the general collapse the Eastern Association, the strongest of all the local bodies, declared that its burden was heavier than it could bear and threw itself upon the Parliament. In the face of such a crisis the Houses could hesitate no longer, and on the 23rd of November they made over the whole state of the forces to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, with directions to consider a frame or model of the whole militia.
Thus the work that should have been done years before by Elizabeth was at length taken in hand; and the broken-down machinery of the Plantagenets was at last to be superseded. There was of course jealousy as to the hands in which so powerful an engine should be placed, and the difficulty was overcome only by the Self-denying Ordinance, which debarred members of both Houses of Parliament from command, and laid the ablest soldier in England aside as impartially as inefficient peers like Manchester and Essex. But such an evil as this could be easily remedied, for something more than an ordinance is required at such times to exclude the ablest man from the highest post. To bring the New Model into being was the first and greatest task; and this was done by the Ordinance of the 15th of February 1645. The time was come, and England had at last a regular, and as was soon to be seen, a standing army.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
1645.
Even before the Ordinance for the establishment of the New Model Army had been passed, Parliament had voted, on the motion of Oliver Cromwell, that the chief command should be given to Sir Thomas Fairfax. There is little difficulty in discovering the reason for this choice. If by the Self-denying Ordinance all members of both Houses were to be excluded from command in order to rid the country of incompetent officers, there could be no doubt that Fairfax was the man best fitted to be captain-general. He had been the soul of the Parliamentary cause in the north, and, though by no means uniformly successful in the field, had shown vigour in victory, constancy in defeat, and energy at all times. Though not comparable to Cromwell in military ability, and perhaps hardly equal either to Rupert on the one side or to George Monk on the other, he was none the less a good soldier and a gallant man, though if anything rather too fond of fighting with his own hand when he should have been directing the hands of others. He knew the value of discipline and was strong enough to enforce it, but he understood also the art of leading men as well as driving them to obedience. Heir of a noble family and born to high station, he could fill a great position with naturalness and ease; being above all things a gentleman, honourable, straightforward, disinterested, and abounding in good sense, he could occupy it without provoking envy or jealousy. No higher praise can be given to Fairfax than that every one was not only contented but pleased to serve under him.
Joined with him as sergeant-major-general, and therefore not only as commander of the foot but as chief of the staff, was the veteran Philip Skippon. His long experience of war in the Low Countries, and the respect which such experience commanded, doubtless prompted his selection to be Fairfax's chief adviser. The post of lieutenant-general, which carried with it the command of the cavalry, was left unfilled. Every one knew who was the right man for the place, and there could be little doubt but that, notwithstanding all self-denying ordinances, he must sooner or later be summoned to hold it. For the present he was employed, pending the expiration of the forty days of grace allowed him by the Ordinance, in watching the movements of the Royalist forces in the west. Though there had been trouble even with his famous regiments in the general collapse at the close of 1644, yet it was noticed that in January 1645 no troops had appeared so full in numbers, so well armed, and so civil in their carriage as Colonel Cromwell's horse. "Call them Independents or what you will," said one newspaper, "you will find that they will make Sir Thomas Fairfax a regiment of a thousand as brave and gallant horse as any in England."
This however was not to happen at once. Fairfax, having obtained the Parliament's approval of his list of officers, was busily engaged with Skippon in hewing rougher material than Cromwell's troopers into shape. Many of the disbanded regiments of Essex lay ready to his hand, but they had lately shown a mutinous spirit which it required all Skippon's tact and firmness to curb. The old man, however, as he was affectionately called, knew how to manage soldiers, and the promise of regular pay, notwithstanding that one quarter of the same was deferred as security against desertion, soon brought them cheerfully into the service. Nevertheless there were, even so, not voluntary recruits enough to supply the twenty-two thousand men required by the Ordinance; more than eight thousand were still wanting, and the Committee of Both Kingdoms could think of no better means for raising them than the press-gang. This was the system which, when enforced by Charles the First, had been denounced as an intolerable grievance, and it was not less violently resisted when sanctioned by Parliament. The Government, however, carried matters with a strong hand, and a couple of executions soon brought the recalcitrant recruits to submission.
The scene of the making of the New Army which was destined to subdue the King was, by the irony of fate, royal Windsor. It is on the broad expanse of Windsor Park and on the green meadows by the Thames, before the wondering eyes of the Eton boys, that we must picture the daily parade of the new regiments, the exercise of pike and musket and the assiduous doubling of ranks and files, old Skippon, gray and scarred with wounds, riding from company to company and instituting mental comparisons between them and the English soldiers of the Low Countries, and the younger sprightlier Fairfax, still but three-and-thirty, watching with all a Yorkshireman's love of horseflesh the arrival of troopers and baggage-animals. Every day the scene grew brighter as corps after corps received its new clothing, for the whole army, for the first time in English history, was clad in the familiar scarlet. Facings of the colonel's colours distinguished regiment from regiment; and the senior corps of foot, being the General's own, wore his facings of blue.[164] Thus the royal colours, as we now call them, were first seen at the head of a rebel army.
The senior regiment of horse was also in due time to be clothed in the same scarlet and blue. For Cromwell's two regiments of horse had been selected, as was their due, to be blent into one and to take