William Waller - The New Model Army and Later Career

The New Model Army and Later Career

By this time the confusion in all the armed forces of the parliament had reached such a height that reforms were at last taken in hand. The original suggestion of the celebrated "New Model Army" came from Waller, who wrote to the Committee of Both Kingdoms on 2 July 1644 that "an army compounded of these men will never go through with your service, and till you have an army merely your own that you may command, it is in a manner impossible to do anything of importance."

Simultaneously with the New Model came the Self-denying Ordinance, which required all members of parliament to lay down their military commands. As he had already requested to be relieved, Waller did so gladly and his active military career came to an end. But the events of 1643 - 1644 had done more than embitter him. They had combined with his Presbyterianism to make him intolerant of all that he conceived to be licence in church, state or army, and after he ceased to exercise command himself he was constantly engaged, in and out of parliament, in opposing the Independents and the army politicians, and supporting the cause of his own religious system, and later that of the Presbyterian-Royalist opposition to the Commonwealth and Protectorate régime. He was several times imprisoned between 1648 and 1659.