It is remarkable that the very man who had introduced the Self-denying Ordinance was the only man who was never debarred by it from pursuing his military career. This has, therefore, been treated as an artifice on his part; but, on the contrary, it was the mere result of circumstances. Cromwell was the great military genius of the age. Every day the success of his plans and actions was bursting more and more on the public notice, and no one was more impressed by the value of his services than the new Commander-in-Chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax. He had sent Cromwell, Massey, and Waller into the West, before laying down their commissions, to attack Colonel Goring, who was threatening the Parliamentary lines. They had driven him back towards Wells and Glastonbury, and not deeming it safe to push farther with their small force into a quarter where the Royal interest was so strong, and Cromwell advising Parliament to send more troops to Salisbury to defend that point against Rupert, who was reported at Trowbridge, he had returned to Windsor to resign his command according to the Ordinance. There, however, he found the Parliament had suspended the Ordinance in his instance for forty days, in order that he might execute a service of especial consequence, and which it particularly wished him to undertake. This was to attack a body of two thousand men conveying the king's artillery from Oxford to Worcester, to which place Rupert had marched, having defeated Colonel Massey at Ledbury.
This was on the 22nd of April, and Cromwell took horse the next morning, dashed rapidly into Oxfordshire and at Islip Bridge routed the enemy, consisting of four regiments of cavalry, took many of their officers, and especially those of the queen's regiment, seizing the standard which she had presented to it with her own hands. Many of the fugitives got into Bletchington House, which Cromwell immediately assaulted and took. The king was so enraged at the surrender of Bletchington, that he ordered the commander, Colonel Windebank, to be shot, and no prayers or entreaties could save him. Cromwell next sent off his cannon and stores to Abingdon, and pushed on to Radcot Bridge, or Bampton-in-the-Bush, where others of the enemy had fled: here he defeated them, and took their leaders Vaughan and Littleton. Cromwell next summoned Colonel Burgess, the governor of the garrison at Faringdon, to surrender; but he was called away to join the main army, the king being on the move.