sed the Houses on the third of April 1645, and its
passage brought about the retirement of Essex, Manchester, and Waller.
The new organization of the army went rapidly on through the spring
under a new commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, the hero of the long
contest in Yorkshire, and who had been raised into fame by his victory
at Nantwich and his bravery at Marston Moor. But behind Fairfax stood
Cromwell; and the principles on which Cromwell had formed his brigade
were carried out on a larger scale in the "New Model." The one aim was
to get together twenty thousand "honest" men. "Be careful," Cromwell
wrote, "what captains of horse you choose, what men be mounted. A few
honest men are better than numbers. If you choose godly honest men to be
captains of horse, honest men will follow them." The result was a
curious medley of men of different ranks among the officers of the New
Model. The bulk of those in high command remained men of noble or gentle
blood, Montagues, Pickerings, Fortescues, Sheffields, Sidneys, and the
like. But side by side with these, though in far smaller proportion,
were seen officers like Ewer, who had been a serving-man, like Okey, who
had been a drayman, or Rainsborough, who had been a "skipper at sea." A
result hardly less notable was the youth of the officers. Amongst those
in high command there were few who, like Cromwell, had passed middle
age. Fairfax was but thirty-three years old, and most of his colonels
were even younger.

[Sidenote: The Army and the dissidents.]

Equally strange was the mixture of religions in its ranks. The
remonstrances of the Presbyterians had only forced Cromwell's mind
forward on the road of toleration. "The State, in choosing men to serve
it," he wrote before Marston Moor, "takes no notice of these opinions.
If they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies." Marston Moor
spurred him to press on the Parliament the need of at least "tolerating"
dissidents; and he succeeded in procuring the appointment of a
Committee of the Commons to find some means of effecting this. But the
conservative temper of the bulk of the Puritans was at last roused by
his efforts. "We detest and abhor," wrote the London clergy in 1645,
"the much endeavoured Toleration"; and the Corporation of London
petitioned Parliament to suppress all sects "without toleration." The
Parliament itself too remained steady on the conservative side. But the
fortunes of the war told for religious