But it must be remembered that they proposed this accommodation at Colnbrook, and what business, then, had he at Brentford? The march, and the hour of it, were sufficiently decisive of the king being the aggressor. Charles lay with his army at Oxford during the winter, and Prince Rupert exercised his marauding talents in the country round. Of the Parliamentary proceedings or preparations we have little account, except that the Parliamentarians were generally discontented with Essex, who was slow, by no means sagacious, and, many believed, not hearty in the cause. Sir William Waller, however, drove Goring out of Portsmouth and took possession of it, so that he was dubbed by the people William the Conqueror, and it was agitated to put him at the head of the army in the place of Essex. But another man was now being heard of. This was Oliver Cromwell, who had quitted his farm and raised a regiment of his own. He was Colonel Cromwell now. He had told Hampden at the battle of Edge Hill, where they both were, that it would never do to trust to a set of poor tapsters and town apprentices for fighting against men of honour. They must have men, too, imbued with a principle still higher, and that must be religion. Hampden said it was a good notion if it could be carried out; and from that time Cromwell kept it in view, and so collected and trained that regiment of serious religious men, known as his invincible Ironsides. Cromwell was active all this winter along the eastern coast, in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Essex, and elsewhere, raising supplies, stopping those of the enemy, and forming Associations of counties for mutual defence. Four or six were formed, but all soon went to pieces except that of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Hertfordshire, of which Lord Grey of Wark was the commander, and Oliver, his lieutenant, the soul. This Association maintained its district during the whole war. In February we find Cromwell at Cambridge, the castle of which, with its magazines, he had taken by storm, and had now collected there great forces from Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk.