Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/353

 ii s. XL MAY i, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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concerned. At the proper time and in the proper place. I hope to give my reasons for passing a much severer judgment upon Gardiner.

(a) MODERN AUTHORITIES AND THEIR DATA. Two modern works should be mentioned.

(1) The first is Dr. C. H. Firth's ' Cromwell's Army,' a learned work of research which does not attempt to explain the term " Iron- aides." On p. 119 (ed. 1912) there is a reference, " Cromwell's Ironsides, the typical cavalry regiment of the Eastern Association, had rio carbines."

(2) The second modern work of research is the ' New English Dictionary,' edited by Sir Jas. Murray. I am reluctant even to seem to belittle this most valuable compila- tion, but cannot help saying that its article "Ironside Ironsides " ought to be rewritten, and its quotations corrected. I have ana- lyzed arid verified this article as follows :

" IRONSIDE also (sing.) IRONSIDES. 1. Sing.

A name given to a man of great hardihood or bravery [italics mine] ; spec, in Eng. Hist. (Ironside) to Edmund II., king of England (A.D. 1016), and (also Ironsides) to Oliver Cromwell ; also, independently or transf., to other persons. In the case of Crom- well the appellation was a nickname of Royalist origin."

The definition has been dictated by Gardiner, as far as Cromwell arid his men are con- cerned, like the article on " Ironsides " in the tenth edition of ' The Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica ' (which candidly refers to Gardiner and to no one else). The improbability of the supposition that Kupert and the Royal- ists would apply such a laudatory term as " Ironside " (in the singular) to one upon <whom, at that time, they were exhausting terms of abuse (see Cleveland's ' Character of a London Diurnall ' ), has not been taken into consideration.

The ' N.E.D.'s ' first two instances of the singular are mediaeval ones, applied to Edmund II. I am only interested in point- ing out that the plural was never applied to Edmund Ironside. Then follows :

(3) " a 1635. Corbet,' Poems," To Ld. Mordant,' 154, One [of the guard at Windsor] I remember

with a grisly beard This Ironside tooke hold,

and sodainly Hurled mee....Some twelve foote by the square."

Bishop Richard Corbet's poems were first published in 1647. The Dictionary gives the date as a 1 635. The list of abbreviations shows that a stands for ante. From the spelling, the quotation has probably been taken from a MS. among the Ashmolean MSS., though " Ironside " is also used in the first printed edition. Corbet uses the word " Ironside "

sarcastically. Therefore it should be noticed that in the next edition of 1672 " Ironsides " has been substituted, probably because it was used for Cromwell, and was still more contemptuous at that date.

Then follows the first instance applied to Cromwell (as in my first article) :

(4) " 1644. Mercurius Civicus, 19-26 Sept., Monday we had intelligence that Lieutenant General Cromwell, alias Ironside, for that title was given him by Prince Rupert after his defeat neare York," &c.

Now this is the only known instance of the singular having been applied to Cromwell. Rupert must have used the plural ; how, otherwise, does it happen that the term was never again applied to Cromwell ?

The Parliamentary newsbook merely gives a piece of gossip hearsay evidence which it has confused with its writer's own reminis- cence of Edmund Ironside, and the mistake is a very natural one. The writer did not know the meaning of " Ironsides " at the time. Rupert never paid any compliment to Cromwell, and was fche last person to have done so after his defeat at Marston Moor.

(5) " 1645. Relation of Victory on Naseby Field ' in Eng. Hist. Rev. (1899) 17', News being brought them .... that Ironsides was comming to joyne with the Parliament's Army."

(This is ERASDON'S instance.)

I have been unable to trace this quotation in The English Historical Review, nor is it on p. 17 of the 1899 volume. But it merely proves that the plural was applied to Crom- well. ^ S. R. Gardiner rather inferred the contrary. Later on I shall give three entirely new instances of the plural applied to Crom- well alone.

(6) " 1647. Trapp, ' Comm. Acts,' xix. 9, So indefatigable a preacher was Paul, a very. . . .iron- sides."

The Dictionary here has omitted two words, and these two words are supplemented by the next sentence. John Trapp 's comment upon Acts xix. 9 runs, in full :

" So indefatigable a preacher was Paul, a very XaX/cevrepos or Ironsides. He had a golden wit in an iron body, as one saith of Jul. Scaliger."

" Brazenbo welled," "ironsides," or "an iron body " ; all clearly referring to physical endurance and not to moral qualities, with which they are coupled ! What better refutation could there be of the Dictionary's definition as regards Cromwell ?

(7) " 1660. Burney, K^5. Aupov (1661), 97,

Henrie the 8 who appeared an ironsidea

against the Principalities of darknesse."

But ' Ke/oSwrrov Aw/oov, King Charles II. represented to the Houses of Parliament