A History of the British Army, Vol. 1: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' WarFortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
History
A History of the British Army, Vol. 1: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War
Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
Great Britain -- History, Military; Great Britain. Army -- History
Only one man could be his successor. On the self-same 26th of
June Cromwell received his commission as captain-general and
commander-in-chief; and two days later he started on his journey
to the north. Charles Fleetwood was his lieutenant-general, John
Lambert, an excellent soldier, his major-general; and joined to
his staff was another officer whom we saw fighting in the Low
Countries many years ago, Colonel George Monk. He had served in the
Civil War first with the Royalists, and had been taken prisoner
by Fairfax at Nantwich in January 1645; he had then passed some
time in confinement in the Tower, and finally had taken service
with the Parliament in Ireland, where his merit had attracted the
attention of Cromwell. Oliver was now anxious to provide him with a
regiment; but the corps which he had designed for him was unwilling
to receive a Royalist for colonel. Five companies were therefore
taken from Sir Arthur Hazelrigg's regiment at Newcastle and as many
more from Colonel Fenwick's at Berwick; and the ten companies were
united into Monk's regiment of foot. Thus was formed the oldest
of our existing national regiments, the one complete relic of the
famous New Model,[178] the one surviving corps which fought under
Oliver Cromwell, itself more famous under its later name of the
Coldstream Guards.
On the 19th of July Cromwell halted near Berwick, where he mustered
sixteen thousand men, a third of them cavalry; and on the 22nd he
crossed the Tweed and marched up the coast upon Edinburgh. A fleet
on the east coast provided him with supplies as he advanced, which
furnishes an interesting precedent for the system that was to be
seen later under Wellington in the Peninsula. On the 28th of July
he was at Musselburgh, and on the following morning he came in
sight of the Scottish army, which was entrenched along the line
from Leith to the Canongate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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