The army which now became supreme in the state was an army very
different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the
pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the
humblest class of English laborers from their calling. A barrier
almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. The
great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase.
So numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England,
that every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years
in exile, and some years in climates unfavorable to the health and
vigor of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised
for home service. The pay of the private soldier was much above the
wages earned by the great body of the people; and, if he distinguished
himself by intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high
commands. The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in
station and education to the multitude. These persons, sober, moral,
diligent, and accustomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms,
not by the pressure of want, not by the love of novelty and license,
not by the arts of recruiting officers, but by religious and political
zeal, mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast
of the soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions,
was that they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted
chiefly for the sake of lucre, that they were no Janizaries, but
free-born Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in
jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right
and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had
saved.
A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be
indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops,
would have proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers
who should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and
pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose
from all control, would cease to form an army and would become the
worst and most dangerous of mobs. Nor would it be safe, in our time,
to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings at which a corporal
versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted
colonel, and admonish a backsliding major. But such was the
intelligence, the gravity, and the self-command of the warriors whom
Cromwell had trained, that in their camp a political organization and
a religious organization could exist without destroying military
organization. The same men, who, off duty, were noted as demagogs and
field-preachers, were distinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of
order, and by prompt obedience on watch, on drill, and on the field of
battle.
In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn courage
characteristic of the English people was, by the system of Cromwell,
at once regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained order
as strict. Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as
ardent. But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in
company with the fiercest enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with
the precision of machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism
of Crusaders. From the time when the army was remodeled to the time
when it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands
or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England,
Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by
difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only
never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in
pieces whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to
regard the day of battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched
against the most renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful
confidence. Turenne was startled by the shout of stern exultation with
which his English allies advanced to the combat, and exprest the
delight of a true soldier when he learned that it was ever the fashion
of Cromwell's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy;
and the banished Cavaliers felt an emotion of national pride when they
saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned
by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of
Spain, and force a passage into a counterscrap which had just been
pronounced impregnable by the ablest of the marshals of France.
But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other
armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all
ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that
singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen,
and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of
the peaceable citizen and the honor of woman were held sacred. If
outrages were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind
from those of which a victorious army is generally guilty. No
servant-girl complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an
ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. But a
Pelagian sermon, or a window on which the Virgin and the Child were
painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an excitement which it required
the utmost exertions of the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief
difficulties was to restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading
by main force the pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the
language of that time, were not savory; and too many of our cathedrals
still bear the marks of the hatred with which those stern spirits
regarded every vestige of Popery.