In reply, Maynard and Whitelock, after much disquisition on the meaning of the word ‘incendiary,’ one ‘not much conversant in our law,’ explain that lieutenant-general Cromwell is ‘a gentleman of quick and subtle parts, and one who hath (especially of late) gained no small interest in the house of commons, nor is he wanting of friends in the house of peers, nor of abilities in himself to manage his own defence to the best advantage,’ and that on the whole, till more particular proof of his incendiarism should be forthcoming, it would be better not to bring the matter before parliament. The incendiarism of lieutenant-general Cromwell really consisted in this, that he had (again to quote Whitelock) ‘a brave regiment of horse of his countrymen, most of them freeholders, or freeholders’ sons, who upon matter of conscience engaged in this quarrel. And thus being well armed within by satisfaction of their own consciences, and without by good iron arms, they would as one man stand firmly and charge desperately.’ [2] Nearly every military success of importance that had been won for the parliament had been won by these soldiers of conscience, and unhappily their conscience was not of a kind that would brook presbyterian uniformity. At the time of the conference at Essex House, {305} Cromwell, with the help of the persuasive arts of Vane, was moving the parliament, disgusted with the practical inefficiency of its conservative and presbyterian commanders, to measures which would give it an army led by officers mostly of his own training, and fired by that religious inspiration of which freedom of conscience was the necessary condition. [1] [Whitelock, i. pp. 343-7.] [2] [_ib_. i. p. 209.]