386 HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

chap. eminent. At the time, when the other officersivii. resigned their commissions, care was taken, thatis-;. he should be sent with a body of horse, to relieveTaunton, besieged by the royalists. His absencebeing remarked, orders were dispatched for hisimmediate attendance in parliament; and the newgeneral was directed to employ some other officerin that service. A ready compliance was feigned;and the very day was named, on which, it \Vasaverred , he would take his place in the house.But Fairfax, having appointed a rendez-vous ofthe army , wrote to the parliament, and desiredleave to retain, for some days, Jieutenant-generalCromwcl , whose advice , he said , would beuseful , in supplying the place of those officers ,who had resigned. Shortly after, he begged, withmuch earnestness, that'they would allow Crom-wel to serve that campaign And thus the in-dependents, though the minority, prevailed by 1art and cunning over the prefbyterians, andbestowed the whole military authority, in appear-ance , upon Fairfax; in reality, upon Cromwel.

Fairfax. Fairfax was a person equally eminent forcourage and for humanity, and though stronglyinfected with prejudices or principles , derivedfrom religious and party zeal, he seems never,in the course of his public conduct, to have beendiverted, by private interest or ambition, fromadhering strictly to these principles. Sincere inhis proseffions; disinterested in his views ; open

" Clarendon, vol. v. p. 625, 630. Whitlocke , p. 141.