Taking his evidence from contemporary sources, Ian Gentles here describes the formation of the New Model Army under Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. He explores the army's innovative tactics, the course of its decisive victories over the forces of Charles I, and its successful campaigns against the Scots and the Irish. He also examines the motivations and aspirations of the soldiers and their officers, for this was an army convinced that it was acting under divine guidance, not merely to win a war but to change the very nature of English society. In 1649, with the execution of the king and the abolition of the House of Lords, it must have appeared as if they had done so. The question of how far the New Model was a revolutionary army and how far a body of men whose religious passion was manipulated for the pragmatic, personal, or even conservative aims of its leaders is one that has occupied the minds of historians for three centuries. Ian Gentles sets out to provide a convincing resolution of this debate, raising new evidence to support his argument.