God's Fury, England's Fire_ A New History of the English Civil Wars - Michael J. Braddick [224]
Both sides produced catechisms, short pamphlets explaining how fighting for one cause or another could be reconciled with a good Christian conscience. This was by 1645 apparently a successful publishing venture, with rival versions for sale in London. Parliamentarians were, for example, armed against the ‘base and absurd objection’ that they were in arms against the King: they sought ‘to rescue the King out of the hands of his and the Kingdom’s enemies’. Royalists, by contrast, were assured that their opponents ‘were rebels, and I fear (without God’s great mercy and their own repentance) they shall be tormented by the Devil and his Angels’. Of course, they may not have been produced primarily, or only, for the edification of the rank and file, to offer guidance on matters of conscience, but for propaganda effect. The behaviour of troops was a significant factor in the political battle, and the reputation of some royalist commanders for failing to restrain their troops cost the King some support.9 Either way, this was seen as a significant exercise – an extremely plausible-looking ‘eighth edition’ of the parliamentary catechism was produced, which completely subverted the message of the real catechism. It was so inflammatory that it was ordered to be burned by the common hangman.10 Once in the New Model Army, conscripted or not, those who stayed long were given a clear message about the godliness of their calling – the army was full of hot Protestant preaching, and it seems clear that it bolstered morale.11
This was not then the Leveller army of later legend. Self-Denial had been in one sense an attack on aristocratic influence, but the officer corps was initially well-leavened with the sons of the gentry and aristocracy. Formation of the army had been a victory for those anxious for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and a defeat for supporters of Manchester and Essex in particular. It had led to the exodus of Scottish Presbyterians, and there is some evidence that Independents were over-represented among its chaplains.12 But it was not an army of Independents. Moreover, although it was the best-equipped and best-supplied army in the field, and played a crucial role in winning the war, it accounted for only half of the parliamentary soldiers in England. Massey and Brereton retained their regional commands and the Northern Association forces were put under the command of Sydenham Poyntz, a man later known for his Presbyterian sympathies. Besides these armies there were numerous local garrisons and the London Trained Bands, all of which retained their autonomy. It is necessary to say all this because the New Model Army, having won the war, was eventually to dictate the peace, purging Parliament and underwriting the trial and execution of Charles I. This intervention was not on the horizon in the summer of 1645.13
Within months of taking the field the New Model had won the most significant single victory of the war, at Naseby in Leicestershire. As always, however, there was a measure of chance about it – both in the field and that the battle was joined at all. Indeed, it is not easy to explain what had brought the two armies together in the Midlands. For Parliament the twin objectives of the spring were Oxford and Taunton, which had become significant to the whole of the West Country. The Prince of Wales had been sent to Bristol to forge a new western command, with an obvious threat to Parliament (although, on the other hand, this new command created a power base from which Goring and others could resist Rupert’s influence and therefore further complicated royalist politics). Taunton, currently in parliamentary hands, was under siege; if it fell it would facilitate the raising of forces by this new association, which could provide the basis for a new offensive. The Committee of Both Kingdoms was also worried about a possible royalist assault on the