LETTER VIII.

In the last days of June, 1644, Prince Rupert, with an army cf some 20,000 fierce men, came pouring over the hills from Lancashire, where he had left harsh traces of himself, to relieve the Marquis of Newcastle, who was now with a force of 6,000 besieged in York, by the united forces of the Scots under Leven, the Yorkshiremen under Lord Fairfax, and the Associated Counties under Manchester and Cromwell. On hearing of his approach, the Parliament Generals raised the Siege; drew out on the Moor of Long Marston, some four miles off, to oppose his coming. He avoided them by crossing the river Ouse; relieved York, Monday, 1st July; and might have returned successful; but insisted on Newcastle's joining him, and going out to fight the Roundheads. The Battle of Marston Moor, fought on the morrow evening, Tuesday, 2d July, 1644, from 7 to 10 o'clock, was the result,entirely disastrous for him.

Of this Battle, the bloodiest of the whole War, I must leave the reader to gather details in the sources indicated below ;* or to imagine it in general as the most enormous hurlyburly, of fire and smoke, and steel-flashings and death-tumult, ever seen in those regions: the end of which, about ten at night, was 'Four thousand one hundred and fifty bodies' to be buried, and total ruin to the King's affairs in those Northern parts.

The Armies were not completely drawn up till after five in the evening; there was a ditch between them; they stood facing one another, motionless except the exchange of a few cannon-shots, for an hour-and-half. Newcastle thought there would be no fight.

* King's Pamphlets, small 4to., no. 164 (various accounts by eyewitnesses): no. 168, one by Simeon Ash, the Earl of Manchester's Chaplain; no. 167, &c.: Rushworth, v., 632: Carte's Ormond Papers (London, 1739), i., 56: Fairfax's Memorials (Somers Tracts, v., 389). Modern accounts are numerous, but of no value

ing till the morrow, and had retired to his carriage for the night. There is some shadow of surmise that the stray cannon-shot which, as the following Letter indicates, proved fatal to Oliver's Nephew, did also, rousing Oliver's humor to the charging point, bring on the general Battle. The Prince of Plunderers,' invircible hitherto, here first tasted the steel of Oliver's Ironsides, and did not in the least like it. The Scots delivered their fire with such constancy and swiftness, it was as if the whole air had be come an element of fire,'—in the summer gloaming there.

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"To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These.'

DEAR SIR,

'Leaguer before York,' 5th July, 1644.

It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and tc praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, so that we may sorrow together.

Truly England and the Church of God hath had a great favor from the Lord, in this great Victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this War began. It had all the evidences of an absolute Victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the Godly Party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The Left Wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the Prince's horse. God made them as stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of twenty thousand the Prince hath not four thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God.

Sir, God hath taken away your eldest Son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.

Sir, you know my own trials this way:* but the Lord supported me with this, That the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious child full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you His comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort that to Frank Russel and myself he could not express it, "It was so great above his pain." This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said, One thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him, What that was? he told me it was, That God had not suf

* I conclude, the poor Boy Oliver has already fallen in these Wars,—none of us knows where, though his Father well knew!

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fered him to be any more the executioner of His enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and as I am informed three horses more, I am told he bid them, Open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the Army, of all that knew him. But few knew him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious Saint in Heaven; wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow; seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the Church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength: so prays Your truly faithful and loving Brother,

OLIVER CROMWELL.

My love to your Daughter, and my Cousin Perceval, Sister Desbrow and all friends with you.*

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Colonel Valentine Walton, already a conspicuon man, ana more so afterwards, is of Great-Staughton, Huntingdonshire, a neighbor of the Earl of Manchester's; Member for his County, and a Colonel since the beginning of the War. There had long been an intimacy between the Cromwell Family and his. His Wife, the Mother of this slain youth, is Margaret Cromwell, Oliver's younger Sister, next to him in the family series. Fran Russel' is of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire, eldest Son of the Baronet there; already a Colonel; soon afterwards Governor of Ely in Oliver's stead. It was the daughter of this Frank that Henry Cromwell, some ten years hence, wedded.-Colonel Walton, to appearance, is at present in the Association, near his own home. The poor wounded youth would have to lie on the field at Marston while the Battle was fought; the whole Army had to bivouack there, next to no food, hardly even water to be had. That of Seeing the rogues run,' occurs more than once at subsequent dates in these Wars:‡ who first said it, or whether anybody ever said it, must remain uncertain.

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* Ellis's Original Letters (First Series), iii., 299. Original once in the possession of Mr. Langton of Welbeck street.'

See Noble, ii., 407, 8,—with vigilance against his blunders.

+ Ludlow.

York was now captured in a few days: Prince Rupert had fled across into Lancashire, and so 'south to Shropshire, to recruit again;' Marquis Newcastle with 'about eighty gentlemen,' disgusted at the turn of affairs, had withdrawn beyond seas. The Scots moved northward to attend the Siege of Newcastle,-ended it by storm in October next. On the 24th of which same month, 24th October, 1644, the Parliament promulgated its Rhadamanthine Ordinance, To 'hang any Irish Papist taken in arms in this country ;* a very severe Ordinance, but not uncalled for by the nature of the 'marauding apparatus' in question there.

* Rushworth, v., 783.

THREE FRAGMENTS OF SPEECHES.

SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE.

THE following Three small Fragments of Speeches will have to represent for us some six months of occasional loud debating, and continual anxious gestation and manipulation, in the Two Houses, in the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and in many other houses and places ;—the ultimate outcome of which was the celebrated 'Self-denying Ordinance,' and 'New Model' of the Parliament's Army; which indeed brings on an entirely New Epoch in the Parliament's Affairs.

Essex and Waller had, for the third or even fourth time, chiefly by the exertions of ever-zealous London, been fitted out with Armies; had marched forth together to subdue the West;and ended in quite other results than that. The two Generals differed in opinion: did not march long together: Essex, urged by a subordinate, Lord Roberts, who had estates in Cornwall and hoped to get some rents out of them,* turned down thitherwards to the left: Waller bending up to the right, with small issue either way. Waller's last action was an indecisive, rather unsuccessful Fight, or day of skirmishing, with the King, at Cropredy Bridge on the border of Oxford and Northampton Shires,† three days before Marston Moor. After which both parties separated: the King to follow Essex, since there was now no hope in the North; Waller to wander London-wards, and gradually lose his Army by desertion,' as the habit of him was. As for the King, he followed Essex into Cornwall with effect; hemmed him in among the hills there, about Bodmin, Lestwithiel, Foy, with continual skirmishing, with ever-growing scarcity of victual; forced

* Clarendon.

† 29th June, 1644, Clarendon, ii., 655