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Anxiety may have produced paralysis, but also creativity and activism. Lilly, Edwards, Williams and Milton all spoke to this uncertainty in creative ways. Many more were silent – undecided, passive or immobilized by doubt or circumstance. Efforts to convince and mobilize that silent body of opinion not only pedalled particular views, but made claims about authenticity. Expert, detailed witnessing helped to establish what had happened, as in the published autopsy of John Pym; on that basis it was possible also to try to establish a clear interpretation of the meaning and direction of events. Lilly did it with a science, Laud with a martyr’s death. The meaning of all the deaths was central to understanding the meaning of the war; and it created both anxiety and creativity.

13

Naseby and the End of the War

The Triumph of the New Model Army

Uncertainties about what the war was for were reflected in the politics surrounding the formation of the New Model. Negotiations over the enabling legislation had been fraught, but also pragmatic. The army was created in response to a crisis in Parliament’s southern forces – the surrender at Lostwithiel, dissensions within the Eastern Association and problems of supply and mobility in Waller’s army. Tense parliamentary consideration of reform had been closely connected with the future of Essex’s command, and the increasingly open religious conflict within the Eastern Association army. But these were not the reasons, or at least not the only reasons, for the creation of the army – although Essex, moderates and Presbyterians had the worst of the exchanges everyone had recognized the need for reform of the southern army. The New Model was not the armed wing of Independency, either in its original inception or in its actual formation.1

Pragmatism and statesmanship, as well as partisan struggle, were also evident in putting together the new army. Wherever possible, existing regiments were kept intact and some care was taken to balance commands between men of differing religious and political views. Nonetheless, there was an exodus of Scottish officers, which had an effect on the complexion of the army. The tense to-ing and fro-ing between the Houses over the officer list looks like House of Lords intervention against known radicals and in favour of a continuing role for the peers in overseeing the war effort.2

Sensitivities concerning these issues had re-emerged over the question of Fairfax’s commission and Oliver Cromwell’s eventual exemption from the Self-Denying Ordinance. There had been immediate difficulties in naming commanders for the new army since nearly all of the experienced and successful parliamentary commanders then in the field were excluded. Candidates for the overall command were therefore in short supply. Massey and Skippon were eligible since they were not MPs, but Massey’s allegiance was not completely certain. He had been a royalist in 1642 and in 1643 had been rumoured to be ready to hand Gloucester over to the King. The choice eventually fell on Sir Thomas Fairfax, only thirty-two years old but with a dashing military reputation and unaffected by Self-Denial. His appointment as Lord-General had been one way of achieving Self-Denial without getting the measure passed – simply to form a new army which did not include the existing command. It was, therefore, a not-so-oblique approach to the difficulty of displacing Essex. Fairfax was later known as a moderate Presbyterian, but he was also known to favour vigorous prosecution of the war in order to force the King to reasonable terms. A measure of the political charge these decisions carried is that the vote was passed only by 101 to 69, and that the tellers for Fairfax were Cromwell and Sir Henry Vane (a rising star who favoured vigorous prosecution of the war and liberty for the sects), those against Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapleton (who were to lead attempts to achieve a Presbyterian settlement in 1647).3

Such political difficulties had slowed down the formation of the new army. The New Model Ordinance