p, 560.
The severity of manners, so much affected by these zealous religionists, assisted their military institutions and the rigid inflexibility of character by which the austere reformers of church and state were distinguished, enabled the parliamentary chiefs to restrain their soldiers within stricter rules and more exact order.

And while the king's officers indulged themselves even in greater licenses than those to which during times of peace they had been accustomed, they were apt both to neglect their military duty, and to set a pernicious example of disorder to the soldiers under their command.
At the commencement of the civil war, all Englishmen who served abroad were invited over, and treated with extraordinary respect; and most of them, being descended of good families, and by reason of their absence unacquainted with the new principles which depressed the dignity of the crown, had enlisted under the royal standard.

But it is observable, that though the military profession requires great genius and long experience in the principal commanders, all its subordinate duties may be discharged by ordinary talents and from superficial practice.

Citizens and country gentlemen soon became excellent officers; and the generals of greatest fame and capacity happened, all of them, to spring up on the side of the parliament.

The courtiers and great nobility, in the other party, checked the growth of any extraordinary genius among the subordinate officers; and every man there, as in a regular established government, was confined to the station in which his birth had placed him.
The king, that he might make preparations during winter for the ensuing campaign, summoned to Oxford all the members of either house who adhered to his interests; and endeavored to avail himself of the name of parliament, so passionately cherished by the English nation.[*] The house of peers was pretty full; and, beside the nobility employed in different parts of the kingdom, it contained twice as many members as commonly voted at Westminster.