CHAPTER VI.

THE TRAINING OF THE IRONSIDES.

UT before this time Cromwell had foreseen the

BUT

destinies of the contest, and from among the freeholders and their sons in his own neighbourhood he formed his immortal troop of Ironsides, those men who in many a well-fought field turned the tide of conflict, men who "jeopardized their lives on the high places of the field." These men were peculiarly moulded; their training was even more religious than military; they were men of position and character. Oliver Feached to them, prayed with them, directed their vision to all the desperate and difficult embroilments of the times. These men were Puritans all; Independents; men who, however painful it may be to our more Christian notions, used their Bible as a matchlock, and relieved their guard by revolving texts of Holy Writ, and refreshed their courage by draughts from God's Book.

Oliver said, at a later time, he saw that all the cavaliers were a dissipated, godless race of men; there could be no hope for success but in religious and godly men. He allied the cause of Puritanism

to such an enthusiasm, such a blaze of martial glory, that indeed they could be no other than irresistible. They grasped the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God; they held communion with the skies, these men. What! shall we compare Tancreds, and Ivanhoes, and Red Cross Knights with these realities, this band of Puritan Havelocks? Not soldiers of a tournament were they; in very deed fighting against "principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places;" theirs was a piety exasperated to enthusiasm, and blazing at last into warlike vehemence! Then the Civil War was up in earnest, and Oliver soon found work. Since the last civil wars, the battles of the Roses, several generations had passed away, and England had grown in wealth and power; but widely different were the interests represented by the two contests to the mind: this was the struggle, indeed, with the last faint life of feudalism. In some sort the contest of the city and the castle was represented even by the Wars of the Roses; but much more here, and hence over the whole land soon passed the echoes of strife. Old villages that had slept quietly for centuries beneath the shadow of the church spire or tower; old halls, famous for the good cheer and merry songs of roistering Christmas time; fields, spreading wide with the rich herbage, and green meadow-land,—all these were dyed with blood. The river that had for ages crept lazily along through the woodland became choked with the bodies of the dead and crimsoned with the blood of the slain. Winding

round many a graceful bend of the road, where nature had touched the scene with tenderness, the Roundhead, clad in iron, saw the waving plume of Cavalier. Soon the two straggling parties were locked in deadly conflict, and the spot became memorable for ages for the blood shed in a skirmish which could not be dignified by the name of a battle. Throughout the land family ties were severed; everywhere "a man's foes were of his own household." "Old armour came down from a thousand old walls, and clanked upon the anvil of every village smithy;" "boot and saddle!" was the order of the day and night; every buff coat, and every piece of steel that could turn, or deal a blow, became of value. Even the long-bow, the brown bill, and cross-bow, resumed their almost forgotten use; rude spears, and common staves, and Danish clubs assumed the rank of weapons. The trumpets of the Cavaliers rang out fearlessly through the half of England, and thrilled the spirits of the people with the cries of loyalty; responded to by the shrill blast of the Roundhead, and the cry of liberty. "Those," says Carlyle, "were the most confused months England ever saw;" in every shire, in every parish, in court-houses, alehouses, churches, and markets, wheresoever men were gathered together. England was, with sorrowful confusion in every fibre, tearing itself into hostile. halves, to carry on the voting by pike and bullet henceforth. The spirit of war stalked forth; many times we find the record of men who slew an enemy,

and found a parent in the corpse they were about to spoil. The face of nature became changed, and peaceful homesteads and quiet villages assumed a rough, hostile look; and the old familiar scene rang with the fatal, fascinating bugle-notes of war. Every house of strength became a fortress, and every household a garrison.

Romance and poetry have woven gay garlands and sung highly wrought and glowing melodies around the achievements of knighthood and chivalry; but romance and poetry shrink back startled and appalled before the deeds of the mighty Puritan heroes, the Ironsides of Cromwell, a race of Artegals, or Men in Iron. The carnal mind of the succeeding century has succeeded in defacing the features and soiling the fair fame of the knighthood of Puritanism; but do you not think that the soldiers of the Cross may deserve words as eloquent, and song as soul-kindling, as those which echoed around the rabble rout of the strange Red Cross knights of Norman feudalism?

While all these events were passing, we can very well believe that the clear eye of Cromwell saw where it must all shortly terminate; that, in fact, there was nothing for it but a battle-field; and he was amongst the most prompt and decisive of all the His genius was too bold, too clear-sighted, to shine in the mazes of debate and the labyrinths of legal technicality. The battles against the king, with lawyers and verbal hair-splitters, were best fought by Pym and Hampden; but, outside in the

actors.

affairs of the camp, and in that legislation that depends on a swift, clear eye and a strong, rapid arm-Cromwell was the man! He distributed arms in the town of Cambridge, which he represented. He raised a troop of horse out of that county and Huntingdonshire; and, as soon as he received his commission as captain, he began his career of conquest. It is believed that here he struck the first severe blows at the Royal party; for he seized the magazine of Cambridge for the use of the Parliament; and by stopping a quantity of plate on its way from the University to the king at York, he cut off the expected supplies. He utterly prevented the raising of a force for the king in the eastern counties; and arrested the High Sheriff of Hertfordshire at the very moment the latter was about to publish the proclamation of the king, declaring “the Parliament commanders all traitors!" The discipline of his troops, their bravery, and their sobriety, have been the admiration of men ever since.

It was about this time that the appellations of "Cavalier" and "Roundhead" came into general use to denote the opposite parties. The former, it is well known, designated the king's friends; and of the origin of the latter, Mrs. Hutchinson gives the following account:

"When Puritanism grew into a faction, the zealots distinguished themselves, both men and women, by several affections of habit, looks, and words, which, had it been a real declension of vanity, and embracing