Prisoner of the Army

After years of heavy fighting and a terrible series of harvests, plagues and bad weather, the New Model Army rank and file was becoming dangerously radicalised.

Years of war had reduced the tax base and left Parliament with little money to pay its troops. And amidst the rumours, suspicion and paranoia which encircled the army camps, there was an abiding fear of betrayal.

Though they had performed God's work in bringing down tyranny and banishing the spectre of Catholicism, behind their backs Westminster politicians were negotiating deals which would leave them unpaid and without indemnity against war crimes. Like the US veterans of the Vietnam war they saw themselves as unloved and marginalised by a political establishment keen to brush them under the carpet. But they weren't going to go easily.

The New Model Army believed itself on a divine mission. Their goal was to expunge the Catholic stain from England and their victories had shown divine grace for this charge. The soldiers believed their service had been sanctioned by God and they expected a hero's welcome at the end of it - not the stitch-up prepared by Parliament. This fusion of religious and political radicalism came together in a statement testifying to the Army's fanatical sense of self-worth.

'We were not merely mercenary soldiers, brought together by the hopes of pay and fortunes of war;' they declared, 'the peace of our country, our freedom from tyranny, the preservation of due liberty, the administration of judgement and justice, the free course of the laws of the land, the preservation of the King, the privilege of Parliament, and the liberty of the subject, were the main things which brought us together.'

The final straw came when the Presbyterians in Parliament, desperately afraid of this military monster which they had helped to create, tried to pack it off to Ireland to fight against the Confederates.

It looked suspiciously like the Presbyterians wanted to rid themselves of an army whose radical convictions were standing in the way of a possible deal with the King. But further conflict in Ireland was the last thing the Army wanted after years of warfare. Denzil Holles sensed the new militancy of the Army and tried to have it disbanded. He was to pay the price politicians do for going against an army during revolution.

In March 1647, the rank and file of the Army stationed at Saffron Walden, Essex, started to appoint 'Agitators' or agents to represent their grievances to the Army's Council of War.

By June, the Army declared that troops would not be disbanded until Parliament had settled their grievances. The Army which had delivered Parliament its great victories at Marston Moor and Naseby was now turning on its maker. It was out of control. Religion inspired the soldiers with a sense of divine mission - which would be fulfilled with or without Parliament. They were also inspired by the political ideals of John Lilburne and the Levellers.