The Winter of Sixteen Hundred Forty-two and Sixteen Hundred Forty- three was devoted to preparations for the coming struggle, which Cromwell knew would be renewed in the Spring. All his private fortune went into the venture. He covered the country for a hundred miles square, and broke up every Royalist rendezvous. The Spring did not bring disappointment, for the Royalist army came forward, and were successful until they reached Cromwell's country. Here the Parliamentarians met them as one to three, and routed them. "They were as stubble before our swords," wrote Cromwell to his wife. Old Noll not only led the fighting, but the singing, and insisted on being in every charge where the Ironsides took part. He had not been trained in the art of war, but from the very first he showed consummate genius as a general. He aimed to strike the advancing army in the center, go straight through the lines, and then circle to either the right or the left, milling the mass into a mob, destroying it utterly. It was all the work of men born on horseback, who, if a horse went down, clambered free and jumped up behind the nearest trooper, or, clinging to the tail of a running horse, swung sword right and left and all the time sang, "Unto Thee, O Lord, and not unto us!" This two-men-to-a-horse performance was an exercise in which our Oliver personally trained his Ironsides. He showed them how to sing, pray, fight and ride horseback double. At Marston Moor, Fairfax led the right wing of the Parliamentary army. Prince Rupert at the head of twenty thousand men charged Fairfax and defeated him. Cromwell played a waiting game and allowed the army of Rupert to tire itself, when he met it with his Ironsides and sent it down the pages of history in confusion and derision. At this battle the eldest son of Cromwell was killed, and the way he breaks the news to a fellow-soldier, a young man, as if he were consoling him, reveals the soul of this sturdy man: _To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton. These: Before York 5th July, 1644_ Dear Sir: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies, and to praise the Lord together in chastisement or trials, that so we may sorrow together. Truly England and the Church of God hath had a great favor from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this war began. It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being on our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the Prince's horse. God made them as stubble to our swords. We charged their foot regiments with our horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I can not relate now; but I believe of the twenty thousand the Prince has not four thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God.