The “New Model” army which Fairfax commanded had a better chance of success than that of Essex. Essex had failed partly through incapacity, but partly because his forces were never properly maintained or recruited. His regiments melted away without much fighting, because their pay was always in arrears and their supplies irregular and insufficient. But now Parliament had rectified the worst defects of its financial system, and provided for the regular payment of the soldiers during the campaign by a monthly assessment levied on all the counties under its power. The new army consisted of eleven regiments of horse, each numbering six hundred men, twelve regiments of foot, each of twelve hundred, with a thousand dragoons, and a small train of artillery. About half the infantry was composed of men who had served under Essex, Manchester, and Waller; the rest were pressed-men raised by the county authorities. Of the cavalry, more than half was drawn from the former army of 122the Eastern Association. Cromwell’s old regiment was made into two, one commanded by his cousin, Edward Whalley, the other by Sir Thomas Fairfax himself.
Fairfax owed his appointment partly to his military reputation, partly to his freedom from political objections. He was religious, but the question whether he was a Presbyterian or an Independent was a riddle none had solved. Though he had served a campaign in Holland, his real training-school had been the long struggle with Newcastle and the northern Royalists. Swift marches and dashing attacks, resourcefulness in difficulties and persistency in defeats had made him famous. “Black Tom” was the idol of his troopers, and whilst friends complained that he exposed himself too recklessly, enemies spoke of his “irrational and brutish valour,” and denied him all higher qualities. He was looked upon as essentially a leader of cavalry, and his selection as General instead of Lieutenant-General surprised even his friends. To most of the officers of his army, Fairfax was unknown, except by reputation. When he took up his command, they saw a man of about thirty-three, tall in stature and very dark, with the scars of old wounds upon his face. His bearing was quiet and reserved, but it was soon observed that though he said little in council he was very tenacious of his opinions, and very prompt in acting upon them. In battle he seemed transformed, threw off his reserve, lost his stammer, and was all fire, energy, and decision.
SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX.
(From the painting by Gerard Zoust.)
Skippon had been made Major-General of the army 123to supply the scientific knowledge and the long experience which the commander-in-chief lacked, but the second place in the army was still unfilled, for no lieutenant-general had been appointed to command the horse. There can be little doubt that it was designedly left open in order that Cromwell might fill it.
Ever since March, Cromwell had been employed in his expedition to the west. On the 19th of April, he returned to the headquarters at Windsor in order to take leave of Fairfax, and to lay down his commission as the Self-Denying Ordinance required. Next morning, a letter came from the Committee of Both Kingdoms giving him fresh duty to do. The King was about to take the field and the “New Model” was not ready to fight him. Ever since the beginning of April, Fairfax had been labouring hard at the reorganisation of the army, but recruits were slow in coming in, and the obstructiveness of the Lords had thrown all preparations back. The most efficient part of the army and the readiest for immediate action was the brigade of cavalry Cromwell had brought back from the west, and with it he was now despatched to Oxfordshire to prevent the King from joining Prince Rupert. Charles lay at Oxford with part of the royal army, including the artillery train; Rupert with the rest, and with the bulk of the cavalry, was quartered about Hereford and Worcester. Cromwell set out at once, and at daybreak on April 24th he routed three regiments of the King’s horse at Islip, killing two hundred and taking two hundred prisoners. Part of the fugitives took refuge 124in Blechington House, which Cromwell at once attacked and forced, under threat of an assault, to surrender. By the terms granted, the garrison were allowed to retire to Oxford, but had to give up their horses and arms. “I did much doubt the storming of the house,” wrote Cromwell in explanation, “it being strong and well manned, and I having few dragoons, and this not being my business.” Two days later, at Bampton in the Bush, he intercepted a regiment of foot marching from Faringdon to Oxford, took a couple of hundred, and killed or scattered the rest. On the 29th, he appeared before Faringdon House, and made an attempt to storm it, but was repulsed with loss. In spite of this check, Cromwell had effected the work he was sent to do. The King’s march was stopped. His cavalry was shattered by defeats, and his artillery could not be moved because Cromwell had swept up all the draught-horses in the country round. Charles was obliged to summon Goring’s cavalry from the west to cover his junction with Rupert, and could not start till the 7th of May.
Meanwhile Fairfax had got his army into marching order, and on May 1st, leaving Cromwell to observe the King, he set out to relieve Taunton. His operations were determined not by his own judgment, but by the orders of the Committee of Both Kingdoms. Half-way to Taunton he got fresh orders instructing him to send a brigade to relieve it, and to turn back with the rest of his troops to besiege Oxford. For a fortnight therefore he invested Oxford, limiting himself to a blockade because his siege train had not come up, and without heavy guns and 125intrenching tools he could do nothing more. During these weeks Rupert and the King with nine thousand or ten thousand men were marching unopposed about the midlands. On May 15th, Charles took Hawkesley House in Worcestershire, and then turned north to relieve Chester, but heard on his way that the siege was raised. Some of his advisers urged him to march north still in order to relieve Pontefract and beat Leven and the Scots; others proposed a raid into the Eastern Association. But reports of the danger of Oxford kept him in the south, and as a diversion it was resolved to attack Leicester. On May 31st, that city was stormed and sacked by the King’s army.
The King’s movements had completely upset the plans of the Committee of Both Kingdoms. As soon as the news of the capture of Leicester came, Fairfax was ordered to leave Oxford, and to march against the King. Taught by experience, the amateur strategists of the Committee left him free to order his movements as he thought fit, and removed all limitations they had before imposed. In the alarm caused by the King’s successes, public opinion imperatively called for Cromwell’s employment. All felt he was too necessary to be spared. On May 10th, Parliament had prolonged his command for another forty days. On the 28th, when the King threatened the eastern counties, Cromwell was sent in hot haste to Ely to see to their defence. A week later London petitioned that he might have power to raise and command all the forces of the Association. Finally, on June 10th, Fairfax and his council 126of war petitioned Parliament to appoint Cromwell Lieutenant-General. For they were now advanced within a few miles of the King’s position, and Fairfax had a great body of horse, but no general officer to command it in the coming battle. No one but Cromwell would do, urged Fairfax.
“The general esteem and affection which he hath both with the officers and soldiers of this whole army, his own personal worth and ability for the employment, his great care, diligence, courage, and faithfulness in the services you have already employed him in, with the constant presence and blessing of God that have accompanied him, make us look upon it as the duty we owe to you and the public, to make it our suit.”
The Lords made no answer to this unwelcome petition, but the Commons agreed to the appointment for so long a time as Cromwell was needed in the army. So, on June 13th, Cromwell rode into Fairfax’s camp with six hundred horse from the Association, and was welcomed by the soldiers “with a mighty shout.” “Ironsides,” they cried, “is come to head us,” calling him by the name which Rupert had given him after the battle of Marston Moor.
In the King’s camp there were great divisions of opinion. Rupert, the commander-in-chief, advocated one course, and the King’s civilian advisers another. Charles hesitated and delayed till he found Fairfax at his heels, and then he was forced to fight. On June 14th, the two armies met. Rupert’s original intention had been to deliver a defensive battle in a chosen position at Harborough, but his scouts 127deluded him into the belief that Fairfax’s troops were retiring, and he advanced to find them drawing up in battle order on a high plateau in front of the little village of Naseby. The King’s army amounted at most to about five thousand horse and four thousand or five thousand foot. Fairfax had thirteen thousand men, of whom six thousand were horse. In spite of these odds, the Royalists expected an easy victory. Many of the parliamentary foot were raw conscripts, whilst the King’s were old soldiers. Charles himself spoke confidently of beating “the rebels’ new brutish general” as he had beaten the experienced Essex, and even supporters of the Parliament had little faith in their untried army. “Never,” wrote one, “did any army go forth to war who had less of the confidence of their own friends, or were more the objects of the contempt of their enemies.” But Cromwell, for his part, had no doubts of the issue of the battle.
“I can say this of Naseby,” he wrote a month later. “When I saw the enemy draw up and march in gallant order towards us, and we a company of poor, ignorant men, to seek how to order our battle—the General having commanded me to order all the horse—I could not, riding alone about my business, but smile out to God in praises, in assurance of victory, because God would, by things that are not, bring to naught things that are. Of which I had great assurance, and God did it.”
As the royalist line advanced, Fairfax’s artillery fired a few shots, which went high and did no execution. The King’s guns were too far behind to do 128any service. The foot on each side fired one volley, and then charged each other with levelled pikes and clubbed muskets. So fierce was the onset of the royalist infantry that four out of the five regiments in Fairfax’s front line gave way before it. Skippon’s regiment was broken, its lieutenant-colonel killed, and Skippon himself severely wounded. But Fairfax’s own regiment stood its ground, and the second line, coming up, drove the Royalists back and gave the broken regiments time to rally.
Still worse fared Colonel Ireton and the left wing of the parliamentary horse. Ireton’s five regiments advanced to meet Rupert, but their charge was badly delivered and badly supported. At the outset, Ireton himself gained a temporary success, but, turning prematurely to attack a regiment of foot, he was unhorsed, wounded, and for a short time a prisoner. Rupert pushed his advantage with his usual vigour, and, not content with driving Ireton’s horse from the field, attacked the train and the baggage guard of the Parliamentarians behind Naseby. As they stood firm he abandoned the attempt, and returned to see how the battle went on the plateau.
During this time, the horse of the parliamentary right wing under Cromwell decided the fate of the day. Cromwell did not wait to be charged by Sir Marmaduke Langdale, but met his horsemen as they advanced, and after a stiff struggle swept them back in disorder, and forced them to take shelter behind their reserve. Cromwell’s troopers, said an eye-witness, were like a torrent, driving all before them. 129Charles put himself at the head of his guards and the rest of the reserve, and prepared to lead a desperate charge against the advancing Roundheads. “Will you go upon your death?” said a nobleman, seizing his bridle rein; so the guards halted, and wheeled about, and drew back for a quarter of a mile from the field. Leaving four regiments to keep them in check, Cromwell with the rest of his horse, and with what he could collect of Ireton’s, turned to fall upon the royalist centre. The royalist infantry fought with great tenacity, but, attacked simultaneously by horse and foot, they were soon broken, and regiment after regiment laid down its arms. A brigade of bluecoats stood “with incredible courage and resolution” beating back charge after charge with their pikes. At last Cromwell charged one face of the square with Fairfax’s regiment of foot, while Fairfax, bareheaded, led his life-guard against another. It too was broken, and Fairfax took the colours with his own hand. Of the King’s infantry, scarcely a man escaped capture.
Fairfax halted the victorious cavalry till the main body of his foot came up, and then, forming a fresh line of battle, ordered a general advance. The King’s guards and Langdale’s routed horse had now been joined by Rupert’s victorious troopers, and were drawn up to make a second charge. But discouraged as they were, and without artillery or foot to support them, their position was hopeless. In a few moments they wavered and broke, and every man, turning his horse’s head towards Leicester, rode as hard as he could.
130The pursuit lasted some thirteen miles. Nearly five thousand prisoners, more than one hundred colours, all of the King’s baggage and artillery, and his private papers fell into the hands of the victors. Leicester surrendered four days later, and Fairfax, leaving the King to take refuge in Wales, set forth in haste to engage General Goring and the western army. At the news of his approach, Goring raised the blockade of Taunton, and took up his position about ten miles from Bridgwater, with his front covered by the rivers Yeo and Parret. The two armies came into collision near Langport on July 10th. Goring had posted his men on the brow of a hill, with enclosures and a marshy valley in their front. There was a ford across the little stream at the bottom of the valley, and a lane led up the hill to the open ground at the top where Goring’s cavalry stood, while the hedges and enclosures on each side of the lane were filled with his musketeers. Intending to retreat to Bridgwater, Goring had sent thither his baggage, and all his guns but two.
Langport was one of the few battles of the Civil War in which field artillery played an important part. Fairfax began by overwhelming Goring’s two guns with the fire of his own, and forcing the cavalry to move farther back and leave their musketeers unsupported. Then he ordered forward fifteen hundred musketeers, who, advancing down one hillside and up the other, drove Goring’s skirmishers from hedge to hedge, and cleared the enclosures. Finally, under Cromwell’s direction, six troops of horse (all drawn from Cromwell’s own old regiment) dashed through 131the ford, and up the lane at Goring’s cavalry. Major Bethell headed the charge, which he performed, writes Cromwell, “with the greatest gallantry imaginable,” and Major Desborough seconded him with equal courage. Bethell beat back two bodies of Goring’s horse and “brake them at sword point”; but, oppressed with numbers, his three troops were being driven back when Desborough and the other three came up to relieve them. Then they charged again, and both together routed another body of Goring’s horse. At the same time, Fairfax’s musketeers, coming close up to the cavalry, poured in their shot, and Goring’s men began to run. Cromwell halted Desborough and Bethell on the ground they had won, allowing no pursuit till the rest of the horse joined them. Two miles farther back, the royalist cavalry made another stand, but one charge proved sufficient, and they were sent flying towards Bridgwater. Through the burning streets of Langport Cromwell dashed after them, capturing during the chase both their two guns and fourteen hundred prisoners.
Immediately after his victory, Fairfax laid siege to Bridgwater. Like Gustavus Adolphus, his method was to risk an assault wherever success seemed possible, rather than to spend time on elaborate siege works. The part of the town on the east bank of the Parret was taken by escalade on July 21st, and the other half surrendered after a short bombardment. The possession of Bridgwater, added to that of Taunton, Langport, and Lyme, gave Fairfax a line of garrisons which cut off Cornwall and Devon 132from the rest of England, and confined what remained of Goring’s army to those two counties. He turned back, therefore, to complete the conquest of the west by taking the strongholds he had left in his rear. Bath was captured on July 29th, the strong castle of Sherborne stormed after a fortnight’s siege on August 15th, and a week later Bristol was invested. Rupert with thirty-five hundred men held the city, but its fortifications were very extensive, and in many places weak. On September 10th, about one o’clock in the morning, Fairfax made a general assault on the whole circuit of the works, and by daybreak the most important fort and a mile of the line were in his possession. Rupert had no choice but to capitulate at once.
Cromwell was now put in command of four regiments of foot and three of horse, and sent to clear Wiltshire and Hampshire of hostile garrisons. Devizes and Laycock House surrendered to him on September 23rd; Winchester cost a week’s siege, but gave in as soon as a breach was made. “You see,” wrote Cromwell to the Speaker, “God is not weary in doing you good. His favour to you is as visible, when He comes by His power upon the hearts of your enemies, making them quit places of strength to you, as when He gives courage to your soldiers to attempt hard things.” Basing House, the next place attacked, was very strong, had stood many sieges, and was garrisoned by determined men. Its owner, the Marquis of Winchester, was a Catholic, and many of its defenders were of the same creed. Cromwell breached its walls with his cannon and ordered a 133storm. The night before it, he spent much time in prayer. “He seldom fights,” said his chaplain, “without some text of Scripture to support him.” This time his eye fell upon a text in the Psalms foretelling the doom of idols and idolaters—“They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that putteth his trust in them.” To a Puritan it seemed a promise of certain victory, and Cromwell gave the word to assault in complete assurance of success. His soldiers “fell on with great resolution and cheerfulness,” clapped their scaling ladders to the walls, beat the enemy from their works, and made the house their own. Some three hundred of the garrison were killed, and about as many taken prisoners, while the house itself was thoroughly sacked by the soldiers, and then burnt. “I thank God,” wrote Cromwell to the Speaker, “I can give you a good account of Basing.”
At the end of October, Cromwell, having completed his task, joined Fairfax before Exeter. Except Devon and Cornwall, all the west had now been cleared of the Royalists. On the Welsh border, the King had Worcester and Hereford and a number of smaller places, but Chester was besieged, and in the north Newark was the only important fortress in his possession. Between these different places and his headquarters at Oxford, Charles, attended by two or three thousand horse, had aimlessly wandered, since his defeat at Naseby. At first, he thought of joining Goring and Prince Charles in the west, but Langport put an end to that plan. In August, he tried a raid into the Eastern Association, and took and plundered 134Huntingdon. In September, the rumour of his approach led Leven and the Scots to raise the siege of Hereford. More than once the King thought of joining Montrose in Scotland. In September, 1644, Montrose had begun the marvellous series of victories which threatened to oblige the Covenanters to withdraw their army from England. He beat them at Tippermuir, Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Auldearne, and Alford, and dreamt of subduing all Scotland and coming to the assistance of the King. At Kilsyth, on August 15, 1645, he won a still greater and more decisive victory than all the rest. Glasgow was occupied; Edinburgh and the south of Scotland submitted; the Covenanting leaders took refuge at Berwick. Montrose sent a triumphant message to the King saying that he would soon cross the border with twenty thousand men. But his Highlanders went home with their plunder, the Lowland Scots declined to enlist under his banner, and he had less than two thousand men with him when David Leslie, with four thousand horse from the Scottish army in England, surprised his little force at Philiphaugh, and cut it in pieces (September 13th). Ignorant of this disaster, Charles set out from Raglan Castle with three thousand horse to join Montrose. At Rowton Heath, on September 24th, he was defeated by Major-General Poyntz in an attempt to relieve Chester, and lost nine hundred men. Forced to abandon the plan of marching north through Lancashire, the King made his way to Newark, and thence, in November, back to Oxford. From Newark, Lord Digby made a desperate attempt to 135get to Scotland, but the sole result was the loss of the fifteen hundred horse he took with him.
From a military point of view, the King’s position was now utterly hopeless. If after Naseby he had collected the men wasted in petty garrisons he could have got together a force sufficient to meet the “New Model” in the field. But he neglected the moment, one after another his garrisons were taken, and his new levies were scattered before they could combine. His generals lost hope, and while the quarrels of Goring and Grenville paralysed the King’s western army, Rupert urged his uncle to make peace. Charles obstinately refused to listen either to him or to the rest of the peace party.
“If I had any other quarrel but the defence of my religion, crown, and friends,” wrote Charles, “you had full reason for your advice; for I must confess that speaking as a mere soldier or statesman, there is no probability but of my ruin. Yet as a Christian I must tell you that God will not suffer rebels to prosper, nor His cause to be overthrown, and whatever personal punishment it shall please Him to inflict upon me must not make me repine, much less give over this quarrel.”
The nation in general was weary of the war and impatient for peace. In the west and the south of England the country people began to form associations in order to keep all armed men of either party out of their districts, and to put an end to free quarter and the plunder of their cattle. In the south-west, these “Clubmen,” as they were called, fell under the influence of royalist agents, but generally they remained neutral. When Fairfax marched 136into Dorsetshire, he employed Cromwell to disperse gathering after gathering of rustics armed with clubs and muskets.
“I assured them,” wrote Cromwell to Fairfax, “that it was your great care, not to suffer them in the least to be plundered, and that they should defend themselves from violence, and bring to your army such as did them any wrong, where they should be punished with all severity; upon this very quietly and peaceably they marched away to their houses, being very well satisfied and contented.”
Another body fired on Cromwell’s men, and had to be dispersed by a cavalry charge. Some dozen were killed, and about three hundred made prisoners—“poor silly creatures” whom he released with an admonition. The moderation and just dealing of Cromwell and Fairfax, and the excellent discipline of their soldiers, speedily restored confidence. The countrymen came to perceive that the best hope of peace lay in the triumph of the Parliament. At the siege of Bristol, the Clubmen of the neighbourhood helped in the investment of the city, and at its surrender Rupert had to be guarded to prevent their taking vengeance for the plunderings he had sanctioned.
The feeling in favour of the parliamentary cause was still further strengthened by the discovery of the King’s negotiations for the introduction of foreign forces into England. The letters taken at Naseby in June showed that the King was negotiating with the Duke of Lorraine to send an army of ten thousand men into England. Those captured 137when Digby was defeated in his attempt to reach Scotland proved that Charles was trying to get troops from Denmark. In October, some more captured correspondence revealed a treaty made with the Irish rebels in the previous August, by which they were to furnish Charles with ten thousand men in return for the legal establishment of Catholicism in Ireland. Finally, in January, 1646, Fairfax intercepted letters from royalist agents in France concerning five thousand Frenchmen who were to be landed in the west. These successive discoveries alienated men who had fought for the King, and turned neutrals into supporters of the Parliament.
It was to anticipate any such landing of foreign forces in England that Fairfax took the field so early in 1646. During the last two months of 1645 he had been blockading Exeter, but at the beginning of January, though the snow was on the ground and there was a hard frost, a general advance was ordered. The royalist forces in Cornwall and Devon numbered not less than twelve thousand men, besides the garrisons, but, as Clarendon confesses, they were a “dissolute, undisciplined, wicked, beaten army,” more formidable to their friends than to their foes. Goring, to whose misconduct this disorganisation was due, had resigned his command at the end of 1645, and the brave and blameless Hopton, who succeeded him, could effect nothing with such troops. In two months, the resistance of the west collapsed. Cromwell opened the campaign by surprising Lord Wentworth’s brigade at Bovey Tracy on January 9th; Wentworth and most of his men escaped in the 138darkness, but four hundred horses were taken, and the whole brigade scattered. Ten days later, Fairfax took the strong fortress of Dartmouth by storm, capturing one hundred guns and over one thousand prisoners. On February 16th, a chance collision between outposts at Torrington in North Devon developed into a general engagement in which Hopton was driven from the town with the loss of six hundred men, and his infantry were completely dispersed. Hopton had still about five thousand horse left, so, in spite of the sufferings of his soldiers from hard marches and winter weather, Fairfax resolved to follow him into Cornwall, “the breaking of that body of horse there being the likeliest means to prevent or discourage the landing of any foreign forces in those parts.” When he entered the county, the Cornishmen, won by his good treatment of his prisoners and by the good behaviour of his soldiers, offered no opposition. Hopton’s troopers deserted daily, and those who stayed by their colours had no fight left in them. The Prince of Wales and his councillors fled to the Channel Islands, and on the 14th of March Hopton’s army capitulated. Fairfax wisely granted liberal terms, and every common soldier, on giving up horse and weapons, and promising not to bear arms any more against the Parliament, was given twenty shillings to carry him to his home.
From Cornwall, Fairfax now marched back to Exeter, which surrendered to him on April 9th, and thence to besiege Oxford, which he invested at the beginning of May. Cromwell stayed with Fairfax 139until Exeter fell, and then went to London at the General’s desire, to give Parliament an account of the state of the west. On April 23rd, he was thanked by the House of Commons for his “great and faithful services.” Rewards of another nature they had already conferred upon him. On December 1, 1645, the Commons, in drawing up the peace propositions to be offered to the King, had resolved that an estate of twenty-five hundred pounds a year should be settled on Lieutenant-General Cromwell, and that the King should be asked to make him a baron. The negotiations fell through, but on January 23rd the House ordered that the lands in Hampshire belonging to the Marquis of Worcester and his sons should be settled on Cromwell, and an ordinance for that purpose finally passed both Houses. As the rents of these lands fell short of the income promised, other estates of the same nobleman in Glamorganshire, Gloucestershire, and Monmouthshire were subsequently added to make up the sum.
Cromwell rejoined Fairfax at Oxford in time to take part in the negotiations for its surrender. Contemporary rumour attributed the leniency of the terms granted to the garrisons of Exeter and Oxford largely to his influence with Fairfax and the council of war. Oxford was strongly fortified, and it would have cost many men to take it, but, apart from this, there were political reasons of great weight which must have appealed to Cromwell. Just before Fairfax invested Oxford, King Charles escaped in disguise from the city, and took refuge in the camp of the Scottish army at Newark. For some 140months he had been negotiating with the Scots through the French Ambassador, and he hoped to be able to persuade them to adopt his cause against the English Parliament. There were rumours that the Scots meant to employ their army on his behalf, their complicity in his flight seemed proved, and an open breach between the two nations seemed more than possible. “The scurvy, base propositions which Cromwell has given to the Malignants of Oxford,” writes Baillie, “have offended many more than his former capitulation at Exeter; all seeing the evident design of these conscientious men to grant the greatest conditions to the worst men, that they may be expedited for their northern warfare.”
Even if the political situation had been otherwise, the necessity of healing the wounds of the war by liberal treatment of the conquered was an axiom with the army and its leaders. Politicians were as usual less generous than soldiers. The articles were reluctantly ratified by Parliament, and there were repeated complaints of their infringement. Cromwell and the officers of the army never ceased to represent that honour and policy alike demanded their exact observance. “There hath been of late a dispute about the Oxford articles,” said a royalist news-letter in February, 1648. “One gentleman being discontented at the largeness of them told the Lieutenant-General they should lose two hundred thousand pounds by keeping them; he replied they had better lose double as much than break one article.”
With the capitulation of Oxford on June 24, 1646, 141the war was over. Worcester, it is true, held out till July, and isolated castles in Wales, such as Raglan, Denbigh, and Harlech, for some months longer, but their reduction was only a question of a short time.
Cromwell left these little sieges to be conducted by others, and returned to his duties in Parliament. He removed his family from Ely to London, and took a house in Drury Lane, moving thence about a year later to King Street, Westminster. His household was diminished by the marriage of his two elder daughters. Bridget, the eldest, had married, on June 15, 1646, Commissary-General Henry Ireton, her father’s most trusted subordinate, and Elizabeth, Cromwell’s favourite daughter, became, on January 13, 1646, the wife of John Claypole, a Northamptonshire squire. Only the two youngest daughters, Mary and Frances, were still at home. Of his four sons, two were already dead: Robert died in May, 1639, before the war began, and Captain Oliver five years later, while serving in his father’s regiment. Richard, the elder of the two who survived, was now in Fairfax’s life-guard, and Henry, who was about nineteen, was a cornet or lieutenant in some cavalry regiment. Cromwell had offered his sons to the cause as freely as he gave himself to it.