Both Pym and Hampden died in the second year of the war,
and henceforth the leadership of the parliamentary party fell to Oliver
Cromwell. He was a country gentleman from the east of England, and Hampden's
cousin. Cromwell represented the university of Cambridge in the Long Parliament
and displayed there great audacity in opposing the government. An unfriendly
critic at this time describes "his countenance swollen and reddish, his
voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervor." Though a
zealous Puritan, who believed himself in all sincerity to be the chosen agent
of the Lord, Cromwell was not an ascetic. He hunted, hawked, played bowls, and
other games, had an ear for music, and valued art and learning. In public life
he showed himself a statesman of much insight and a military genius.
THE "IRONSIDES" AND THE "NEW MODEL"
At the outset of the war fortune favored the royalists,
until Cromwell took the field. To him was due the formation of a cavalry
regiment of "honest, sober Christians," whose watchwords were texts
from Scripture and who charged in battle while singing psalms. These
"Ironsides," as Cromwell said, "had the fear of God before them
and made some conscience of what they did." They were so successful that
Parliament permitted Cromwell to reorganize a large part of the army into the
"New Model," a body of professional, highly disciplined soldiers. The
"New Model" defeated Charles decisively at the battle of Naseby, near
the center of England (1645 A.D.). Charles then surrendered to the Scotch, who
soon turned him over to Parliament.
