These vigorous measures inspired their partisans throughout the kingdom with a resolute spirit, and in London not a voice was openly lifted up for the King. As early as the month of May, Francis Heywood had procured his services to be accepted as captain of a troop of horse under Sir John Balfour, and was by him immediately appointed an instructor or sergeant-major[A] of cavalry. [A] The titles of Sergeant-Major, and Sergeant-Major-General, at that period, correspond with Adjutant-Major and Adjutant-General of our times. At such a moment, the zeal of Cuthbert Noble would not suffer him to remain behind, while so many were taking arms for the great, and, as he thought, holy cause, of liberty. He did not find it difficult, through the favour of a friend, to obtain the grade of lieutenant in a company of foot; and he set forth on a fine morning in June to join a regiment then assembled in quarters at the town of St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, for training. His finances did not admit of more than a very humble equipment,--accordingly he was mounted on a low shambling pony, across which he had also placed the saddle bags containing his better gear, his Bible, and two or three violent pamphlets of the day against prelacy and the divine right of kings. Notwithstanding the heat of his opinions, and his hearty concurrence in the measures of the Parliament, Cuthbert, in his lonely hours, was of that serious and solemn temper of mind, that he could not but reflect on the step he was now taking with more than his wonted gravity. That his present course would be distressing to his father he well knew; but he silenced this whisper of his better angel with the consideration that his father was old, timid, and averse to change, rather from early prejudices and associations than from the light of conscience and the use of right reason. Again, with that obliquity of mind with which men who are in fact taking their own way wish to think it that appointed by Providence, he ran over all the texts of Scripture then in the mouths of the Roundheads, as justifying their appeal to arms, and silenced all the lingering remonstrances that yet struggled in his bosom with those inapplicable words of Holy Writ, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”