tan warriors, often surrounded by
difficulties, sometimes contending against three-fold 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 expressed 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 counter-scarp 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 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.

To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No
sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt than the nation,
unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections
broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war,