Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/196

 calls upon the Scots for help; who, under conditions, will consent.

In these circumstances, it was rather thought a piece of heroism in our old friend Lord Kimbolton, or Mandevil, now become Earl of Manchester, to accept the command of the Eastern Association: he is nominated ‘Sergeant-Major of the Associated Counties,’ 10th August 1643; is to raise new force, infantry and cavalry; has four Colonels of Horse under him; Colonel Cromwell, who soon became his second in command, is one of them; Colonel Norton, whom we shall meet afterwards, is another. ‘The Associated Counties are busy listing,’ intimates the old Newspaper; ‘and so soon as their harvest is over, which for the present much retardeth them, the Earl of Manchester will have a very brave and considerable Army, to be a terror to the Northern Papists,’ Newarkers and Newcastles, ‘if they advance Southward.’ When specially it was that Cromwell listed his celebrated body of Ironsides is of course not to be dated, though some do carelessly date it, as from the very ‘beginning of the War’; and in Bates and others are to be found various romantic details on the subject, which deserve no credit. Doubtless Cromwell, all along, in the many changes his body of men underwent, had his eye upon this object of getting good soldiers and dismissing bad; and managed the matter by common practical vigilance, not by theatrical clap-traps as Dr. Bates represents. Some months ago, it was said in the Newspapers, of Colonel Cromwell’s soldiers, ‘not a man swears but he pays his twelvepence’; no plundering, no drinking, disorder, or impiety allowed. We may fancy, in this new levy, as Manchester’s Lieutenant and Governor of Ely, when the whole force was again winnowed and sifted, he might complete the process, and see his Thousand Troopers ranked before him, worthy at last of the name of Ironsides. They