Cromwell's Soldiers

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 116, 29 March 1892, Page 4

Cromwell's Soldiers

Cromwell's soldiers were very well paid ; the pick of England's population were seen in the ranks, freeholders and. their sons, fairly educated, earnest, religious men. The shillingof the Commonwealth nor, only purchased more than a shilling of the same weight will do at the present time, but it was larger and heavier, being nearly six grains more. But the times came for a change of rulers, and doubt being held as to the confidence to be reposed in them, the sturdy warriors were thrust aside. '1 he troops were to be disbanded, " Writes Macaulay : " 50,000 men accustomed to the profession of arms ■were at once thr.-wn on the world, and experience seemed to warrant the belief that the change would produce much misery and crime, that the discharged veterans wouid be seen begging in every street, or that they would be driven by hunger to pillage. But. no such result followed. In a few months there remained not a trace indicating that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed into the mass ot the community. Ihe Royalists themselves confessed that in every department of honest industry the discarded wari riors prospered beyocd other men, that none was charg-cd with any the t or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and that if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner attracted notice by his diligence or sobriety, he was in all probability one of Cromwell's <:ld soldiers.'' — Captain Herford, in " United Service Magazine."