344
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. XL MAY i, 1915.
as the Strength, Honour, and Peace of
the Nations,' is not the sort of book to
contain a phrase ever employed to praise
Cromwell. Nor was Richard Burney, who
preached the eight sermons in it at
St. Mildred's, Canterbury, in 1660, likely to
have recalled any such term. The book was
published on 27 Dec., 1660 (and not in 1661),
and the quotation in full is :
" Henriethe 8 was none of the least speculators of Divine Providence, who appeared as an iron- sides against the Principalities of darknesse, he was a man of prodigious courage, ready to fight the Devil in the reformation of religion." I do not think I shall be wrong in commenting that " ironsides " here means " well armed," and that 'courage is separately specified in the same sentence. The plural is again used.
(8) ' 1C03. ' Flagellum ; or, O. Cromwell,' vi., in 'Harl. Misc.' (1753). .. .Hence he [Cromwell] acquired that teirible Name of Ironsides."
Janxes Heath's ' Flagellum ; or, The Life and Death, Birth and Burial of Oliver Crom- well,' &c., was published in 1663. Thus far the Dictionary is right. But the Harleian reprint of 1753, here alone referred to, is much altered. Thus the quotation from it, given above, is quite wrong and worthless. On p. 29 of the first edition this passage runs :
" Cromwell here [at Marston Moor] made a very great slaughter and carnage, especially in the rout and pursuit, purposely to make his name terrible, this being his first and grand appear- ance, gaining here the title of Ironsides, from the impenetrable strength of his troops, which could by no means be broken or divided." The passage italicized is not original, and was taken from ' The Perfect Politician,' published in February, 1660. (Thomason's date is confirmed by an advertisement in Mercurius Politicus.) The plural is used in both.
Cavalry, in those days, charged at a trot, not a gallop, keeping very close together, "every left-hand man's knee close locked under his right-hand man's left ham " (see C. H. Firth's ' Cromwell's Army,' pp. 142-3, and notes). A wall of ironclad men, operat- ing on horseback in this way, would justifi- ably be described as of " impenetrable strength." Neither courage nor any other moral quality is inferred. Had it been, Heath would not have quoted the passage. MB. BOLT will find his answer in this to his quotation from Dr. C. H. Firth's ' Cromwell.'
The ' N.E.D.'s ' ninth quotation is dated 1898, and is thus not to the point. The Dictionary then continues :
11 2. pi. (Ironsides) Applied to Cromwell's troopers in the Civil War ; hence allusively in later uses. The sing, is sometimes used of one member of such a force : a Puritan warrior ; a devout
soldier of the Puritan type. As applied to
Cromwell's regiment it may have been orig. a
possessive, * Ironside's men ' : cf. the ' Queen's,'
- Prince or Wales' 's,' and similar modern titles of
regiments. See also Lieut.-Col. Ross, ' Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides.' "
Since Lilly states that the title arose from the fact that Cromwell and his horsemen wore iron armour, this second part of the definition is a mistake. I am not concerned with the modern false meanings in the second part, but Lieut.-Col. (W. G. ?) Ross's (book ?) ' Cromwell and his Ironsides ' I have not succeeded in tracing.
(9) " 1648. ' Resol. King's subj. Cornwall,' " &c. This was set out by me in my first article in full. It does not support the definition, and very decidedly disproves Gardiner's asser- tions about it.
(10) " 1648. Let. 8 Aug. in Moderate (ibid. [i.e., the Thomason tracts] CCCLXXXII. No. 21 E ij), These Ironsides advancing make them search every corner for security."
Here the reference, " CCCLXXXII, No. 21 E ij," is unintelligible. It should run, " The Moderate, No. 5, for 8-15 Aug., 1648, p. 35. [E. 458 (21).]" The passage in full renders it evident that once more the definition is not supported :
" The deliverance and destruction of six armies by the Lieut.-Gen. [Cromwell's] unparallel'd gallantry in the North is not yet forgotten by them, and these Iron - sides advancing make them [the Scots] search every corner for securitie, standing in as great feare of him as London doth of taking Colchester.
Mabbott, the Leveller, writer of this periodical, is remarkable for adopting vulgar nicknames. This is the only reason why his The Moderate can be cited among the Parliamentary newsbooks as mentioning the term " Ironsides." The others avoided the nickname.
(11) " 1667. Lilly, ' Life and Times,' " &c.
I set out this quotation more fully in my first article, and rely upon it to disprove the 'N.E.D.'s ' definition. For that reason I do not repeat it here.
The ' N.E.D.'s ' final three instances are dated 1859 and later, the last being the quotation from S. R. Gardiner's ' Hist. Civil War ' about Pontefract, which I exposed by citing the passage referred to in the ' N.E.D.'s* ninth quotation.
The third part of the ' N.E.D.'s ' defini- tion is, of course, not in dispute.
To sum up : the ' N.E.D.'s ' definition of " Ironside " and " Ironsides," that both were " a name given to a man of great hardi- hood or bravery," is not supported by its own evidence as regards the plural form, with
