Hurricane Irene among the costliest catastrophes in the U.S.
Seattle Times
Gaddafi's family flees to Algeria
The Times of India
In the wake of Irene, The Weather Channel turns to Katia and Lee
The Examiner
Elections in Libya Should be Deferred
Middle East Online
Dr. King and When Monuments Distort the Messenger and Message
WorldNews.com
The New Model Army was raised partly from among veteran soldiers who already had deeply-held Puritan religious convictions, and partly from conscripts, who brought with them many commonly-held beliefs about religion or society. Its common soldiers held Dissenting or radical views unique among English armies. Although the Army's senior officers did not share many of their soldiers' political opinions, their independence from Parliament led to the Army's willingness to contribute to the overthrow of both the Crown and Parliament's authority, and to establish a short-lived "Commonwealth", which included a period of direct military rule. Ultimately, the Army's Generals (particularly Oliver Cromwell) could rely both on the Army's internal discipline and its religious zeal and innate support for the "Good Old Cause" to maintain an essentially dictatorial rule.
There was also increasing dissension among Parliament's generals in the field. Parliament suspected that many of its senior officers, who were mainly Presbyterians, were inclined to favour peace with King Charles, and to be conducting operations half-heartedly as a result. The Earl of Manchester was one of the prominent members favouring peace, but his Lieutenant General, Oliver Cromwell, strongly advocated fighting the war to the finish. Manchester and Cromwell clashed publicly over this issue several times. Parliament's senior commander, the Earl of Essex, was also suspected of lack of determination and was on poor terms with his subordinates. The tensions among the Parliamentarian generals became a bitter public argument after the Second Battle of Newbury. Some of them believed that King Charles's army had escaped encirclement after the battle through inaction on the part of some commanders.
On 19 November 1644, the Parliamentarian Eastern Association of counties announced that they could no longer meet the cost of maintaining their forces, which at the time provided about half the field force available to Parliament. In response, Parliament directed the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the cabinet-like body that oversaw the conduct of the War (and which included several experienced officers), to review the state of all Parliament's forces. On 19 December, the House of Commons passed the Self-denying Ordinance, which prevented members of the Houses of Lords and Commons from holding any military office. Originally a separate matter from the establishment of the New Model Army, it soon became intimately linked with it. Once the Self-denying Ordinance became Law, the Earls of Manchester and Essex, and other Presbyterian members of Parliament and peers, were removed from command in the field.
On 6 January 1645, the Committee of Both Kingdoms established the New Model Army, appointing Sir Thomas Fairfax as its Captain-General and Sir Philip Skippon as Sergeant-Major General of the Foot. The Self-denying Ordinance took time to pass the House of Lords, but came into force on 3 April 1645, about the same time as the New Model Army first took the field. Although Oliver Cromwell handed over his command of the Army's cavalry when the Ordinance was enacted, Fairfax requested his services when another officer (Colonel Bartholomew Vermuyden) wished to emigrate. Cromwell was commissioned Colonel of Vermuyden's former regiment of horse, and was appointed Lieutenant-General of the Horse in June. Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton (the New Model Army's Commissary General, or second in command of the cavalry) were two of the only four exceptions to the Self-denying Ordinance, the other two being local commanders in Cheshire and North Wales. They were allowed to serve under a series of three-month temporary commissions that were continually extended.
Parliament decreed the consolidation of most of their forces outside the New Model Army into two other locally-recruited armies, those of the Northern Association under Sydenham Poyntz and the Western Association under Edward Massey. They were intended to reduce the remaining Royalist garrisons in their areas and prevent Royalist incursions. Some of their regiments were reorganised and incorporated into the New Model Army during and after the Second English Civil War.
A "Soldier's catechism" set out new regulations and drill procedures. The standard daily pay was 8 pence for infantry and 2 shillings for cavalry. The administration of the Army was more centralised, with improved provision of adequate food, clothing and other supplies. Cavalrymen (often recruited from among yeomen or the more well-to-do farmers) had to supply their own horses.
The founders intended that proficiency rather than social standing or wealth should determine the Army's leadership and promotions. Many officers (often the gentlemen amateurs) of existing units merged into regiments of the New Model Army became surplus to the organization and were discharged. Such reformadoes demonstrated several times in London as they sought compensation or relief. Many corporals and sergeants, particularly in the Earl of Essex's army, were unable to find posts in the merged regiments, but they were persuaded to serve as ordinary soldiers. Contemporary accounts reported that this was due to the popular Sir Philip Skippon's success in exhorting them to stay on, but historians have suggested that the reasons were economic: the former non-commissioned officers (NCOs) did not think they could find work outside the Army.
Cromwell preferred soldiers and, especially, officers to be dedicated to Puritan ideals, as he was. Earlier during the Civil War he had written,
I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than what you call a Gentleman and is nothing else.
During the Army's formation, some Presbyterians considered it a hotbed of Independents, a potentially dangerous situation given that Parliament's agreement with the Scottish Covenanters stipulated that Presbyterianism was to be made the established Church in England. Several prominent Presbyterian officers, mainly expatriate Scottish professional soldiers, refused to serve in the New Model Army.
Two Colonels (Edward Montagu and John Pickering) were known to be extreme Independents. Pickering even preached sermons to his troops, for which he was reprimanded by Fairfax. The Earl of Essex brought a motion in the House of Lords to prevent Montagu and Pickering, and 40 Captains who were reportedly of the same persuasion, from holding commissions, but after a tied vote, the motion was not passed to the House of Commons and they were allowed to serve.
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, an archetypal cavalier and prominent general in the army of King Charles I, nicknamed the New Model troops "Ironsides". This referred to their ability to cut through opposing forces.
Although not heavily armoured, their tactics were nevertheless based on those of the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus, which emphasised shock action, rather than a caracole with their firearms. They would charge boot-to-boot and sword in hand. In battle they usually carried a mortuary sword and two loaded pistols, one of which was fired just before they came into contact with the enemy, the other was kept either to cover their own retreat or to fire at a fleeing enemy.
Regiments were organised into six troops, of one hundred troopers plus officers, non-commissioned officers and specialists (drummers, farriers etc). On the battlefield, a regiment was normally formed as two divisions of three troops, one commanded by the regiment's Colonel (or the Major, if the Colonel was not present), the other by the Lieutenant Colonel.
Their discipline was markedly superior to that of their Royalist counterparts. Cromwell specifically forbade his men to pursue a fleeing enemy, but demanded they hold the battlefield. This meant that the New Model cavalry could charge, break an enemy force, regroup and charge again at another objective, which made them a formidable force on the battlefield. On the other hand, when required to pursue, they would do so relentlessly, not breaking ranks to loot abandoned enemy baggage as Royalist horse would often do.
On the battlefield, their major function was to clear enemy musketeers from in front of their main position. At the Battle of Naseby, they were used to outflank enemy cavalry.
They were also useful in patrolling and scouting. In sieges, they were often used to assault breaches carrying flintlock carbines and grenades. The storming party were sometimes offered cash payments, as this was a very risky job. Once the forlorn hope had established a foothold in the enemy position, the infantry would follow them with their more cumbersome weapons of pikes and muskets.
In 1650, Okey's dragoons were converted into a regiment of horse. It appears that after that date, unregimented companies of dragoons raised from the Militia and other sources were attached to the regiments of horse and foot as required. This was the case at the Battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650.
The regiments of foot were provided with red coats. Those used by various regiments were distinguished by differently-coloured linings, which would show at the collar and the ends of the sleeves, and became in time the official "facing" colour. On some occasions, regiments were referred to as e.g. the "blue" regiment or the "white" regiment from these colours, although in formal correspondence they were referred to by the name of their Colonel.
In the New Model Army there were always two musketeers for each pikeman, from the beginning, although depictions of battles show them as being present in equal numbers, in stylised formations which were probably never used. On the battlefield, the musketeers lacked protection against enemy cavalry, and the two types of foot soldier were mixed. For most siege work, or for any action in wooded or rough country, the musketeer was generally more useful and versatile. Musketeers were often detached, or "commanded", for particular tasks.
Pikemen, when fully equipped, wore a pot helmet, back- and breastplates over a buff coat, and often also armoured tassets to protect the upper legs. They carried a sixteen-foot pike, and a sword. The heavily burdened pikeman usually dictated the speed of the Army's movement. They were frequently ordered to discard the tassets, and individual soldiers were disciplined for sawing a foot or two from the butts of their pikes, although senior officers were recommended to make the men accustomed to marching with heavy loads by regular route marches. In irregular fighting in Ireland the New Model temporarily gave up the pike. In battle, the pikemen were supposed to project a solid front of spearheads, to protect the musketeers from cavalry while they reloaded. They would also lead the infantry advance against enemy foot units, when things came to push of pike.
The musketeers wore no armour, at least by the end of the Civil War, although it is not certain that none had iron helmets at the beginning. They wore a bandolier from which were suspended twelve wooden containers each with a ball and measured charge of powder for their matchlock muskets. These containers are sometimes referred to as the "Twelve Apostles." According to one source they carried 1 lb of fine powder, for priming, to 2 lbs of lead and 2 lbs of ordinary powder, the actual charging powder, for 3 lbs of lead. They were normally deployed six ranks deep, and were supposed to keep up a constant fire by means of the "countermarch", either by introduction whereby the rear rank would file to the front to fire a volley, or by "retroduction" where front rank would fire a volley then file to the rear. By the time they had reached the front rank again, they should have reloaded and been prepared to fire. At close quarters, there was often no time for musketeers to reload and they would use their musket butts as clubs. They carried swords, but these were often of inferior quality, and ruined by use for cutting firewood. Bayonets were not introduced into European armies until the 1660s and so were not part of a musketeer's equipment.
The establishment of the New Model also included at least two companies of "firelocks" or fusiliers, who wore "tawny coats" instead of red, commanded initially by Major John Desborough.
After the end of major civil war hostilities in England, the Army was in a position to dictate the future of England, which caused a great deal of tension between the political radicals in their ranks, and their commanders such as Cromwell and Henry Ireton.
Two representatives, called Agitators, were elected from each regiment. The Agitators, with two officers from each regiment and the Generals, formed a new body called the Army Council which after a rendezvous (meeting) near Newmarket, Suffolk on 4 June 1647 issued "A Solemne Engagement of the Army, under the Command of his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax" to Parliament on 8 June making their concerns known, and also detailing the constitution of the Army Council so that Parliament would understand that the discontent was Army wide and had the support of both officers and other ranks. This Engagement was read out to the Army at a general Army rendezvous on 5 June.
Having come under the influence of London radicals called the Levellers, the troops of the Army proposed a revolutionary new constitution named the Agreement of the People, which called for almost universal male suffrage, reform of electoral boundaries, power to rest with the Parliament which was to be elected every two years (by the people), religious freedom, and an end to imprisonment for debt.
Increasingly concerned at the failure to pay their wages and by political manoeuvrings by King Charles I and by some in Parliament, the army marched slowly towards London over the next few months. In late October and early November at the Putney Debates the Army debated two different proposals. The first was the Agreement of the People; the other was "The Heads of the Proposals", put forward by Henry Ireton for the Army Council. This was a constitutional manifesto which included the preservation of property rights and would maintain the privileges of the gentry. At the Putney Debates it was agreed to hold three further rendezvous.
At the first, the Corkbush Field rendezvous, the senior officers in the army, known as the Grandees, gained the agreement of most regiments to accept the Army Council's Heads of the Proposals instead of the Agreement of the People as the Army's manifesto. A mutiny by a minority of regiments was suppressed by Cromwell who had Private Richard Arnold tried for mutiny and shot on the spot as an example. At the two other rendezvous at Ruislip Heath and Kingston the other regiments were ordered to show support for Fairfax which they all agreed to do.
Many of the Army's radicals now called for the execution of the King, whom they called, "Charles Stuart, that man of blood". The majority of the Grandees realised that they could neither negotiate a settlement with Charles I nor trust him to refrain from raising another army to attack them, so they came reluctantly to the same conclusion as the radicals: they would have to execute him. After the Long Parliament rejected the Army's Remonstrance by 125 to 58, the Grandees decided to reconstitute Parliament so that it would agree with the Army's position. On 6 December 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride instituted Pride's Purge and forcibly removed from the House of Commons all those who were not supporters of the religious independents and the Grandees in the Army. The much-reduced Rump Parliament passed the necessary legislation to try Charles I. He was found guilty of high treason by the 59 Commissioners and beheaded on 30 January 1649.
Now that the twin pressures of Royalism and those in the Long Parliament who were hostile to the Army had been defeated, the divisions in the Army which had been present in the Putney Debates resurfaced. Cromwell, Ireton, Fairfax and the other Grandees were not prepared to countenance the Agitators' proposals for a revolutionary constitutional settlement. This eventually brought the Grandees into conflict with those elements in the New Model Army who did.
During 1649 there were three mutinies over pay and political demands. The first involved three hundred infantrymen of Colonel John Hewson's regiment, who declared that they would not serve in Ireland until the Levellers' programme had been realised. They were cashiered without arrears of pay, which was the threat that had been used to quell the mutiny at the Corkbush Field rendezvous.
In the Bishopsgate mutiny soldiers of the regiment of Colonel Edward Whalley stationed in Bishopsgate London made demands similar to those of Hewson's regiment; they were ordered out of London. When they refused to go, fifteen soldiers were arrested and court martialled, of whom six were sentenced to death. Five of them were subsequently pardoned, while Robert Lockyer, a former Agitator, faced a firing squad on 27 April 1649.
Less than two weeks later there was a larger mutiny involving several regiments over pay and political demands. After the resolution of the pay issue the Banbury mutineers, consisting of 400 soldiers with Leveller sympathies under the command of Captain William Thompson, continued to negotiate for their political demands. They set out for Salisbury in the hope of rallying support from the regiments billeted there. Cromwell launched a night attack on 13 May in which several mutineers perished, but Captain Thompson escaped only to be killed in another skirmish near the Diggers community at Wellingborough. The rest were imprisoned in Burford Church until three were shot in the Churchyard on 17 May. With the failure of this mutiny the Levellers' power base in the New Model Army was destroyed.
The politically and religiously disunited Royalist-Catholic coalition they met in Ireland were at a major disadvantage against the New Model Army. After the shock defeats at Rathmines and Drogheda many of the Royalist soldiers opposing the Parliamentarian forces became demoralised, melting away at the first opportunity- the Scottish Royalist army in Ulster was badly weakened by desertion before the battle of Lisnagarvey for example.
However, resistance by some of the native Irish Catholic forces, who were faced with land confiscations and suppression of their religion in the event of a Parliamentarian conquest, proved stubborn and protracted. Some units, notably the veteran Ulster Confederate Catholic forces, proved resilient enemies. As a result, the New Model soldiers suffered considerably in the campaign. After victories with few Parliamentary casualties at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649, the fighting became more protracted and casualties began to mount.
At Kilkenny, in March 1650, the town's defenders skilfully beat back numerous Parliamentarian assaults before being forced to surrender. Shortly afterwards, about 2,000 soldiers of the New Model died in abortive assaults against a breach defended by veteran Ulstermen in the siege of Clonmel. These bloody scenes would be repeated during the Siege of Charlemont fort. Thousands more died of disease, particularly in the long sieges of Limerick, Waterford and Galway.
The Army was also constantly at risk of attack by Irish guerrillas or "tories", who attacked vulnerable garrisons and supply columns. The New Model responded to this threat with forced evictions of the civilian population from certain areas and by destroying food supplies. These tactics caused a widespread famine throughout the country from 1650 onwards.
Overall, around 43,000 English soldiers fought in the Parliamentarian army in Ireland between 1649–53, in addition to some 9,000 Irish Protestants. By the end of the campaign in 1653, much of the Army's wages were still in arrears. About 12,000 veterans were awarded land confiscated from Irish Catholics in lieu of pay. Many soldiers sold these land grants to other Protestant settlers, but about 7,500 of them settled in Ireland. They were required to keep their weapons to act as a reserve in case of any future rebellions in the country.
In England the New Model was involved in numerous skirmishes with a range of opponents, but these were little more than policing actions. The largest rebellion of the Protectorate took place when the Sealed Knot instigated an insurrection in 1655. The 1655 insurrection consisted of a series of coordinated uprisings, but only the Penruddock uprising ended in armed conflict, and that was put down by one company of cavalry.
The major foreign entanglement of this period was the Anglo-Spanish War. In 1654, the English Commonwealth declared war on Spain, and regiments of the New Model Army were sent to conquer the Spanish colony of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. They failed in the conflict and sustained heavy casualties from tropical disease. They took over the lightly defended island of Jamaica. The English troops performed better in the European theatre of the war in Flanders. During the Battle of the Dunes (1658), as part of Turenne's army, the red-coats of the New Model Army under the leadership of Sir William Lockhart, Cromwell's ambassador at Paris, surprised the French and Spanish armies by the strength of their assaults; they advanced against a strongly defended sandhill high. Some of the Spanish defences on the Dunes were manned by English Royalists, including James Stuart, later to be crowned James II of England.
After Cromwell died, the Protectorate died a slow death, as did the New Model army. For a time in 1659, it appeared that factions of the New Model army forces loyal to different generals might wage war on each other. Regiments garrisoned in Scotland under the command of General George Monck were marched to London to oversee the coronation of Charles II, without significant opposition from the regiments under other generals, particularly those led by Charles Fleetwood and John Lambert. With the exception of Monck's regiment, which became the Coldstream Guards, and the Regiment of Cuirassiers, which became the Royal Horse Guards, the New Model Army disbanded after the Restoration of 1660.
Category:1645 establishments Category:Military units and formations established in 1645 England Category:Republicanism in England Category:Wars of the Three Kingdoms
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
