"Your troops," said he to Hambden, according to his own account,[*] "are most of them old, decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; the king's forces are composed of gentlemen's younger sons and persons of good quality.

And do you think that the mean spirits of such base and low fellows as ours will ever be able to encounter gentlemen, that have honor, and courage, and resolution in them?
You must get men of spirit; and take it not ill that I say, of a spirit that is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go, or else I am sure you will still be beaten, as you have hitherto been, in every encounter." * Conference held at Whitehall.
He did as he proposed.

He enlisted the sons of freeholders and farmers.
He carefully invited into his regiment all the zealous fanatics throughout England.

When they were collected in a body, their enthusiastic spirit still rose to a higher pitch.

Their colonel, from his own natural character, as well as from policy, was sufficiently inclined to increase the flame.