o the Long. It is in the latter that a courtier,
Sir Philip Warwick, gives us our first glimpse of his actual appearance.
"I came into the House one morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman
speaking whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled, for it was a plain
cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His
linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of
blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar.
His hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of a good size; his
sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swoln and reddish; his
voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervour."

[Sidenote: The Ironsides.]

He was already "much hearkened unto," but his power was to assert itself
in deeds rather than in words. He appeared at the head of a troop of his
own raising at Edgehill; but with the eye of a born soldier he at once
saw the blot in the army of Essex. "A set of poor tapsters and town
apprentices," he warned Hampden, "would never fight against men of
honour"; and he pointed to religious enthusiasm as the one weapon which
could meet and turn the chivalry of the Cavalier. Even to Hampden the
plan seemed impracticable; but the regiment of a thousand men which
Cromwell raised for the Association of the Eastern Counties, and which
in later times were known as his Ironsides, was formed strictly of "men
of religion." He spent his fortune freely on the task he set himself.
"The business . . . hath had of me in money between eleven and twelve
hundred pounds, therefore my private estate can do little to help the
public. . . . I have little money of my own (left) to help my soldiers."
But they were "a lovely company," he tells his friends with soldierly
pride. No blasphemy, drinking, disorder, or impiety were suffered in
their ranks. "Not a man swears but he pays his twelve pence." Nor was
his choice of "men of religion" the only innovation Cromwell introduced
into his new regiment. The social traditions which restricted command to
men of birth were disregarded. "It may be," he wrote, in answer to
complaints from the Committee of the Association, "it provokes your
spirit to see such plain men made captains of horse. It had been well
that men of honour and birth had entered into their employments; but why
do they not appear? But seeing it is necessary the work must go on,
better plain men than none: but best to have men patient of wa