The Politics of Sir Thomas Fairfax Reassessed

Abstract

Sir Thomas Fairfax (1612–71) was one of the most distinguished parliamentarian soldiers of the Great Civil War. He assumed command of the New Model Army at its inception in 1645 and was at its head during the succeeding five years when it was transformed from a victorious military force into an engine of political revolution. An inarticulate and in some respects a staid and conservative figure, Fairfax has often been depicted as an impotent opponent of the army's radicalization or as a political innocent manipulated by his subordinates, principally Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, for their own ends. This article seeks to challenge these conceptions. It examines the political connotations of his conduct during the war and his readiness to stand by his men throughout their conflict with the parliamentary Presbyterians after it. It further probes his response to the upheavals of 1648–9 and his attitude to the new republican regime. Whatever his reticence, Fairfax's actions do not resemble those of an apolitical neutral and a balanced assessment of his sympathies has the virtue of explaining much about how the army was able to retain a remarkable unity of purpose, albeit sometimes tenuous, as it stepped onto the political stage.