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 gether his actions and his sayings, came to believe that ‘these miscarriages were caused not by accident or carelessness only, but through backwardness to all action, and that backwardness grounded on some principle of unwillingness to have the war prosecuted to a full victory.’ On 25 Nov. he laid before the House of Commons a charge to that effect, supporting it by an account of Manchester’s operations from the battle of Marston Moor to the relief of Donnington Castle (, v. 732; Manchester’s Quarrel with Cromwell, 78). Manchester replied by a narrative vindicating his generalship (, v. 733–6), and by bringing before the lords a countercharge against Cromwell for offensive and incendiary language on various occasions. His expressions were sometimes against the nobility; he said that he hoped to live to see never a nobleman in England. He had expressed himself with contempt of the assembly of divines, and said that they persecuted honester men than themselves. His animosity against the Scots was such that he told Manchester that 'in the way they now carried themselves pressing for their discipline, he could as soon draw his sword against them as against any in the king’s army.’ Finally he had avowed that he desired to have none but independents in the army of the eastern association, ‘that in case there should be propositions for peace, or any conclusion of a peace such as might not stand with those ends that honest men should aim at, this army might prevent such a mischief’ (Camden Miscellany, viii.) Those sayings should not be considered as the malignant exaggerations of an enemy; there can be little doubt that they represent genuine specimens of the plain speaking in which Cromwell was wont to indulge.

The publication of Cromwell’s sayings was at the moment an effective answer to his narrative of Manchester’s conduct. It enlisted on his side the Scots, the presbyterians, and the House of Lords. The Scots and the English presbyterians immediately took counsel together on the possibility of indicting Cromwell as an ‘incendiary’ who strove to break the union of the two nations (, Memorials, f. 116). ‘We must crave reason of that darling of the sectaries and obtain his removal from the army,’ wrote Baillie to Scotland (Letters, ii. 245). Just as the commons had appointed a committee to inquire into Manchester’s conduct, so the lords appointed one to inquire into that of Cromwell, and a quarrel between the two houses on the question of privilege was on the point of breaking out. Once more Cromwell drew back, for to press his accusation was to risk not only himself but also his cause. As in the case of Crawford, he abandoned his attack on the individual to concentrate his efforts on the attainment of the principle. The idea of the necessity of a professional army under a professional general had already occurred to others. The first suggestion of the New Model is to be traced in a letter of Sir William Waller to Essex (, History of the Great Civil War, i. 454). Only a few days earlier the House of Commons had referred to the committee of both kingdoms ‘upon the consideration of the state and condition of the armies, as now disposed and commanded, to consider of a frame or model of the whole militia and present it to the house, as may put the forces into such posture as may be most advantageous for the service of the public’ (Commons’ Journals, 23 Nov. 1644).

Seizing the opportunity thus afforded, Cromwell on 9 Dec. urged the House of Commons to consider rather the remedies than the causes of recent miscarriages. He reduced the charge against Manchester from intentional backwardness to accidental oversights, which could rarely be avoided in military affairs, on which he begged the house not to insist. The one thing needful was to save a bleeding, almost dying, kingdom by a more speedy, vigorous, and effectual prosecution of the war, which was to be obtained by removing members of both houses from command, and by putting the army ‘into another method.’ ‘I hope,’ he concluded, ‘that no members of either house will scruple to deny themselves and their own private interests for the public good’ (, vi. 6). These words struck the keynote of the debate with the vote that no member of should hold military command during the rest of the war.

Before the Self-denying Ordinance had struggled through the upper house, but after the lords had accepted the bill for new modelling the army, Cromwell was again in the field. Under Waller’s command he was ordered into the west (27 Feb. 1645) to relieve Taunton, succeeded in temporarily effecting that object, and captured a regiment of the king’s horse in Wiltshire (Commons’ Journals;, Burning Bush, 123). Waller has left an interesting account of Cromwell’s behaviour as a subordinate. ‘At this time he had never shown extraordinary parts, nor do I think he did himself believe that he had them; for although he was blunt he did not bear himself with pride or disdain. As an officer he was obedient, and did never dispute my orders or argue upon them’ (Recollections).