By the Ordinance for New-Modelling the Parliamentarian Army, passed February 15, 1644-5, and by the Self-Denying Ordinance, which followed April 3, 1645, excluding all members of either House from commands in the New Army, the prospects of the war had been completely altered. From these dates people everywhere were talking of the New Model, and what it was likely to accomplish, the only difference being that the bulk of the Parliamentarians expected great things from it, while the Royalists, and perhaps also those of the Parliamentarians who resented the removal of Essex from the chief command, and their own removal from commands under him, regarded the whole experiment rather sneeringly, and ridiculed it as the New Noddle. Which of these sets of prophets were in the right will appear presently; meanwhile it is desirable that we should know as exactly as possible what the New Model or New Noddle really was.
COMPOSITION OF THE NEW MODEL, AND VIEW OF THE WORK LYING BEFORE IT.
The following is an account of the organization of the New Model, with a list of its chief Officers when it was first organized:—
TOTAL ARMY ESTIMATED AT 22,000.
Commander-in-Chief: SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX (ætat. 33).
Second-in-Command (for the present): PHILIP SKIPPON, with the rank of Serjeant Major-General.
Chief of Ordnance: THOMAS HAMMOND. He was a brother of the
Royalist Divine and King's faithful Chaplain, Dr. Henry Hammond (see Vol.
II. 519 and 526, Note); and the split of the Hammond family into
Royalists and Parliamentarians was much noticed.
Scout-Master-General: LEONARD WATSON, "originally a goldsmith in Lincoln."
Chaplain to the Commander-in-Chief: Mr. EDWARD BOWLES.
Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief: JOHN RUSHWORTH.