Such was the famous New Model. Where was it first to be employed? This was an anxious question; and, to understand it, we must have the map of England before us as it appeared to the Parliamentarians in the early months of 1645.

England then, in the eyes of the Parliamentarians, consisted of four regions, as follows:-(I.) The Pre-eminent and assured Parliamentarian Region. This included London and Middlesex, with the Eastern and South-Eastern counties at their back, or immediately flanking them north and southviz. Herts, Essex, Cambridge, Bedford, Northamptonshire, Hunts, Suffolk, Norfolk, and almost all Lincoln, together with Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. All this sweep of country was now thoroughly in the possession of the Parliament, and constituted the region whence it drew its main strength. The services of the New Model were not required in it; for it was the main feeder and support of the New Model. (II.) The Northern Counties. Here, beyond the Humber and Mersey, or perhaps even beyond the Trent, the cause of Parliament was also in the ascendant. Since Marston Moor Royalism lingered here only in a few towns and garrisons.

to gather miscellaneously from the Parliamentary Journals, Wood, Carlyle's Cromwell, Walker's Hist. of Independency, Reprint of The Mystery of the Good Old Cause (a satirical tract of 1660) at end of Vol. III. of Parl. Hist., &c. I have had to rectify the spellings of some of the names in the original Lords Journals list, and to find out the Christian names where possible. It is not always so easy as one might suppose to ascertain the Christian name of a man who may have been of considerable note in his day and have left his mark.

1 In the New Model the reader ought to note three things:-(1) The comparative youth of the officers. There were veterans; but the Commander-inchief was but thirty-three years of age, and most of the Colonels were still younger. (2) The blending of different ranks of society in the body of the officers. The majority wore decidedly from the ranks of the aristocracy and gentry-peers' younger sons, knights, sons of knights and country-gentlemen, &c.; but in men like Skippon, Colouel Okey, Colonel Rainsborough,

Lieutenant-Colonel Ewer, LieutenantColonel Hewson, Lieutenant-Colonel Pride, Major Harrison, and Major Tomlinson, there was a conspicuous sprinkling of stout representatives of a lower and more popular stratum. The Royalists, and even the Presbyterians, fastened on this fact and exaggerated it. All the army, from the general to the meanest sentinel, could not muster £1,000 a year in lands among them so it was laxly said. (3) Another fact, of which the Presbyterians and the Royalists, and other anti Cromwellians, afterwards made the most, was the unusual number of relatives of Cromwell that there were among the officers. To those who regarded the whole invention and organization of the New Model as a deep design of Cromwell's craft, with Fairfax as his temporary tool, this fact was blackly significant. But, apart altogether from that theory, the fact is important, and ought to be borne in mind. There was not only much of the Cromwell spirit in the New Model from the first, but a large leaven of the Cromwell kin.

In Cumberland, Carlisle still held out for the King, and the siege of this city, together with the preservation of the North generally, was the work now specially expected from the Scottish auxiliary army. In Yorkshire, the castles of Skipton, Pontefract, Scarborough, Sandal, and Bolton, and, in Lancashire, Latham House and Greenhaugh Castle, kept up the King's flag, but were surrounded by local Parliamentary besiegers. On the whole there was no reason for anxiety now about the North within itself; and the hope was that the Scottish Army and other stray forces in those parts might be able soon to move southwards and co-operate with the New Model. (III.) The South-West and Mid-Southern Counties. Here the King was vastly in the ascendant. Cornwall was absolutely his; Devon was wholly his, with the exception of the port of Plymouth, still held for the Parliament, but besieged by the King's forces; Somerset was wholly his, save that Taunton was holding out for Parliament in great distress; all Wilts was his, except Malmesbury Castle; in Dorset he was nearly master, though the three port-towns of Poole, Lyme, and Weymouth (Melcombe) had Parliamentary garrisons; and even in Hants, where the Parliament divided the power with him more equally, he held the two strong places of Winchester and Basing. The King's field-forces in all this southwestern and southern region were extremely numerous, apart from the garrisons, and were commanded by Lords Goring and Hopton, Sir Richard Greenville, Major-General Sir John Digby, and others. With them was the Prince of Wales, now fifteen years of age. He had been recently sent from Oxford into those parts, with a view both to his own safety and to the effects of his influence. (IV.) The English Midlands, backed by Wales. Here also the King was firmly established. Here it was that, with the Princes Rupert and Maurice as his chiefs in command, he directly faced the massed Parliamentarianism of London and the Eastern Counties. In Bucks and Berks, indeed, his forces and those of the Parliament overlapped each other. Aylesbury, the chief town in Bucks, was the Parliament's, while Boarstall House, ten or twelve miles east from it, was the King's; and, similarly, the east of Berks,

with Windsor, Reading, and Abingdon, were mainly held by Parliament, while in the same county the King had some strong garrisons. Oxford, however, the county of the King's head-quarters, was wholly in his possession, with the exception of Henley on the Berks border. To the north of Oxfordshire was Warwickshire, all the King's except Warwick Castle, though bordered by Northamptonshire, which was all the Parliament's; and farther north were the shires of Leicester, Nottingham, and Stafford, in each of which, though the Parliament held the county-town, the King had countervailing strongholds. Then, at the back of this row of central counties facing the massed Parliamentarianism of the East, there were the shires of Gloucester, Worcester, Salop, and Chester, in which Parliament had scarcely any hold; that of Hereford, in which it had no hold; and the whole bulk of Wales, in which the two castles of Pembroke and Montgomery were the sole Parliamentarian specks. Leaning back upon Wales, and the English counties of the Welsh border, the King, from Oxford, with its flanking counties north and south, fronted Parliament very formidably,1

FIRST ACTIONS OF THE NEW MODEL.

Clearly, it was against one or other of the two lastmentioned regions that the New Model must first show its prowess. Which of the two should it be?

The West had many claims. Besides the importance of relieving the besieged Parliamentary garrisons in that direction, there was the necessity of taking precaution against the possible advance from it of Goring's forces towards London. Accordingly, even before the Self-Denying Ordinance had become law, Cromwell and Sir William Waller had been ordered on a special expedition into the West (February 27), "for relief of Melcombe and the garrisons and places adjacent, and for preventing and breaking the enemy's

1 In this survey of the state of the war over all England in April 1645, have availed myself of the introductory Tables in Sprigge (pp. xi.-xvi., Edit.

1854), repeated in Rushworth, VI. pp. 18-22. The geographical information in these Tables is, however, somewhat confused; and I have recast it.

levies and recruits." Cromwell's men were very reluctant to go on this expedition, probably because they did not like to serve with Waller. But, Cromwell having managed them, he and Waller did go into the West as far as Dorset and Somerset, and, after as much success as was possible, returned about the middle of April. The Self-Denying Ordinance was then law; and on the 22nd of April Cromwell was at Windsor, to resign his command, and take leave of Fairfax.

Suddenly, on the following morning, a message from the Committee of the two Kingdoms came to Windsor ordering Fairfax to employ Cromwell on a new enterprise of pressing moment. He was to ride with all haste into Oxfordshire, to intercept, if possible, a convoy of 2,000 horse, which Prince Rupert was to detach from Worcester, then the headquarters of the King's main army, for the purpose of fetching off the King and his Artillery-train from Oxford. As the forty days of grace fixed by the Self-Denying Ordinance did not expire till the 13th of May, Cromwell would have time. to perform this service before the exact day on which his resignation was required! In fact, he performed it thoroughly in two days. On the 24th of April he met the enemy, consisting of the Queen's own regiment, the Earl of Northhampton's, and Lord Wilmot's, at Islip Bridge, routed them utterly, slew many, and took about 200 prisoners and 400 horses, besides the Queen's standard. Not only so; but, some of the fugitives having taken refuge in Bletchington House, then commanded by Colonel Thomas Windebank, son of the ex-Secretary, with a garrison of 200 men, Cromwell had summoned the house to surrender, and, though a defence might easily have been made, Windebank had actually surrendered that same night, giving up all his stores.

Such were the first actions of the New Model; and, as

they carried joy into the Parliamentarian heart, so in the King's quarters they caused rage and vexation. Windebank | was tried by court-martial for cowardice, and, notwithstanding his connexions, was shot to death in the court of Merton College, Oxford (May 3).1

CROMWELL RETAINED IN COMMAND: BATTLE OF NASEBY: OTHER SUCCESSES OF THE NEW MODEL.

On the 1st of May, while Cromwell was still absent in Oxfordshire, the main body of the New Model, under Fairfax and Skippon, was on the move in another direction. It had seemed on the whole that it would be of most use in the South-West. In especial, there was great anxiety for the relief of Taunton. But, when Fairfax had got as far as into Dorset, on his way to Taunton, he was overtaken by an Ordinance of the two Houses, in conformity with a resolution of the Committee of both Kingdoms (May 6), recalling him and Skippon, with the bulk of the New Model, for service, after all, in the Mid-English Counties. For Goring had carried much of the South-Western force thither, and had joined Rupert and Maurice, so that there was a great stir of something new intended about Oxford and round the King's person. Accordingly, detaching only a brigade of some 7,000, consisting of Welden's, Lloyd's, Fortescue's, and Ingoldsby's foot-regiments, and Graves's horse-regiment, with some other district forces, all under Welden's chief command, to push on for the relief of Taunton, Fairfax wheeled his main force back north-east, and, after forced cross-country marching, found himself (May 14) at the well-known Newbury, on his way to Oxford. By this time he knew, if he had not known it before, that he was to have the help of other generalship under him than that of Skippon. If it had ever been really intended that Cromwell

1 For facts in the preceding three paragraphs see Commons Journals, Feb. 27 and 28, and March 4 and 20, 1644-5; Sprigge's Anglia Rediv. (1854) 11-13; Carlyle's Cromwell (ed.

1857) I. 163-167; Rushworth, VI. 23-25. We had a glimpse of young Windebank at an earlier period, when he little foresaw this end. See Vol. II. p. 70.