OF A CAVALIER. God! I am shot," I looked behind me to see For my part, I confess I had not much reli- I thought the king had now in his hands an opportunity to make an honourable peace; for this battle at Edgehill, as much as they boasted of the victory to hearten up their friends, had sorely weakened their army, and discouraged their party too. The horse were particularly in an ill case, and the foot greatly diminished, and the remainder very sickly but, besides this, the parliament were greatly alarmed at the progress we made afterward, and still fearing the king's surprising them, had sent for the Earl of Essex to London to defend them, by which the country was, as it were, deserted and abandoned, and left to be plundered- our parties overrun all places at pleasure. : All this while I considered, that whatever the soldiers of fortune meant by the war, our desires were to suppress the exorbitant power of a party, to establish our king in his just and legal rights, but not with a design to destroy the constitution of government, and the being of parliament; and therefore I thought now was the time for peace, and there were a great many worthy gentlemen in the army of my opinion: and, had our master had ears to hear us, the war might have had an end here. This address for peace was received by the king at Maidenhead, whither this army was now advanced, and his majesty returned an answer by Sir Peter Killigrew, that he desired nothing more, and would not be wanting on his part. Upon this the parliament name commissioners, and his majesty excepting against Sir John Evelyn, they left him out, and sent others; and desired the king to appoint his residence near London, where the commissioners might wait upon him. Accordingly the king appointed Windsor for the place of treaty, and desired it might be hastened. Thus all things looked with a favourable aspect, when one unlucky action knocked it all on the head, and filled both parties with more implacable animosity than they had before, and all hopes of peace vanished. During this progress of the king's armies, we were always abroad with the horse ravaging the country, and plundering the Roundheads. Prince Rupert, a most active, vigilant party-man, and, I must own, fitter for such than for a general, was never lying still, and I seldom stayed behind; for, One time, in particular, he had a design upon The prince had two thousand five hundred horse with him in this expedition, but no foot: the town had some foot raised in the country by Mr Hambden, and two regiments of the country militia, whom we made light of, but we found they stood to their tackle better than well enough. We came very early to the town, and thought they had no notice of us; but some false brother had given the alarm, and we found them all in arms; the hedges without the town lined with musketeers, on that side in particular where they expected us, and the two regiments of foot drawn up in view to support them, with some horse in the rear of all. The prince, willing, however, to do something, caused some of his horse to alight, and serve as dragoons; and having broken a way into the enclosures, the horse beat the foot from behind the hedges, while the rest who were alighted charged them in the lane which leads to the town. Here they had cast up some works, and fired from their lines very regularly, considering them as militia only, the governor encouraging them by his example; so that finding, without some foot, there would be no good to be done, we gave it over, and drew off, and so Aylesbury escaped a scouring for that time. I cannot deny but these flying parties of horse committed great spoil among the country people, and sometimes the prince gave a liberty to some cruelties which were not at all for the king's interest; because it being still upon our own country, and the king's own subjects, whom, in all his declarations, he protested to be careful of, it seemed to contradict all those protestations and declarations, and served to aggravate and exasperate the common people; and the king's enemies made all the advantages of it that were possible, by crying out of twice as many extravagancies as were committed. It is true the king, who naturally abhorred generals, so absolutely as he would have done. such things, could not restrain his men, nor his The war on his side was voluntarily; many gentlemen served him at their own charge, and some paid whole regiments themselves. Sometimes also the king's affairs were staighter than ordinary, and his men were not very well paid, and this obliged him to wink at their excursions upon the country, though he did not approve of them; and yet I must own, that in those parts of England where the war was hot. test there never was seen that ruin and depopulation, murders, ravishments, and barbarities, which I have seen even among protestant arof the world and if the parliament had seen mies abroad in Germany, and other foreign parts those things abroad as I had, they would not have complained. The most I have seen was plundering the towns for provisions, drinking their beer, and turning our horses into their fields or stacks of corn, and sometimes the soldiers would be a little rude with the wenches; but, alas! what was this to Count Tilly's ravages in Saxony? or what was our taking of Leicester by storm, where they cried out of our barbarities, to the sacking of New Brandenburg, or the taking of Magdeburg? In Leicester, of seven or eight thousand people in the town, three hundred were killed: in Magdeburg, of twenty-five thousand, scarce two thousand seven hundred were left, and the whole town burnt to ashes. I myself have seen sixteen or eighteen villages on fire in a day, and the people driven away from their dwellings like herds of cattle, the men murdered, the women stripped, and seven or eight thousand of them together, after they had suffered all the indignities and abuses of the soldiers, driven stark naked in the winter through the great towns to seek shelter and relief from the charity of their enemies. I do not instance these greater barbarities to justify lesser actions, which are nevertheless irregular; but I do say, that, circumstances considered, this war was managed with as much humanity on both sides as could be expected, especially considering the animosity of parties. But to return to the prince- he had not always the same success in these enterprises, for sometimes we came short home: and I cannot omit one pleasant adventure which happened to a party of ours in one of these excursions into Buckinghamshire. The major of our regiment was soundly beaten by a party which, as I may say, was led by a woman, and if I had not rescued him, I know not but he had been taken prisoner by that woman. It seems our men had besieged some fortified house about Oxfordshire, towards Thame, and the house being defended by the lady in her husband's absence, she had yielded the house upon a capitulation; one of the articles of which was, to march out with all her servants, soldiers, and goods, and to be conveyed to Thame. Whether she thought to have gone no further, or that she reckoned herself safe there, I know not but my major, with two troops of horse, met with this lady and her party, about five miles from Thame, as we were coming back from our defeated attack of Aylesbury. We reckoned ourselves in an enemy's country, and had lived a little at large, or at discretion, as it is called abroad; and these two troops, with the major, were returning to our detachment from a little village, where, at a farmer's house, they had met with some liquor; and truly some of his men were so drunk they could but just sit upon their horses. The major himself was not much better, and the whole body were but in a sorry condition to fight. Upon the road they met this party. The lady, having no design of fighting, and being, as she thought, under the protection of the articles, sounded a parley, and desired to speak with the officer. The major, as drunk as he was, could tell her, that, by the articles, she was to be assured no further than Thame; and being now five miles beyond it, she was a fair enemy, and therefore demanded to surrender themselves prisoners. The lady seemed surprised; but, being sensible she was in the wrong, offered to compound for her goods, and would have given him three hundred pounds, and, I think, seven or eight horses. The major would certainly have taken it, if he had not been drunk; but he refused it, and gave threatening words to her (blustering in language which he thought certainly would frighten a woman,) that he would cut them al to pieces, and give no quarter. The lady, who had been more used to the smell of powder than he imagined, called some of her servants to her, and, consulting with them what to do, they all unanimously encouraged her to let them fight, told her that it was plain that the commander was drunk, and all that were with him were rather worse than him, and hardly able to sit their horses; and that there fore one bold charge would put them all into confusion. The lady consented, and, as she was a woman, they desired her to secure herself among the waggons; but she refused, and told them bravely she would take her fate with them. In short, she boldly bade the major defiance, and that he might do his worst, since she had offered him fair, and he had refused it: her mind was altered now, and she would give h nothing, and bade him be gone. Upon this she gave him leave to go back to his men; but before he could tell his tale to them, she was at his heels with all her men, and gave him such a home charge as put his men into disorder; and being too drunk to rally, they were knocked down before they knew what to do with themselves, and in a few minutes more they took to a plain flight. But what was still worse, the men, being some of them very drunk, when they came to run for their lives, fell over one another, and tumbled over their horses, and made such work that a troop women might have beaten them all. of In this pickle, with the enemy at his heels, I came in with him, hearing the noise; when I ap peared the pursuers retreated, and seeing wha' a condition my people were in, and not knowing the strength of the enemy, I contented myse with bringing them off, without pursuing the other; nor could I ever hear positively who this female captain was. We lost seventeen or eighteen of our men, and about thirty horses; but when the particulars of the story were told us, our major was so laughed at by the whole army, and everywhere, that he was ashamed to show himself for a week or a fortnight after. But to return to the king: his majesty, as I observed, was at Maidenhead, addressed by the parliament for peace; and Windsor being ap pointed for the place of treaty, the van of his army lay at Colnbrook. In the meantime, whether it were true or only a pretence, but it was reported the parliament general had sent a body of his troops, with a train of artillery, to Hammersmith, in order to fa upon some part of our army, or to take some advanced post, which was to the prejudice of our men; whereupon the king ordered the army to march, and, by the favour of a thick mist, came within half a mile of Brentford before he was discovered. and what they would have done by him if they could. The treaty of Westphalia, or peace of Munster, which ended the bloody wars of Germany, was a precedent for this. That treaty was actually negotiating seven years, and yet the war went on with all the vigour and rancour imaginable, even to the last; nay, the very time after the conclu There were two regiments of foot and about six hundred horse in the town of the enemy's best troops: these, taking the alarm, posted them-sion of it, but before the news could be brought selves on the bridge at the west end of the town. The king attacked them with a select detachment of his best infantry, and they defended themselves with incredible obstinacy. to the army, did he that was afterwards King of Sweden, Carolus Gustavus, take the city of Prague by surprise, and therein an inestimable booty. I must own I never saw raw men (for they Besides, all the wars of Europe are full of excould not have been in arms above four months) amples of this kind; and therefore I cannot see act like them in my life. In short, there was no any reason to blame the king for this action, as forcing these men; for though two whole bri- to the fairness of it. Indeed, as to the policy of gades of our foot, backed by our horse, made five it, I can say little; but the case was this:-the several attacks upon them, they could not break king had a gallant army, flushed with success, them, and we lost a great many brave men in and things hitherto had gone on very prosperously that action. At last, seeing their obstinacy, a both with his own army and elsewhere: he had party of horse was ordered to go round from above thirty-five thousand men in his own army, Osterly; and entering the town on the north including his garrisons left at Banbury, Shrewsside, where, though the horse made some resist-bury, Worcester, Oxford, Wallingford, Abingdon, ance, it was not considerable, the town was pre- Reading, and places adjacent. sently taken. I led my regiment through an enclosure, and came into the town nearer to the bridge than the rest, by which means I arrived first; but I had this loss by my expedition, that the foot charged me before the body was come up, and pouring in their shot very furiously, my men were but in an ill case, and would not have stood much longer if the rest of the horse, coming up the lane, had not found them other employment. On the other hand, the parliament army came back to London in but a very sorry condition;* for what with their loss in their victory, as they called it, at Edgehill, their sickness, and a hasty march to London, they were very much diminished, though at London they soon recruited them again. And this prosperity of the king's affairs might encourage him to strike this blow, thinking to bring the parliament to better terms by the apprehensions of the superior strength of the king's forces. But, however it was, the success did not equally answer the king's expectation: the vigorous defence made by the troops posted at Brentford gave the Earl of Essex opportunity, with extraordinary application, to draw his forces out to Turnham Green; and the exceeding alacrity of the enemy was such, that their whole army appeared with them, making together an army of twenty-four thousand men, drawn up in view of our forces, by eight o'clock the next morning. When the horse were thus entered, they immediately dispersed the enemy's horse, who fled away towards London, and falling in, sword in hand, upon the rear of the foot who were engaged at the bridge, they were all cut in pieces, except about two hundred, who, scorning to ask quarter, desperately threw themselves into the river Thames, where they were most of them drowned. The parliament and their party made a great outcry at this attempt; that it was base and treacherous while in a treaty of peace; and that the king, having amused them with hearkening The city regiments were placed between the to a treaty, designed to have seized upon their regular troops, and altogether offered us battle, train of artillery first, and after that to have surbut we were not in a condition to accept it. The prised both the city of London and the parlia-king, indeed, was sometimes of the mind to charge ment. And I have observed since, that our historians note this action as contrary to the laws of honour and treaties, though, as there was no cessation of arms agreed on, nothing is more contrary to the laws of war than to suggest it. : That it was a very unhappy thing to the king and whole nation, as it broke off the hopes of peace, and was the occasion of bringing the Scotch army in upon us, I readily acknowledge; but that there was anything dishonourable in it I cannot allow for though the parliament had addressed to the king for peace, and such steps were taken in it as before, yet, as I have said, there were no proposals made on either side for a cessation of arms; and all the world must allow that, in such cases, the war goes on in the field while the peace goes on in the cabinet. And if war goes on, admitting the king had designed to the surprise the city or parliament, or all of them, it had been no more than the custom of war allows, them, and once or twice ordered parties to advance to begin to skirmish, but, upon better advice, altered his mind; and indeed it was the wisest counsel to defer the fighting at that time. The parliament generals were as unfixed in their resolutions on the other side as the king: sometimes they sent out parties, and then called them back again. One strong party, of near three thousand men, marched off towards Acton, with orders to amuse us on that side, but were countermanded. Indeed I was of the opinion we might have ventured the battle; for though the parliament's army were more numerous, yet the city trained bands, which made up four thousand of their foot, were not much esteemed, and the king was a great deal stronger in horse than they; but the main reason that hindered the engagement was want of ammunition, which the king having duly weighed, he caused the carriages and cannon to draw off first, and then the foot, the horse continuing to face the enemy till all was clear again, and then we drew off too, and marched to Kingston, and the next day to Reading. glad of the news, resolved to attack them; and though it was a wet season, and the roads exceeding bad, being in February, yet we marched all night in the dark, which occasioned the loss of some horses, and men too, in sloughs and holes, which the darkness of the night had occasioned them to fall into. We were a very strong party of horse, being about three thousand horse and dragoons, and coming to Cirencester very early in the morning, to our great satisfaction the enemy were perfectly surprised, not having the least notice of our march, which answered more ways than one. However, the Earl of Stamford's regiment works to defend it, saving a slight breastwork at the entrance of the road, with a turnpike, our dragoons alighted, and forcing their way over the bellies of Stamford's foot, they beat them from their defence, and followed them closely into the town. Now the king saw his mistake in not continuing his march for London, instead of facing about to fight the enemy at Edgehill; and all the honour we had gained in so many successful enterprises lay buried in this shameful retreat from an army of citizens' wives; for truly their appear-made some resistance; but the town having no ance at Turnham green was gay, but not great. There were as many lookers-on as actors; the crowds of ladies, apprentices, and mobility, were so great, that when the parties of our army advanced, and, as they thought to charge, the coachmen, horsemen, and crowd made such a bustle to be out of harm's way, that it looked little better than a rout; and I was persuaded a good home charge from our horse would have sent their whole army after them; but so it was, that this crowd of an army was to triumph over us, and they did it, for all the kingdom was carefully informed how their dreadful looks had frightened us away. Upon our retreat, the parliament resented this attack, which they called treacherous, and voted no accommodation; but they considered of it afterwards, and sent six commissioners to the king with propositions; but the change of the scene of action changed the terms of peace, and now they made terms like conquerors, petition him to desert his army, return to the parliament, and the like. Had his majesty, at the head of his army, with the full reputation they had before, and in the ebb of their affairs, rested at Windsor, and commenced a treaty, they had certainly made more rcasonable proposals; but now the scabbard seemed to be thrown away on both sides. The rest of the winter was spent in strengthening parties and places, also in fruitless treaties of peace, messages, remonstrances, and paper war on both sides, but no action remarkable happened anywhere that I remember; yet the king gained ground everywhere, and his forces in the north increased under the Earl of Newcastle; also my Lord Goring (then only Colonel Goring) arrived from Holland, bringing three ships laden with arms and ammunition, and notice that the queen was following with more. Goring brought four thousand barrels of gunpowder and twenty thousand small arms, all which came very seasonably, for the king was in great want of them, especially the powder. Upon this recruit the Earl of Newcastle drew down to York, and being above sixteen thousand strong, made Sir Thomas Fairfax give ground, and retreat to Hull. Whoever lay still, Prince Rupert was always abroad, and I chose to go out with his highness as often as I had opportunity, for hitherto he was always successful About this time, the Prince being at Oxford, I gave him intelligence of a party of the enemy who lived a little at large, too much for good soldiers, about Cirencester: the prince, Stamford's regiment was entirely cut in pieces, and several others, to the number of about eight hundred men, and the town entered without any other resistance. We took twelve hundred prisoners, three thousand arms, and the county ma gazine, which at that time was considerable, for there were about a hundred and twenty barrels of powder, and all things in proportion. I received the first hurt I got in this war at this action; for having followed the dragoons, and brought my regiment within the barricado which they had gained, a musket-bullet struck my horse just in the head, and that so effectually, that he was dead in an instant. The fall plunged me into a puddle of water; and my man having brought me another horse, and cleaned me a little, I was just getting up, when a bullet struck me on my left hand, which I had just clapped on the horse's mane to lift myself into the saddle. The blow broke one of my fingers, and bruised my hand very much, and it proved a very painful hurt to me. For the present I did not much concern myself about it, but made my man tie it up close in my handkerchief, and led up my men to the marketplace, where we had a very smart brush with some musketeers who were posted in the churchyard; but our dragoons soon beat them out there, and the whole town was then our own. We made no stay here, but marched back with all our booty to Oxford, for we knew the enemy were very strong at Gloucester, and that way. Much about the same time the Earl of Northampton, with a strong party, set upon Lichfield, and took the town, but could not take the close; but they beat a body of four thousand men, coming to the relief of the town, under Sir John Gell, of Derbyshire, and Sir William Brereton, of Cheshire, and killing six hundred of them, dispersed the rest. Our second campaign now began to open. The king marched from Oxford to relieve Reading, which was besieged by the parliament forces; but Colonel Fielding, lieutenant-governor, Sir Arthur Ashton being wounded, surrendered to Essex before the king could come up, for which he was tried by a court-martial, and condemned to die, but the king forbore to execute the sen tence. This was the first town we had lost in the war, || for still the success of the king's affairs was very encouraging. This bad news, however, was overbalanced by an account brought the king at the same time, by an express from York, that the queen had landed in the north, and had brought over a great magazine of arms and ammunition, bes.des some men. Some time after this her majesty, marching southward to meet the king, joined the army near Edgehill, where the first battle was fought. She brought the king three thousand foot, fifteen hundred horse and dragoons, six pieces of cannon, fifteen hundred barrels of powder, and twelve thousand small arms. way they could; but our horse having surrounded them, made a fearful havoc. We lost not above two hundred men in this action. Waller had above four thousand killed and taken, and as many dispersed that never returned to their colours. Those of the foot that had escaped got into Bristol, and Waller, with the poor remains of his routed regiments, got to Londor; so that it is plain some ran east, and some west, and every way they could. My going with this detachment prevented my being at the siege of Bristol, which Prince Rupert attacked much about the same time, and it surrendered in three days. The parliament questioned Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes, the governor, and had him tried as a coward by a courtmartial, and condemned to die, but suspended the execution also, as the king did the governor of Reading. I have often heard Prince Rupert say they did Colonel Fiennes wrong in that affair; and that if the colonel would have summoned him, he would have demanded a passport of the parlia During this prosperity of the king's affairs, his armies increased mightily in the western counties also. Sir William Waller indeed commanded for the parliament in those parts too, and particularly in Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and Berkshire, where he carried on their cause but too fast; further west, Sir Nicholas Flamming, Sir Ralph Hopton, and Sir Bevil Greenvil had extended the king's quarters from Cornwall, through Devon-ment, and have come up and convinced the court shire, and into Somersetshire, where they took Exeter, Barnstaple, and Bideford; and the first of these they fortified very well, making it a place of arms for the west, and afterwards it was the residence of the queen. At last the famous Sir William Waller and the king's forces met, and came to a pitched battle, where Sir William lost all his honour again. This was at Roundway-down in Wiltshire. Waller had engaged our Cornish army at Landsdown, and in a very obstinate fight had the better of them, and made them retreat to the Devizes. (Note 17.) Sir William Hopton, however, having a good body of foot untouched, sent expresses and mes sengers one at the back of another to the king for some horse; and the king being in great concern for that army, who were composed of the flower of the Cornish men, commanded me to march with all possible secrecy, as well as expedition, with twelve hundred horse and dragoons from Oxford to join them. We set out in the depth of the night, to avoid, if possible, any intelligence being given of our route, and soon joined with the Cornish army, when it was as soon resolved to give battle to Waller, and, to give him his due, he was as forward to fight as we. that Colonel Fiennes had not misbehaved him- sures I had taken for a general assault the next if he had not surrendered.” The king's affairs were now in a very good posture, and three armies in the north, west, and in the centre, counted, in the musters, above seventy thousand men, besides small garrisons and parties abroad. Several of the lords, and parliament, and make their peace with the king, more of the commons, began to fall off from the and the affairs of the parliament began to look very ill. The city of London was their inexhaustible support and magazine, both for men, money, army was out of order, the clergy of their party and all things necessary; and whenever their in a Sunday or two would preach the young As it is easy to meet when both sides are will-citizens out of their shops, the labourers from ing to be found, Sir William Waller met us upon Roundway-down, where we had a fair field on both sides, and room enough to draw up our horse. their masters, into the army, and recruit them on a sudden; and all this was still owing to the omission I first observed, of not marching to London when it might have been so easily effected. In a word, there was little ceremony to the work; the armies joined, and we charged his We had now another or a fairer opportunity horse with so much resolution, that they quickly than before, but an ill use was made of it. The fled, and quitted the field, for we overmatched king, as I have observed, was in a very good him in horse, and this was the entire destruction posture: he had three large armies roving at of their army; for their infantry, which outnum-large over the kingdom. The Cornish army, bered ours by fifteen hundred, were now at our mercy; some faint resistance they made, just enough to give us occasion to break into their ranks with our horse, where we gave time to our foot to defeat others that stood to their work, upon which they began to disband, and ran every victorious and numerous, had beaten Waller, secured and fortified Exeter, which the queen had made her residence, and was there delivered of a daughter, the Princess Henrietta Maria, afterwards Duchess of Orleans, and mother of the Duchess Dowager of Savoy, commonly L |