CHAPTER XIV.

CAMPAIGN OF 1644

MARSTON-MOOR.

THE return of the Earl of Essex to London, and the king's retirement to Oxford, after the fight at Newbury, though those movements terminated the campaign of 1643, as it regarded the two main armies, did not put an end to the military operations of the year. The greater part of England was alive with a ceaseless war of skirmishes and sieges. Prince Rupert, in the midland counties, maintained his reputation for courage and activity, for severity and rapine. In the west, his brother Maurice, after receiving the submission of several garrisons, which the brilliant successes of the royal arms at Roundway Down and Bristol had frightened into ready submission, besieged Plymouth, without taking it; and then sat down with a large force before the paltry ditches of the little town of Lyme. The war in the north presented features of more interest.

The Earl of Manchester, having reduced Lynn, drew his forces into Lincolnshire, and on the 11th of October, was joined by Cromwell, now his lieutenantgeneral, and by Sir Thomas Fairfax. The following

day, they were attacked by a strong body of cavalry, from the royalist garrisons of Lincoln, Newark, and Gainsborough, at Waisby Field, near Horncastle. That spirit of religious enthusiasm, which was the secret of Cromwell's extraordinary influence over his own unconquered regiments of troopers, had by this time widely diffused its electric sympathy through the ranks of the army in which he commanded. On the appearance of the enemy, he gave the word of onset "Truth and Peace;" called on his soldiers to charge, in the name of the Highest; uplifted his loud harsh voice in a psalm, which officers and men, column after column, took up with hearty zeal; and, while it was yet sounding through their ranks, bore fiercely down upon the startled enemy. Midway, a volley met them from the royalist dragoons: they answered it by a louder note of that solemn defiance. A second discharge saluted them, when within a few paces of the hostile column. Cromwell's horse was shot dead, and fell upon him; and when, after a moment's struggle, he rose from the ground, he was again struck down, by an officer who had, at first, singled him out for the charge. Stunned for a moment, he presently rose a second time from among the slain, mounted the horse of a common soldier, which chanced to be at hand, and plunged forward into the fight. But by this time a regiment, commanded by Sir William Savile, which had received the first overwhelming shock of the parliamentarians, giving ground, disordered and put to flight the whole van of the royalists. The rout quickly became general. Manchester, has

and

tening up with the infantry, found Waisby Field, the road towards Lincoln, strewed with the royalist dead and dying; the survivors were utterly dispersed. A thousand of the king's troops are said to have perished in this short but terrible action. The next day the Marquess of Newcastle raised the siege of Hull.

Now began the splendid and more decisive campaign of 1644. Vainly had Charles sought to prevent, what he had long foreseen, the irruption of the Scots. In his name, though contrary to his proclamation, those levies were raised, whose entrance on the field was to turn against him the balanced scale of fortune; and on the 19th of January, 21,000 men of that nation, led by Lesley, Earl of Leven, marched, knee-deep in snow, upon the soil of England; the same Lesley, who, on receiving that title (such was the faith of those who were never weary of charging the king with faithlessness!) had solemnly promised his sovereign never more to bear arms against him. Passing Alnwick, after a summons to the brave Sir Thomas Glemham, who, with many of the gentry of Northumberland, was shut up in that fortress, they came before Newcastle, into which place the marquess had thrown himself the day before. Disappointed in their hope of surprising the town, they continued their march southward, skirmishing, now and then, with small parties of the royalists; and, some days later, were discovered by the marquess, who had gone in pursuit of them, occupying a strong position by the sea, near Sunderland. For weeks, the two armies kept each other at bay; till