In the Royal army, of which, perhaps, the worst portion might be found at Oxford, the principal officers were men of high spirit and courage, with a strong dash in them of old English chivalry; but, with some of the virtues of mediæval knighthood, they possessed a more than ordinary share of its vices. In retired parts of the country, especially in Cornwall, yeomen and peasants, of pure life and artless manners, followed Royalist commanders with a sort of feudal devotion; but it must be admitted, with regard to most of the regiments who fought for the King, that the men in the ranks were worse than those in command--for, wanting that tone of manners which marks the well-bred gentleman, they had nothing to check the ebullitions of coarse impiety and brutal ruffianism. We are not concerned to vindicate the soldiers on the other side. No doubt they were chargeable with excesses, some of which have been indicated in these pages. Irreligious people mixed with Puritans; tapsters and serving men appeared among patriots; but, whatever the drawbacks on the reputation of the Parliamentary forces, there is but little doubt that the moral character of the men on the other side was far worse. Indeed, this is virtually admitted by Royalists themselves; for Clarendon paints dark pictures of the debauchery of the Lords Goring and Wilmot; and Chillingworth, in a sermon preached at Oxford in the autumn of 1643, while charging the enemy with Pharisaism, hypocrisy, falsehood, want of justice, and pretence of reformation, is also unsparing in his reproofs of Royalist profanity, irreligion, and blasphemy.[467] Fiery resentment burned in both camps, and was industriously fanned by the newspapers of the day. Parliamentary journals had nothing but what was good to say of their own party, and nothing but what was bad of their adversaries. Led away by idle rumours, editors and correspondents made mountains of molehills, and often stated as facts what only existed in their own distempered brains; all this the scribblers for the Oxford press paid back with interest. [Sidenote: _The Royalist Army._] Reports were industriously circulated throughout the country affecting the religious character of the King and court, upon the tender point of popish sympathies. An Irish minister, who had spent seven weeks at the University in the summer of 1643, afterwards declared that Irish Papists, who had committed atrocious barbarities in the rebellion, were received at court with signal favour; that Franciscans and Jesuits encouraged the soldiers to fight against the Roundheads, and were themselves enrolled as cornets; that Roman Catholic worship was performed in every street, and, _he believed_, that for every single sermon in the city there were four masses.[468] How much of truth there might be in these broad accusations, it is impossible for us to determine; but the adage no doubt is applicable here, that where there is much smoke there is some fire.[469] [Sidenote: 1643.]