Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/160

 did his duty, let angry Denzil say what he will. The Fight was indecisive; victory claimed by both sides. Captain Cromwell told Cousin Hampden, They never would get on with a set of poor tapsters and town-apprentice people fighting against men of honour. ‘To cope with men of honour they must have men of religion. ‘Mr. Hampden answered me, It was a good notion, if it could be executed.’ Oliver himself set about executing a bit of it, his share of it, by and by.

‘We all thought one battle would decide it,’ says Richard Baxter; —and we were all much mistaken! This winter there arise among certain Counties ‘Associations’ for mutual defence, against Royalism and plunderous Rupertism; a measure cherished by the Parliament, condemned as treasonable by the King. Of which ‘Associations,’ countable to the number of five or six, we name only one, that of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Herts; with Lord Grey of Wark for Commander; where, and under whom, Oliver was now serving. This ‘Eastern Association’ is alone worth naming. All the other Associations, no man of emphasis being in the midst of them, fell in few months to pieces; only this of Cromwell’s subsisted, enlarged itself, grew famous;—and indeed kept its own borders clear of invasion during the whole course of the War. Oliver, in the beginning of 1643, is serving there, under the Lord Grey of Wark. Besides his military duties, Oliver, as natural, was nominated of the Committee for Cambridgeshire in this Association; he is also of the Committee for Huntingdonshire, which as yet belongs to another ‘Association.’ Member for the Committee of Huntingdonshire; to which also has been nominated a ‘Robert Barnard, Esquire,’ —who, however, does not sit, as I have reason to surmise!