In connection with all this, hostile preparations were made on both sides. Members of the House of Commons contributed horses, money, and plate for the service of Parliament,[298] whilst clergymen and their families sent spoons, cups, and beakers of silver, to be turned into money for the payment of the forces.[299] On the other hand, the friends of the King manifested their loyalty and devotion; but they did not make sacrifices with the same ardour, and to the same extent, as their fellow-countrymen who embraced the cause of the opposite party. Clarendon bitterly complains of the lukewarmness of the Royalists, and observes, that if they had lent their master a fifth part of what they afterwards lost, he would have been able to preserve his crown, and they would have retained their property. [Sidenote 1642.] The enlistment of soldiers was still more important than filling the military chests; and here again the advantage was on the side of the Parliament; the militia increased more rapidly than the forces gathered by the King's commission of array.[300] Hampden, as the wheat ripened in the Chiltern Hundreds, was engaged in raising volunteers; Cromwell made himself useful in Cambridge and the Fen Country after a similar fashion; Lord Brooke, too, rode up and down amongst the fields and orchards of Worcestershire on the same business; and soon England bristled all over with officers beating up recruits. As cavalier nobles and squires assembled their tenantry under the royal standard, there were other landed proprietors who espoused the popular cause, and who were still more successful in securing followers. At the same time, town halls and market-places echoed with appeals to citizens and burgesses to fight for the liberties of their country; whilst in various places ammunition and stores were collected with corresponding activity and zeal. Castles and manor-houses were stripped of armour which had hung for years upon the time-stained walls; and parish churches yielded up from the tombs of ancient knights rusty helmets and hauberks. Old bills and bows, matchlocks and pistols, pikes and lances, and even staves and clubs, were piled up as part of the extemporised equipment. After a little while, military matters took something of artistic form, and regiments well accoutred might be seen marching under the flags of their respective colonels. Redcoats, following Denzil Holles, tramped along the streets of London; purple rank and file drew up at Lord Brooke's command under the tower of Warwick Castle; Hampden saw with pride his green coats winding through the vales of Buckinghamshire; and Lord Say and Sele appeared at the head of a regiment in jackets of blue. Haselrig led on his troops of "lobsters"--so called from the cuirasses worn by his horsemen; and last, but not least, Cromwell rode at the head of cavalry, who, from the completeness of their armour, as well as the invincibleness of their courage, have always been known as his