upon it, for an instant, the Marquess of Newcastle's unflinching regiment of old tenants and retainers, and was covered the instant after with an unbroken line' of honourable dead. Their victory was complete, and the right wing of the royalists irrevocably broken. "Rupert and his cavalry had meanwhile obtained as great a victory on the left. The encumbered ground on which Fairfax stood was most unfavourable to an advancing movement. Rupert accordingly stood keenly by till he saw the parliamentary forces stagger under the heavy charges poured upon them as they emerged in narrow columns through ditches and lanes, and then, with his characteristic impetuosity, charged, overthrew, routed, and dispersed both foot and cavalry, with tremendous slaughter.

"The after meeting of the two victors decided the day. While the centres were unsteadily engaged, Cromwell, who had held his triumphant Ironsides steadily in hand, and checked their pursuit, in the very nick of time ordered them suddenly to face round and wheel upon their centre to the left. Rupert had given a similar order to his conquering cavalry, to wheel round on their centre to the right; and now, with a shock more terrible than any of this terrible day, these desperate leaders, each supposing himself the victor, dashed each in front of a victorious foe! Cromwell received a wound in the neck, and the alarm for his safety gave a slight appearance of momentary unsteadiness even to his gallant Ironsides, but they rallied with redoubled fury, and, in conjunction with Lesley, an accomplished Scotch officer, who led up at the moment a brilliant attack, fairly swept Rupert off the field.

"It was now ten o'clock, and by the melancholy dusk which enveloped the moor, might be seen a fearful sight. Five thousand dead bodies of Englishmen lay heaped upon that fatal ground. The distinctions which separated in life these sons of a common country seemed trifling now! The plumed helmet embraced the strong steel cap as they rolled on the heath together, and the loose love-lock of the careless cavalier lay drenched in the dark blood of the enthusiastic republican.

"But it is not with such thoughts the victors trouble themselves now. They have achieved the greatest conquest of the war, and the whole of the northern counties are open to the parliament's sway. The headstrong Rupert has received a memorable lesson, and retreats in calamity and disgrace towards Chester. The Marquess of Newcastle, weary of a strife never suited to his taste, but hateful to him now, crossed the sea an exile. Fifteen hundred prisoners remain with Manchester, Fairfax, Leven, and Cromwell; the valuable ordnance of the vanquished-artillery, small arms, tents, baggage, and military chest-all have been left in their victorious hands!"

Nearly a hundred colours are said to have been captured, including the prince's own standard, bearing a red cross, with the arms of the palatinate. Of some others, the quaint devices displayed little taste or humanity. Many of them the soldiers tore up, and stuck the fragments for trophies in their caps. Others were recovered and forwarded to Westminster; where, at the reception of ambassadors from Holland, a ceremony at which the houses affected unusual pomp, forty-eight of these blood-stained ensigns of defeated royalty were displayed upon the table, to regale, perchance to awe, those representatives. of the maritime republic.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST-1644.

Ir has already been told, that the king, finding himself freed, by the result of the action at Cropredy Bridge, on the 29th of June, from all likelihood of being further molested by Waller, directed his march westward in pursuit of the Earl of Essex. To this course he was determined by various considerations; but particularly by his anxiety for the queen, now, with the infant princess Henrietta, exposed to the annoyances of a siege in Exeter, and by the apparent strength of his cause in the western counties, not only in the amount of organized forces, but also in the general loyalty of the people. Essex's advance to Weymouth had already left Prince Maurice at liberty to unite the most considerable royalist force in the west with the main army under the king, by compelling that youthful and indiscreet commander to raise the siege of Lyme. The spirited resistance made by the garrison and inhabitants of this little town, during the two months wasted in its blockade, was the subject of repeated votes of thanks in the parliament, and of lively interest in the capital; and is not unworthy of special mention, even at the distance of two centuries, in a narrative which professes to rest its peculiar claim to attention on an earnest sympathy with whatever, in this protracted and extraordinary struggle, is eminently calculated to engage the sympathy of Englishmen.

Charles had entered Gloucestershire, when the first true account reached him of the issue of the fatal battle of Marston-Moor, of the retirement of the Marquess of Newcastle and his friends to the continent, and the dispersion of Rupert's fine army. This grievous news must have been felt the more poignantly, because it followed a succession of rumours which ascribed to the prince a brilliant victory; it nevertheless appears to have produced no other effect upon the spirits and designs of the king, than that of adding firmness and alacrity to his present purpose. It demonstrated, in fact, that the prosecution of the campaign in the west was the only important military undertaking now open to him. He hastened on to Bath; and, receiving some accession of strength in his passage through Somersetshire, reached Exeter on the 26th of July.

His royal consort, however, was no longer there. On the first rumour of Essex's approach, Henrietta, alarmed by the rancorous personal hostility with which the parliamentarians regarded her, had quitted the town, leaving behind her the royal infant, scarcely a fortnight old; had withdrawn, under Prince Maurice's protection, into Cornwall, and embarked in a Dutch vessel of war for France, "not without some barbarous but vain interruption of the rebels." Hastily embracing the new pledge of an affection more faithful and devoted, in the opinion of some writers, than became a king, Charles reviewed the troops of his nephew assembled in the vicinity, and immediately resumed his march.

In the meantime the object of his pursuit was already far in advance. After lying for some days near the army of Prince Maurice, the lord-general had driven from before Plymouth an insufficient force, left there by the prince under the command of Sir Richard Grenvil (brother of Sir Bevil Grenvil, who fell in the previous year at Lansdown fight), and had marched forward into Cornwall: a step forced upon him by his officers, contrary to his own better judgment. For the leaven of republicanism was already working in the councils of the main army of the parliament; though not to the same extent as in that under Manchester, in which the dark machinations and daring soldiership of Cromwell had by this time made him absolute. That movement, with its dishonourable consequences, is attributed chiefly to the counsel of Lord Roberts (a person of weight in the army by his intimate alliance with Vane and his party, as well as by his own activity and zeal), who possessed estates, and pretended to vast influence, in Cornwall.

The discontents which distracted the parliamentarians were more than equalled among the royalists. The liveliest jealousy prevailed between the king's council and his military officers. Among the cavaliers, wit and conviviality could not fail to be popular: to the influence which Lord Wilmot, who was in command of the horse, had acquired by his excellence in these qualities, he added an ambitious temper and a strong disposition to overrate his own claims to distinction. Charles had other grounds also of dislike to Wilmot; for, though blinded to the fact in the case of his nephews by family affection, he could not be ignorant that by entrusting offices of the highest moment to men of reckless dispositions and irregular lives, he both discredited his cause and weakened his resources. He had consequently resolved to rid himself of his troublesome lieutenantgeneral of the cavalry. Of this design Wilmot had probably gained some intimation, which so exasperated his usual arrogance and indiscretion, that the king was provoked to carry his plan into effect in a rougher and more hasty manner than he at first intended. It was now the month of August. Essex, unable either to advance farther, or to retreat, had seized the little port of Fowey, to prevent his being blocked up by sea as well as by land, and fixed his head-quarters at Lostwithiel, where they were overlooked by the king's at Boconnock.

Here Wilmot, while in the act of delivering one of his turbulent harangues, was arrested on a charge of high treason, dismounted at the head of his troops, and sent under guard to Exeter. The next morning Charles ordered the cavalry to be drawn out; and, visiting in person each division, acquainted them, that at the request of his nephew, Prince Rupert, and upon his resignation, he appointed Colonel Goring their general, whom he had accordingly sent for to the army, and commanded them all to obey him. "With respect to Lord Wilmot," he continued, "I have for very good reasons put him under present restraint." The following day a petition was presented by the officers, requesting to be made acquainted with the particulars of the charge against their general. The request was granted. A copy was at the same time forwarded to Wilmot himself, who returned an answer sufficient to clear him in the opinion of his admirers; but on learning that his old enemy and superior officer, Goring, was already in possession of the command, he obtained leave to retire into France. Wilmot's dismissal involved also that

of Lord Percy, the partner of his irregularities, and now the partaker of his voluntary exile. To him succeeded the tried and gallant Lord Hopton. Another and a more important change, which was made about the same time, proved of more doubtful character and result. This was the substitution of Prince Rupert for the Earl of Brentford, as commander-in-chief. The earl was incompetent indeed from age and infirmity, but so was his highness from passion, impetuosity, and high-born insolence. Rupert was brave-the bravest of the brave; but little can be hoped from an army in which the hot courage of a life-guardsman, with the abused privileges of birth, forms the general's only qualification for command.

Always the foremost of the great contending parties to desire peace, twice within the last two months had the king attempted to open negociations for obtaining it. His first message was addressed to Waller, after the fight at Cropredy; whose answer ran, that "he had no power to receive any proposal on that subject, without the consent of the two houses of Parliament at Westminster, to whom he accordingly referred his majesty." Presently afterwards Charles renewed the attempt, in a letter to the parliament, which was delivered by Sabran, the diplomatic agent of France; no notice, however, was taken of it. He now addressed himself to Essex, in a letter written with his own hand, and in terms of much frankness and esteem. But, though delivered by the earl's nephew, Lord Beauchamp, then on his way through the enemy's quarters to France, and containing warm appeals to Essex's honour and patriotism, with earnest assurances that by engaging in "that blessed work," the restoration of peace to the distracted and bleeding country, he would secure for himself and his army the highest marks of the writer's personal regard,—the royal autograph failed of its object. The general bluntly reminded his nephew that he was employed by the parliament to fight, not to treat; declared that he would enter into no negotiations without their consent; and immediately despatched the king's letter to Westminster, enclosed in one from himself, representing the extremity to which he was reduced, and urgently entreating succour.

A part of the duty undertaken, and punctually discharged by Lord Beauchamp, was to acquaint Essex with the unanimous concurrence of the officers, and the army in general, in the wish expressed by the king. But as no answer was returned to the royal message, a resolution was adopted by the majority of the officers, to second it by one in their own names. To this step, though indicating a want of respect for the sovereign, while his own letter remained still unnoticed, Charles nevertheless gave his consent. The manifesto received from Essex what Clarendon calls a "surly answer; which," continues the historian, "produced the effect the king wished and expected: they who had been most active in preparing the address, were now the most ashamed of their folly; and the whole army seemed well composed to obtain that by their swords, which they could not by their pen." That Charles should have employed, or concurred in these repeated urgent appeals to the patriotism and humanity of his enemies, at a moment when he already had their main army at such manifest disadvantage,—when he was daily expecting a large reinforcement, and had no reason to apprehend the probability of relief arriving in the enemy's quarters -seems to denote a sincere anxiety on his part to put a stop to the public calamities.