Ironsides was a nickname given to Oliver Cromwell by Prince Rupert after the battle of Marston Moor (July 1644). The title was derived, according to a contemporary writer, ‘from the impenetrable strength of his troops, which could by no means be broken or divided’. Later the term was extended to the soldiers themselves—the double regiment of cavalry which Cromwell had raised and trained in East Anglia at the outbreak of the Civil War, and known both for its rigid discipline and its religious radicalism. At the founding of the New Model Army in 1645 the regiment was divided, half being assigned to General Thomas Fairfax and the other half to Colonel Edward Whalley.

Ian Gentles

Ironsides a nickname for the Parliamentary leader Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658). In the English Civil War, Cromwell's cavalry troopers were called Ironsides by their Royalist opponents in allusion to their hardiness in battle.