Measures were taken to recruit to its full complement the
grand army under Essex; and an ordinance was passed to raise a separate
force of ten thousand horse for the protection of the metropolis.
Kimbolton, who on the death of his father had succeeded to the title of
earl of Manchester, received a commission to levy an army in the associated
counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Ely, and Hertford.[2]
Committees were appointed to raise men and money in numerous other
districts, and were invested with almost unlimited powers; for the exercise
of which in the service of the parliament,
[Footnote 1: Clarendon, 323-333. Northumberland repaired to his house at
Petworth; the earls of Bedford, Holland, Portland, and Clare, and the
lords Lovelace and Conway, to the king at Oxford. They were ungraciously
received, and most of them returned to the parliament.]
[Footnote 2: The first association was made in the northern counties by the
earl of Newcastle in favour of the king, and was afterwards imitated by
the counties of Devon and Cornwall. The patriots saw the advantage to be
derived from such unions, and formed several among their partisans. The
members bound themselves to preserve the peace of the associated counties;
if they were royalists, "against the malevolent and ambitious persons who,
in the name of the two houses, had embroiled the kingdom in a civil war;"
if they were parliamentarians, "against the papists and other ill-affected
persons who surrounded the king.
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