piety less contribute to maintain their valour: no action was attempted without previous prayer for success; no success was received without solemn thanksgiving. At length Fairfax, accustomed to victory, lost all patience. He now appointed Colonel Rigby to conduct the siege, whom his private enmity to the Earl of Derby recommended to that office. The colonel made known his arrival by a fresh summons to Lathom House to surrender. It was conveyed in insulting terms: "Trumpeter," answered the countess to the messenger, "tell that insolvent rebel Rigby, that if he presume to send another summons within these walls, I will have his messenger hanged up at the gates." The garrison, however, was by this time reduced to extremity; when they had the happiness to descry from the towers the banners of Prince Rupert, who, on the earnest representations of the Earl of Derby, had turned aside for their relief, in his march towards York. Rigby instantly raised the siege, and retreated with his forces to Stockport.

Prince Rupert had taken in so many reinforcements in his way, that when, on the 1st of July, he came in sight of York, his army numbered about 20,000 men. The combined forces before that city broke up at his approach, and after an attempt to intercept him, which he avoided by a skilful disposition of his army, they withdrew their forces to Hessey Moor, near the village of Marston, where they met in a council of war to delibe→ rate what course should be pursued. Irreconcilable jealousies and dissensions already distracted the confederacy; and the question, whether they should fight with the prince, which the English generals desired, or draw off their armies from the neighbourhood of the city, which the Scots were inclined to, seems to have been practically decided by the advance of the Scotch army some miles on the road towards Tadcaster. The deliberations on the great crisis that had arrived, in the council of the Marquess of Newcastle, within the walls of York, were marked by equal, and, in their results, more fatal dissensions. The marquess, in accordance with his higher views, and better knowledge of the state of the enemy's camp, delivered his opinion, after his courteous and ceremonious manner, for delay. Why renew, by instantly forcing on a battle, that union already dissolving? The mere arrival of the prince was already doing the work of the royalists, without risk; the ripening of the enemy's dissensions, by time, would soon accomplish the rest. At least, let them avoid a battle till the arrival of reinforcements from the north, which he daily expected. The haughty Rupert chafed equally at the calm, refined tone, and the cold considerate advice; he would not argue the point. He had a letter from the king, absolutely commanding him to give the enemy battle. That order superseded deliberation: he had only to obey. The marquess replied, that if that was his highness's resolve, he, for his part, was ready to submit to his orders as strictly as if they were the king's in person. After the prince had retired, some of Newcastle's friends besought him not to take part in the battle, since it appeared the command was taken from him. His reply was, that happen what might, he would not shun an engagement; his sole ambition having ever been to live and die a loyal subject of the king.

Accordingly, early in the morning of the 2nd, when the foot and artillery of the parliament were already in motion to follow the Scots on the road towards Tadcaster, Rupert, with a powerful body of horse, appearing on the edge of Marston Moor, threatened their

rear, while the columns of his foot were seen in the distance, steadily advancing as if to choose their ground for battle. At once the march of the parliamentarians was countermanded, their advanced divisions recalled, and a position taken as rapidly as the nature of the ground permitted, fronting that already occupied by the prince. The royalists being in possession of the moor, the enemy drew up, among cornfields, upon a rising ground, which skirted its northern boundary; a ditch and slight embankment running along between the opposed fronts of the two hosts.

While Rupert waited the arrival of his infantry, the parliamentarians formed in view. In the centre rose the dense masses of their foot, commanded by Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Leven. Sir Thomas Fairfax with his cavalry, formed the right wing, Manchester and Cromwell the left. The prince opposed the great strength of his army to the columns of the younger Fairfax, and there, at the head of his cavaliers, selected his own position; Goring and Sir Charles Lucas he placed in the centre; on the left, Newcastle fought valiantly at the head of his devoted "white coats," but what share he took in the command is uncertain.

For the narrative of the fatal fight of Marston Moor, we recur to Mr. Forster's Life of Cromwell, already quoted. Whether in regard to careful research among authorities, or to the vivid colouring which the author has given to his vigorous conception, it is a passage that discourages rivalry.

"Gazing with silent and inveterate determination at each other, these 46,000 subjects of one king, stood upon Marston Moor, eight miles from a city wherein every boom of the distant cannon would strike upon the inhabitants as the death-knell of a friend or brother. The lines of the parliamentarians had begun to form as early as ten in the morning—the royalists' preparations were complete at five o'clock in the afternoon-it was now within a quarter to seven. Yet there still stood these formidable armies, each awaiting from the other, with a silent and awful suspense, the signal of battle.

"A stir was seen at last in a dark quarter of Manchester's and Cromwell's Independents, and a part of their infantry moved forwards. Secure from behind the ditch, Rupert's musketeers at once poured out upon the advancing column a heavy and murderous fire, and it was in vain the parliamentarians attempted to form under the plunging batteries directed against them simultaneously from the rear. At that moment was seen the genius of Cromwell. With a passionate exclamation to his Ironsides, he ordered them to sweep round the ditch to their right, clear the broken ground, and fall in with himself upon the cavalry of the dissolute Goring. The movement occupied some time, and a fearful slaughter was meanwhile suffered by Manchester's infantry; but, having once emerged, these inveterate republicans stood, for an instant to receive, like a rock, the onset of Goring's horse, and then, 'like a rock tumbled from its basis by an earthquake,' rolled back upon them. Nothing could withstand the astonishing charge. The cavaliers who survived, offered no further resistance, but wheeled off to join the horse of Rupert. Cromwell and his men next struck the guns and sabred the artillerymen beside them, and then, with as much leisurely order as at a parade, rode towards the drain. Every place was deserted as they advanced. One spot of ground only still held