known, in the French style, by the title of Madame Royal.

They had secured Salisbury, Sherborne Castle, Weymouth, Winchester, and Basinghouse, and commanded the whole country, except Bridgewater, Taunton, Plymouth, and Lynn; all which places they held blocked up.

it was of for the commerce of the country to have the navigation of the Severn free, which was only interrupted by this one town from the sea up to Shrewsbury, &c.

I opposed this, and so did several othersPrince Rupert was vehemently against it; and we both offered, with the troops of the county, The king was also entirely master of all Wales, to keep Gloucester blocked up during the king's Monmouthshire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Stafford-march for London, so that Massey should not be shire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, able to stir. and all the towns, from Windsor up the Thames to Cirencester, except Reading and Henley; and of the whole Severn, excepting Gloucester.

The Earl of Newcastle had garrisons in every strong place in the north, from Berwick-uponTweed to Boston in Lincolnshire and Newarkupon-Trent, Hull only excepted, whither the Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas, were retreated, their troops being routed and broken, Sir Thomas Fairfax's baggage, with his lady and servants taken prisoners, and himself hardly escaping.

This proposal made the Earl of Worcester's party more eager for the siege than before, for they had no mind to a blockade, which would leave the country to maintain the troops all the summer; and, of all the men, the prince did not please them; for he having no extraordinary character for discipline, his company was not much desired, even by our friends.

Thus, in an ill hour, it was resolved to sit down before Gloucester. The king had a gallant army of twenty-eight thousand men, whereof eleven thousand horse, the finest body of gentlemen that ever I saw together in my life; their horses without comparison, and their equipages the finest and best in the world, and their persons English, which I think is enough to say of them.|| (Note 18.)

And now a great council of war was held in the king's quarters what enterprise to go upon; and it happened to be the very same day when the parliament were in a serious debate what should become of them, and whose help they should seek, and indeed they had cause for it; and had our councils been as ready and well-cil grounded as theirs, we had put an end to the war in a month's time.

In this council the king proposed the marching to London, to put an end to the parliament, and encourage his friends and loyal subjects in Kent who were ready to rise for him; and showed us letters from the Earl of Newcastle, wherein he offered to join his majesty with a detachment of four thousand horse and eight thousand foot, if his majesty thought fit to march southward, and yet leave forces sufficient to guard the north from any invasion.

According to the resolution taken in the counof war, the army marched westward, and sat down before Gloucester the beginning of August. There we spent a month to the least purpose that ever army did: our men received frequent affronts from the desperate sallies of an incons. derable enemy.

I cannot forbear reflecting on the misfortunes of this seige-our men were strangely dispirited in all the assaults they gave upon the placethere was something looked like disaster and mis management, and our men went on with an illwill, and no resolution. The king despised the place; and to carry it sword in hand, made no regular approaches, but the garrison being des perate, made the greatest slaughter.

I confess, when I saw the scheme the king had himself drawn for this attempt, I felt an unusual satisfaction in my mind, from the hopes that we In this work our horse, who were so numerous might bring this war to some tolerable end; for and fine, had no employment. Two thousand I professed myself, on all occasions, heartily horse had been enough for this business; the weary of fighting with friends, brothers, neigh-enemy had no garrison or party within forty miles bours, and acquaintance; and I made no question but this motion of the king's would effectually bring the parliament to reason.

All men seemed to like the enterprise but the Earl of Worcester, who, on particular views for securing the country behind, as he called it, proposed the taking in the town of Gloucester and Hereford first. He made a long speech of the danger of leaving Massey, governor of Gloucester, an active, resolute man, with a strong party, in the heart of all the king's quarters, ready on all occasions to sally out and surprise the neighbouring garrisons, as he had done Sudley Castle and others, and of the ease and freedom to all those western parts to have them fully cleared of the enemy.

Interest presently backed this advice, and all those gentlemen whose estates lay that way, or whose friends lived about Worcester, Shrewsbury, Bridgenorth, or the borders, and who, as they said, had heard the frequent wishes of the country to have the city of Gloucester reduced, fell in with this advice, alleging the consequence

of us, so that we had nothing to do but look on, with infinite regret, upon the losses of our foot.

The enemy made frequent and desperate sal lies, in one of which I had my share. I was posted upon a parade, or place of arms, with part of my regiment, and part of Colonel Goring's regiment of horse, in order to support a body of foot who were ordered to storm the point of a breastwork which the enemy had raised to defend one of the avenues to the town.

The foot were beat off with loss, as they always were; and Massey, not content to have beaten them from his works, sallied out with near four hundred men, and falling in upon the foot, as they were rallying under the cover of our horse, we put ourselves in the best posture we could to receive them.

As Massey did not expect, I suppose, to engage with any horse, he had no pikes with him, which encouraged us to treat him the more rudely but, as to desperate men danger is no danger, when he found he must clear his hands of us before he could despatch the foot, he faced up to us,

and, without doubt, we were superior to him both in number and goodness of our horse, but the foot were not in an equal condition; and the colonels of foot, representing to the king the We at first despised this way of clubbing us, weakness of their regiments, and that their men and, charging through them, laid a great many had been greatly disheartened at this cursed upon the ground, and in repeating our charge siege, the graver counsel prevailed, and it was retrampled more under our horses' feet, and wheel-solved to raise the siege, and retreat towards ing thus continually beat them off from our foot, Bristol, till the army was recruited. who were just upon the point of disbanding. Pursuant to this resolution, the 5th of SepUpon this they charged us again with their tember, the king having before sent away his fire, and at one volley killed thirty-three or thirty-heavy cannon and baggage, raised the siege, and four men and horses; and had they had pikes with them, I know not what we should have done; but at last charging through them again, we divided them; one part, being hemmed in between us and our own foot, were cut in pieces; the rest, as I understood afterwards, retreated into the town, having lost three hundred of their

small heights in their rear, which obliged them to think of retreating, or coming to a general battle, which was not their design.

I had no occasion to follow them, not being in a condition to attack their whole body; but the dragoons, coming out into the common, gave them another volley at a distance, which reached them effectually, for it killed about twenty of them, and wounded more; but they drew off, and never fired a shot at us, fearing to be enclosed between two parties, and so marched away to their general's quarters, leaving ten or twelve more of their fellows killed, and about a hundred and eighty horses. Our men, after the country fashion, gave them a shout at parting, to let them see we knew they were afraid of us.

However, this relieving of Gloucester raised the spirits as well as the reputation of the parliament forces, and was a great defeat to us; and from this time things began to look with a melancholy aspect, for the prosperous condition of|| the king's affairs began to decline.

ble condition, and had never been recruited, had we not given them a month's time, which we lingered away fatally at this town of Gloucester; but it was too late to reflect—we were a disheartened army, though not beaten yet, nor broken-we had a large country to recruit in, and we lost no time, but raised men apace.

In the meantime his majesty, after a short stay at Bristol, made back again towards Oxford with a part of the foot and all the horse.

At Cirencester we had a skirmish again with the Earl of Essex: that town owed us a shrewd turn for having handled them so coarsely before, when Prince Rupert seized the county magazine. I happened to be in the town that night with Sir Nicholas Crisp, whose regiment of horse was quartered there with Colonel Spencer, and some foot; my own regiment being gone before to Oxford.

:

About ten at night a party of Essex's men beat up our quarters by surprise, just as we had served them before they fell in with us just as we were going to bed; and having beaten the out-guards, were got into the middle of the town before our men could get on horseback.

The opportunities he had let slip were never to be recovered; and the parliament, in their former extremity, having voted an invitation to the Scots to march to their assistance, we had Sir Nicholas Crisp, hearing the alarm, got up, now new enemies to encounter, and indeed there and, with some of his clothes on and some off, began the ruin of his majesty's affairs; for the came into my chamber-"We are all undone," Earl of Newcastle, not able to defend himself said he: "the Roundheads are upon us." We against the Scots on his rear, the Earl of Man-had but little time to consult; but being in one chester in his front, and Sir Thomas Fairfax on his flank, was everywhere routed and defeated, and his forces obliged to quit the field to the enemy.

About this time it was that we first began to hear of one Oliver Cromwell, who, like a little cloud, rose out of the east, and spread first into the north, till it shed down a flood that overwhelmed the three kingdoms.

He first was a private captain of horse, but now commanded a regiment; and joining with the Earl of Manchester, the first action we heard of him, which emblazoned his fame, was at Grantham, where, with only his own regiment, he defeated twenty-four troops of horse and dragoons of the king's forces.

Then at Gainsborough, with two regiments of his own horse, and one of dragoons, he defeated near three thousand of the Earl of Newcastle's men, killed Lieutenant-General Cavendish, brother to the Earl of Devonshire, who commanded them, and relieved Gainsborough; and, though the whole army came in to the rescue, he made good his retreat to Lincoln, with little loss.

The next week he defeated Sir John Hender

of the principal inns in the town, we instantly ordered the gates of the inn to be shut, and sent to the other inns, where our men were quartered, to do the like, with orders, if they had any back doors or ways to get out, to come to us.

By this means, however, we got so much time as to get on horseback, and so many of our men came to us by back ways, that we had near three the house; and now we began to think of breaking hundred horse in the yards and places behind out by a lane which led from the back side of the inn; but a new accident determined us another, though a worse way.

The enemy being entered, and our men cooped up in the yards of the inns, Colonel Spencer, the other colonel, whose regiment of horse lay also in the town, had got on horseback before us, and engaged with the enemy; but, being overpow ered, retreated fighting, and sent to Sir Nicholas Crisp for help.

Sir Nicholas, moved to see the distress of his friend, turning to me, said, "What can we do for

him?"

I replied, I thought it was time to help him, if son at Winsby, near Horncastle, with sixteen possible; upon which, opening the inn-gates, we regiments of horse and dragoons, himself having sallied out in very good order, about three hunnot half that number, killed the Lord Widdring-dred horse; and several of the troops from other ton, Sir Ingram Hopton, and several gentlemen of quality.

Thus this firebrand of war began to blaze, and he soon grew a terror to the north; for victory attended him like a page of honour, and he was scarce ever known to be beaten during the whole war.

Now we began to reflect again on the misfortune of our master's counsels: had we marched to London, instead of besieging Gloucester, we had finished the war with a stroke.

The parliament's army was in a most despica

parts of the town joining us, we recovered Colonel Spencer, and, charging home, beat back the enemy to their main body; but finding their foot drawn up in the churchyard, and several detachments moving to charge us, we retreated in as good order as we could.

They did not think fit to pursue us, but took all the carriages which were under the convoy of this party, laden with provisions and ammunition, &c., and above five hundred of our horse. The foot shifted away as well as they could. Thus we made off in a shattered condition to

RS

OF A CAVALIER.

wards Farringdon, and so to Oxford; and I was
very glad my regiment was not there. (Note 19.)
We had little rest at Oxford, or indeed any
where else, for the king had marched from
I was rather un-
thence, and we followed him.

easy at being absent from my regiment, and did
not know how the king might resent it, which
caused me to ride after them with all expedition.

The king was exceedingly concerned for him, We were inand was observed to shed tears. deed all of us troubled for the loss of so brave a gentleman, but the concern our royal master discovered moved us exceedingly. Everybody endeavoured to have the king out of the room, but he would not stir from the bed-side till one of the surgeons acquainted his majesty that all hopes of

The armies were engaged that very day at New-life were gone.
bury, but I came in too late.

I had not behaved myself so as to be sus-
pected of a wilful shunning the action; but a
colonel of a regiment ought to avoid absence
from his regiment in time of fight, be the excuse
ever so just, as carefully as he would a surprise
in his quarters.

The truth is, it was an error of my own, and owing to two days' stay I made at the Bath, where I met with some ladies who were my relations; but this is far from being an excuse, for if King Charles had been a Gustavus Adolphus, I had certainly received a check for it.

This fight was very obstinate; and could our horse have come to action as freely as the foot, the parliament army had suffered much more, for we had here a much better body of horse than they, and we never failed beating them where the weight of the work lay upon the horse.

Here the city trained bands, of which there were two regiments, and whom we used to despise, fought very well; they lost one of their colonels and several officers in the action, and I heard our men say they behaved themselves as well as any forces the parliament had.

The parliament cried victory here too, as they always did, and indeed where the foot were concerned they had the advantage, but our horse defeated them evidently. The king drew up his army in battalia, and faced them all the next day, inviting them to renew the fight, but they had no inclination to come on again.

It was a kind of hedge fight, for neither army was drawn out in the field, if it had, it would never have held from six in the morning to ten at night; but they fought for advantages-sometimes one side had the better, sometimes the other; they fought twice through the town, in at one end and out at the other, and in the hedges and lanes, with exceeding fury.

The king lost the most men, his foot having suffered for want of succour from the horse, which, on two several occasions, could not come at them; but the parliament foot suffered also, and two regiments were entirely cut in pieces, and the king kept the field.

Essex, the parliament general, had the pillage of the dead, and left us to bury them; for while we stood all day to our arms, having given them a fair field to fight us in, their camp rabble stripped the dead bodies, and they, not daring to venture a second engagement, marched away towards

London.

The king lost in this action the Earls of Carnarvon and Sunderland, the Lord Falkland, a French marquis, some very gallant officers, and about twelve hundred men. The Earl of Carnarvon was brought into an inn in Newbury, where the king came to see him. He had just life enough to speak to his majesty, and died in

his presence.

The indefatigable industry of the king, his servants and friends, continually to supply and reIcruit his forces, and to harass and fatigue the enemy, was such that we should still have given a good account of the war had the Scots stood neuter, but bad news came every day from the north. As for other places, parties were always in action; Sir William Waller and Sir Ralph Hopton beat one another by turns; and Sir Ralph had extended the king's quarters from Launceston in Cornwall to Farnham in Surrey, where he gave Sir William a rub, and drove him into the castle.

But in the north the storm grew thick, the Scots advanced to the borders, and entered England, in confederacy with the parliament, against their king, for which the parliament requited them afterwards as they deserved.

Had it not been for the Scotch army, the parliament had easily been reduced to terms of peace, Want of success before but after this they never made any proposals fit for the king to receive.

had made them differ among themselves; Essex and Waller were ever at variance; the Earl of Manchester and Lord Willoughby differed to the highest degree, and the king's affairs went never

the worse for it.

But this storm in the north ruined us all, for the Scots prevailed in Yorkshire, and being joined by Fairfax, Manchester, and Cromwell, Icarried all before them, so that the king was obliged to send Prince Rupert, with a body of four thousand horse, to the assistance of the Earl of Newcastle, where that prince finished the destruction of the king's interest by a rash and unaccountable action, of which I shall speak in its place.

Another action on the part of the king gave great offence, which was the calling the Scots into the nation, for even the king's own friends disliked it, and was carefully improved by his enemies, to the disadvantage of the king and of his cause.

The rebels in Ireland had, ever since the bloody massacre of the protestants, maintained a war against the English, and the Earl of Ormond was general and governor for the king. The king, finding his affairs pinch him at home, sent orders to the Earl of Ormond to agree to a cessation of arms with the rebels, and to ship over certain of his regiments hither to his majesty's assistance.

It is true the Irish had deserved to be very ill treated by the English; but while the parliament pressed the king with a cruel and unnatural war at home, and called in an army out of Scotland to support their quarrel with their king, I could never be convinced that it was such a dishonourable action for the king to suspend the correction of his Irish rebels till he was in a capacity to do

it with safety to himself, or to delay any further

assistance to preserve himself here; and the troops he recalled being his own, it was no breach of his honour to make use of them, since he now wanted them for his own security against those who fought against him at home.

king, with whom they had articled and capitulated, and who had so punctually complied with all their demands, that they had no claim upon him, no grievances to be redressed, no oppression to cry out of him, nor could ask any thing of him which he had not granted.

But as no action in the world is so vile but the

so the Scots, now passing into England, pub. lished a declaration to justify their assisting the parliament; to which I shall only say, in my opinion, it was no justification at all; for, admitting the parliament's quarrel had been ever so just, it could not be just in them to aid them, because it was against their own king, to whom they had sworn allegiance, or at least crowned, and thereby had recognized his authority.

But the king was persuaded to take one step further, and that, I confess, was unpleasing to us all, and some of his best and most faithful ser-actors can cover with some specious pretence, vants took the freedom to speak plainly to him of it, and that was, bringing some regiments of the Irish themselves over. This cast, as we thought, an odium upon our whole nation, being some of those very wretches who had dipped their hands in the innocent blood of the protestants, and with unheard-of butcheries had massacred so many thousands of English in cool blood. Abundance of gentlemen forsook the king upon this account; and, seeing they could not brook the fighting in conjunction with this wicked generation, came into the declaration of the parliament, and, making composition for their estates, lived retired all the rest of the war, or went abroad.

But as exigencies and necessities oblige us to do things which at other times we would not do, and is, as to man, some excuse for the doing such things, so I cannot but think the guilt and dishonour of such an action must lie, very much of it at least, at their doors who drove the king to these necessities and distresses by calling in an army of his own subjects whom he had not injured, but had complied with them in everything, to make war upon him without any provocation. As to the quarrel between the king and his parliament, there may be something said on both sides; and the king saw cause himself to disown and dislike some things he had done, which the parliament objected against, such as levying money without consent of parliament, infractions on their privileges, and the like. Here, I say, was some room for an argument at least, and concessions on both sides were needful to come to a peace; but for the Scots, all their demands had been answered, all their grievances had been redressed: they had made articles with their sovereign, and he had performed those articles; their capital enemy, episcopacy, was abolished; they had not one thing to demand of the king which he had not granted, and therefore they had no more cause to take up arms against their sovereign than they had against the Grand Seignior. But it must for ever lie against them as a brand of infamy, and as a reproach on their whole nation, that, purchased by the parliament's money, they sold their honesty, and rebelled against their king for hire; and it was not many years before, as I have said already, they were fully paid the wages of their unrighteousness, || and chastised for their treachery by the very same people whom they thus basely assisted; then they would have retrieved it, if it had not been too late.

But I could not but accuse this age of injustice and partiality, who, while they reproached the king for his cessation of arms with the Irish rebels, and not prosecuting them with the utmost severity, though he was constrained by the necessity of the war to do it, could yet, at the same time, justify the Scots taking up arms in a quarrel they had no concern in, and against their own

For, if mal-administration be, according to Prynn's doctrine, or according to their own Bu chanan, a sufficient reason for subjects to take up arms against their prince, the breach of his coronation-oath being supposed to dissolve the oath of allegiance; yet this can never be extended to make it lawful, that because a king of England may, by mal-administration, discharge the subjects of England from their allegiance, that therefore the subjects of Scotland may take up arms against the King of Scotland, he having not infringed the compact of government as to them, and they having nothing to complain of for themselves.

Thus I thought their own arguments were against them, and Heaven seemed to concur with it; for although they did carry the cause for the English rebels, yet the most of them left their bones here in the quarrel.

But what signifies reason to the drum and the trumpet? The parliament had the supreme argument with those men-the money; and having accordingly advanced a good round sum, upon payment of this (for the Scots would not stir a foot without it), they entered England on the 15th of January, 1643, with an army of twelve thousand men, under the command of General Lesley, now Earl of Leven, an old soldier of great experience, having been bred to arms from his youth in the service of the Prince of Orange. (Note 20.)

The Scots were no sooner entered England but they were joined by all the friends to the parliament party in the north; and first, Colonel Grey, brother to Lord Grey, joined them with a regiment of horse, and several out of Westmoreland and Cumberland, and they advanced to Newcastle, which they summoned to surrender.

The Earl of Newcastle, who rather saw than was able to prevent the storm, was in Newcastle, and did his best to defend it; but the Scots, increased by this time to about twenty thousand, laid close siege to the place, which was but meanly fortified, and having repulsed the garrison upon several sallies, and pressing the place very close, after a siege of twelve days they entered the town sword in hand.

The Earl of Newcastle got away, and after. wards gathered what forces together he could; but not strong enough to hinder the Scots from advancing to Durham, which he quitted to them. nor to hinder the conjunction of the Scots with the forces of Fairfax, Manchester, and Cromwell.