Cromwell’s inspired leadership in 1643 was a portent of the increasingly powerful role he would come to play in succeeding events, his drive fueled by the religious conversion some years before that had led him to believe in a personal God who spoke to his servant Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell was a true Puritan Independent, believing that each person should find his own way to God just as he had. The Independents were to become the rulers of England after the war, to the disgust of the Presbyterians, and Cromwell’s soldiers were to be known for their preaching officers, who soon had an immense influence over their fiercely Protestant men. Puritans, who were strong in trade and commerce, and who were thus literate enough to read the Bible, provided an ever-present recruiting ground for Cromwell’s forces. The Royalists rightly feared the Puritans, but they did not fully understand the group’s potential influence.

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In contrast to Cromwell, the man of certainty, King Charles gave his generals no proper directive for 1644. Instead, he thrashed about in all directions, calling a Parliament to assemble in Oxford; negotiating with the Scots through James, first Duke of Hamilton, and with the Scottish Royalists through James Graham, Marquis of Montrose; urging his lord deputy in Ireland, James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, to conclude a treaty with the Catholic Confederacy, thus releasing Protestant troops to serve in England; negotiating behind Ormonde’s back for a Catholic army; and negotiating (using his wife, Henrietta Maria, as intermediary) with any European country that might help him.

The assembling of 200 members for the Parliament at Oxford created a serious rival government to the House of Commons in London, which had trouble raising more than 200 members itself, once war had begun. The Oxford Parliament was joined by the bulk of the House of Lords, leaving rebellious London’s upper house with a mere 25 or so members.

Charles’ other bright ideas came too little. No European aid reached the king. The Irish negotiations remained a hopeless muddle, and the thousands of Irish soldiers that Charles wanted would remain quite remote and useless. Hamilton’s pleadings with the Scots were in vain, and even though Montrose scored a series of remarkable victories for the Royalists in 1644-46 (at Tippermuir, Inverlochy, etc.), he was unable to shift the political weight of the stubborn northern kingdom.

In the spring of 1644, the Scots under Alexander Leslie, first Earl of Leven, were besieging Newcastle and had sent patrols as far south as Durham. Blocked in Lincolnshire by Cromwell and the Earl of Manchester, the northern Royalists under the Earl of Newcastle retreated into the walled city of York. Much of the cavalry was sent out to ride for Newark, where it reinforced a Royalist garrison that never surrendered until ordered to by Charles in 1646. Some 5,000 men were retained to defend York. Around York there eventually gathered three Roundhead (Parliamentary) armies; that of Lord Ferdinando Fairfax, which had been driven to refuge in Hull during the Royalist successes of 1643; the Scots, except the portion besieging Newcastle, and Manchester’s troops of the Eastern Counties Association. While the Royalist situation worsened in the north, in March Rupert suddenly curved across the middle of England to Newark, where he forced the surrender of 6,000 Parliamentary troops besieging the place under Sir John Meldrum. The whole of Lincolnshire again fell to the Royalists.

The news from Newark brought new urgency to the deliberations of the Parliamentary Committee of the Two Kingdoms, which was trying to direct the war from Westminster. Cromwell called up all the men he could muster and then firmly held East Anglia. Rupert returned to Oxford and in May he headed for Lancashire, where he intended to pick off Parliamentary garrisons before marching to the relief of York.

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