it was farther resolved by the Commons (Jan. 21), should be commanded in chief by the trusty and popular Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had done so well in the North, and, under him, by the trusty and popular Major-general Skippon, whose character for bull-headed bravery even the disaster in Cornwall had only more fully brought out. [Footnote: I find, from the Commons Journals, that there was a division on the question whether Fairfax should be appointed commander-in-chief of the New Model--the state of the vote being _Yeas_ 101 against _Noes_ 69, or a majority of 32 _for_ the appointment. The Tellers for the majority were the younger Vane and Cromwell; for the minority, Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapleton. There was a subsequent division, Feb. 7, on the question whether Fairfax's choice of officers under him should be subject to Parliamentary revision. Cromwell was one of the Tellers for the _Noes_--_i.e._ he wanted Fairfax to have full powers. The other side, however, beat this time by a majority of 82 against 63. After all it was arranged satisfactorily between Fairfax and Parliament.] On the 28th of January the _New Model_ complete passed the Commons. The Lords hesitated about some parts of it, and were especially anxious for a provision in it incapacitating all from being officers or soldiers in the new army who should not have taken the Covenant: there were conferences on this point, and a kind of compromise on it by the Commons; and on the 15th of February the _Ordinance for New Modelling of the Army_ was finally passed. The _Self-denying Ordinance_ was then re-introduced in a changed form, and it passed the Lords, April 3, 1645. It ordained that all members of either House who had since November 20, 1640, been appointed to any offices, military or civil, should, at the end of forty days from the passing of the Ordinance, vacate these offices, but that all other officers in commission on the 20th of March, 1644-5, should continue in the posts they then held. Thus the year 1645 (beginning, in English reckoning, March 25) opened with new prospects. Essex, Manchester, Waller, and all the officers under them, retired into ordinary life, with thanks and honours--Essex, indeed, with a great pension; and the fighting for Parliament was thenceforward to be done mainly by a re-modelled Army, commanded by Fairfax, Skippon, and officers under them, whose faces were unknown in Parliament, and whose business was to be to fight only and teach the art of fighting.