Immediately on Cromwell’s return to the headquarters of the army at Windsor (22 April), Fairfax, at the order of the committee of both kingdoms, despatched him into Oxfordshire to interrupt the king’s preparations for taking the field (Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, p. 11, ed. 1854). His success was rapid and complete. On 24 April he defeated a brigade of horse at Islip and took two hundred prisoners, captured Bletchingdon House the same night, gained another victory at Bampton in the Bush on the 26th, and failed only before the walls of Farringdon (30 April). The king was obliged to summon Goring’s cavalry from the west to cover his removal from Oxford. Cromwell and Richard Brown were ordered to follow the king’s motions, but recalled in a few days to take part in the siege of Oxford. Free from their pursuit, the king stormed Leicester and threatened to break into the eastern association. At once Cromwell, with but three troops of horse, was sent to the point of danger, with instructions to secure Ely and raise the local levies (Rushworth, vi. 34).
According to the Self-denying Ordinance Cromwell’s employment in the army should ere this have ended, for the date fixed for the expiration of commissions held by members of parliament was 13 May. But when the time came Cromwell was in pursuit of the king, and on 10 May his commission was extended for forty days longer. On 5 June a petition from the city of London to the lords demanded that Cromwell should be sent to command the associated counties, and on 8 June Fairfax and his officers sent a letter to the commons asking that Cromwell might be continued in command of the horse, ‘being as great a body as ever the parliament had together in one army, and yet having no general officer to command them.’ It can hardly have been by accident that those who nominated the officers of the New Model had left vacant that post of lieutenant-general which the council of war thus proposed to fill. The House of Commons took the hint, and ordered that Cromwell should command the horse during such a time as the house should dispense with his attendance (10 June). And the lords were obliged reluctantly to concur, though they took care to limit the period of his employment to three months. It was afterwards again prolonged for terms of four and six months successively (Journal of the House of Commons, 18 June, 8 Aug., 17 Oct. 1645, 26 Jan. 1646).
In obedience to the summons of Fairfax Cromwell returned from the eastern counties, and rejoined the army the day before the battle of Naseby (Rushworth, vi. 21). In that battle Cromwell commanded in person the right wing, and Fairfax entrusted to his charge the ordering of the cavalry throughout the whole army. Before his task was completed the royalists advanced to the attack. In a letter written about a month later, Cromwell says: ‘When I saw the enemy draw up and march in gallant order towards us, and we a company of poor ignorant men to seek how to order our battle, the general having commissioned me to order all the horse, could not, riding alone about my business, but smile out to God, in praises, in assurance of victory, because Goa would by things that are not bring to nought things that are’ (Carlyle, app. 9). The parliamentary right routed the division opposed to it, and Cromwell, leaving a detachment to prevent the broken troops from rallying, fell on the king’s foot in the centre and completed their defeat. He followed the chase of the flying cavaliers as far as the suburbs of Leicester. At the victory of Langport also, on 10 July 1645, Cromwell was conspicuous both in the battle and the pursuit, and he took part in the sieges of Bridgewater, Sherborne, and Bristol. After the surrender of the last place, he was detached by Fairfax in order to secure the communications between London and the west, and captured in succession Devizes (23 Sept.), Winchester (5 Oct.), Basing (14 Oct.), and Langford House (17 Oct. 1645). At the end of October he rejoined Fairfax at Crediton and remained with the army during the whole of the winter.
On 9 Jan. he opened the campaign of 1646 by the surprise of Lord Wentworth at Bovey Tracy, and shared in the battle of Torrington (16 Feb.) and the siege of Exeter. Then, at Fairfax’s request, Cromwell undertook to go to London, in order to give the parliament an account of the state of the west of England. On 23 April he received the thanks of the House of Commons for his services rewards of another nature they had already conferred upon him. On 1 Dec. 1645, the commons, in drawing up the peace propositions to be offered to the king, had resolved that an estate of 2,600l. a year should be conferred on Cromwell, and that the king should be requested to make him a baron. After the failure of the negotiations, an ordinance of parliament had settled upon him lands to the value named, taken chiefly from the property of the Marquis of Worcester (Parliamentary History, xiv. 189, 252; Thurloe Papers, 1. 75).
Cromwell returned to the army in time to assist in the negotiations for the surrender of Oxford. The leniency of the terms granted
