n John Desborough (who married
Cromwell's sister) and James Berry in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_. 'Who Captain Ayres was it is difficult to say ... He left
the regiment about June 1644, and his troop was given to James Berry
... the captain-lieutenant of Cromwell's own troop'. (R.H.S. Trans.,
vol. xiii, pp. 29, 30). Berry subsequently became one of Cromwell's
major-generals. His character is briefly sketched by Baxter, who
calls him 'my old Bosom Friend', _Reliquiae_, 1696, p. 57. For Captain
William Evanson, see R.H.S. Trans., vol. xv, pp. 22-3.

Page 146, l. 12. A passage from Bacon's essay 'Of Faction' (No. 51)
is quoted in the margin in the edition of 1696. 'Fraction' in l. 12 is
probably a misprint for 'Faction'.

Page 148, ll. 7-10. The concluding sentence of the essay 'Of
Simulation and Dissimulation'. Brackets were often used at this time
to mark a quotation.

40.

Reliquiae Baxterianae, 1696, Lib. I, Part I, p. 48.

Much the same opinion of Fairfax was held by Sir Philip Warwick and
Clarendon. Warwick says he was 'a man of a military genius, undaunted
courage and presence of mind in the field both in action and danger,
but of a very common understanding in all other affairs, and of a
worse elocution; and so a most fit tool for Mr. Cromwel to work with'
(_Memoires_, p. 246). Clarendon alludes to him as one 'who had no
eyes, and so would be willinge to be ledd' (p. 138, l. 24). But Milton
saw him in a different light when he addressed to him the sonnet on
his capture of Colchester in August 1648:

_Fairfax_, whose name in armes through Europe rings
Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,...
Thy firm unshak'n vertue ever brings
Victory home,...
O yet a nobler task awaites thy hand;
For what can Warr, but endless warr still breed,
Till Truth, & Right from Violence be freed,
And Public Faith cleard from the shamefull brand
Of Public Fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed
While Avarice, & Rapine share the land.

Fairfax's military capacity is certain, and his private virtues are
unquestioned. Writing in 1648, Milton credited him with the power to
settle the affairs of the nation. But Fairfax was not a politician. He
broke with Cromwell over the execution of the king, and in July 1650
retired into private life. Baxter, Warwick, and Clarendon all wrote
of him at a distance of time that showed his merits and limitations in
truer perspective.

Milton addressed him again when