William Waller Sir William Waller ( c . 1597 – 19 September 1668 ) was an English Parliamentary general during the English Civil War . He received his education at Magdalen Hall , Oxford , and served in the Venetian army and in the Thirty Years ' War . He received a knighthood in 1622 after taking part in Vere ' s expedition to the Electorate of the Palatinate . Origins and Early Commercial Ventures . William Waller was born in Knole , Sevenoaks , Kent , the son of Sir Thomas Waller and his wife Margaret Lennard , the daughter of Lord and Lady Dacre . His father was a descendant of the Waller family of Groombridge Place , Kent , constable of Dover Castle and member of parliament for Dover . His cousin was the Parliamentarian and regicide Hardress Waller . William Waller attended Magdalen College , Oxford , but did not graduate . He succeeded to the estates of his father in 1613 and was knighted on 30 June 1622 . As from 1636 Waller owned a quarter - share in the Providence Island Company . Election to Parliament and early military career . In 1640 Waller was elected Member of Parliament for Andover in the Short Parliament . He was elected MP for Andover for the Long Parliament on 3 May 1642 . As a strict Presbyterian by religion , and a member of the opposition in politics , he became a prominent supporter of the cause of Parliament when the Civil War broke out in 1642 . He immediately received an appointment as a colonel , and successfully concluded the Siege of Portsmouth in September 1642 ; later in the year he commanded the forces that captured Farnham , Winchester and other key locations in the south - west of England . At the beginning of 1643 Waller was promoted to major - general and placed in charge of operations in the region of Gloucester and Bristol . He concluded his first campaign in this theatre with a victory at Highnam and the capture of Hereford . He was then called upon to oppose the advance of Sir Ralph Hopton and the Royalist western army , and though more or less defeated in the hard - fought battle of Lansdowne ( near Bath ) he was able to encircle Hopton in Devizes . However , Hopton and a relieving force from Oxford inflicted a crushing defeat upon Waller ' s army at the Battle of Roundway Down ( 13 July 1643 ) . Hopton was Waller ' s intimate personal friend , and some correspondence passed between the opposing generals , a quotation from which ( Gardiner , " Civil War " , i . 168 ) is given as illustrative of " the temper in which the nobler spirits on either side had entered on the war " . Waller wrote : The destruction of his army at Roundway scarcely affected Waller ' s military reputation , many reproaching Essex , the commander - in - chief , for allowing the Oxford royalists to turn against Waller . The Londoners , who had called him " William the Conqueror " , recognised his skill and energy so far as willingly to raise a new army for him in London and the south - eastern counties . But from this point Waller ' s career is one of gradual disillusionment . His new forces were distinctively local , and , like other local troops on both sides , resented long marches and hard work far from their own counties . Only at moments of imminent danger could they be trusted to do their duty . At ordinary times , such as at the first siege of Basing House , they mutinied in face of the enemy , deserted and even marched home in formed bodies under their own officers , and their gallantry at critical moments , such as the surprise of Alton and the skirmish at the Church of St Lawrence in December 1643 and the recapture of Arundel in January 1644 , only partially redeemed their general bad conduct . Waller himself , a general of the highest skill — " the best shifter and chooser of ground " on either side - was , like Turenne , at his best at the head of a small and highly - disciplined regular army . Only a Condé or a Cromwell could have enforced discipline and soldierly spirit in such men , ill - clad and unpaid as they were , and the only military quality lacking to Waller was precisely this supreme personal magnetism . In these circumstances affairs went from bad to worse . Though successful in stopping Hopton ' s second advance at Cheriton in March 1644 , he was defeated by Charles I in the war of manoeuvre which ended with the action of Cropredy Bridge ( June 1644 ) , and at the Second Battle of Newbury in October his tactical success at the village of Speen led to nothing . His last expeditions were made into the west for the relief of Taunton , and in these he had Cromwell as his lieutenant - general . 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 Independent s 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 . Postwar career and death . In 1654 he bought Osterley Park . In the latter year Waller worked actively in promoting the final negotiations for the restoration of Charles II and reappeared in the House of Commons . He sat in the Convention Parliament , but soon retired from political life . He died on 19 September 1668 . Marriages and progeny . Sir William Waller married three times :