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I am bold to present this as my humble suit: That you would be pleased to make Captain Rawlins, this Bearer, a Captain of Horse. He has been so before; was nominated to the Model; is a most honest man. Colonel Sidney leaving his regiment, if it please you to bestow his troop on him, I am confident he will serve you faithfully. So, by God's assistance, will

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Your most humble servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.*

The 'Vermuyden' mentioned here, who became Colonel Vermuyden, is supposed to be a son of the Dutch Engineer who drained the Fens. Colonel Sidney' is the celebrated Algernon; he was nominated in the Model,' but is 'leaving his regiment.' Captain Rawlins does obtain a Company of Horse; under 'Colonel Sir Robert Pye.'t-Colonel Montague, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, has a Foot-Regiment here. Hugh Peters is 'Chaplain to the Train.'

The King has got into the Midland Counties; hunting,' driving 'large herds of cattle' before him,-uncertain whitherward : and we are now within sight of Naseby Field.

*Rushworth, vi. (London, 1701), p 37.

↑ Army-List, in Sprigge (p 330).

LETTER XIII.

The

THE Old Hamlet of Naseby stands yet, on its old hill-top, very much as it did in Saxon days, on the Northwestern border of Northamptonshire; some seven or eight miles from Market-Harborough in Leicestershire; nearly on a line, and nearly midway, between that Town and Daventry. A peaceable old Hamlet, of perhaps five hundred souls; clay cottages for laborers, but neatly thatched and swept; smith's shop, saddler's shop, beer-shop, all in order; forming a kind of square, which leads off, North and South, into two long streets: the old Church, with its graves, stands in the centre, the truncated spire finishing itself with a strange old Ball, held up by rods; a 'hollow copper Ball, which came from Boulogne in Henry the Eighth's time,'—which has, like Hudibras's breeches, 'been at the Siege of Bullen.' ground is upland, moorland, though now growing corn; was not enclosed till the last generation, and is still somewhat bare of wood. It stands nearly in the heart of England; gentle Dulness, taking a turn at etymology, sometimes derives it from Navel; 'Navesby, quasi Navelsby, from being,' &c.: Avon Well, the distinct source of Shakspeare's Avon, is on the Western slope of the high grounds; Nen and Welland, streams leading towards Cromwell's Fen-country, begin to gather themselves from boggy places on the Eastern side. The grounds, as we say, lie high; and are still, in their new subdivisions, known by the name of 'Hills,' 'Rutput Hill,' 'Mill Hill,' 'Dust Hill,' and the like, precisely as in Rushworth's time: but they are not properly hills at all; they are broad blunt clayey masses, swelling towards and from each other, like indolent waves of a sea, sometimes of miles in extent.

It was on this high moor-ground, in the centre of England, that King Charles, on the 14th of June, 1645, fought his last Battle; dashed fiercely against the New-Model Army, which he

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had despised till then and saw himself shivered utterly to ruin thereby. Prince Rupert. on the King's right wing, charged up the hill, and carried all before him;' but Lieutenant-General Cromwell charged downhill on the other wing, likewise carrying all before him, and did not gallop off the field to plunder, he. Cromwell, ordered thither by the Parliament, had arrived from the Association two days before, amid shouts from the whole Army' he had the ordering of the Horse this morning. Prince Rupert, on returning from his plunder, finds the King's Infantry a ruin; prepares to charge again with the rallied Cavalry; but the Cavalry too, when it came to the point, broke all asunder,' -never to reassemble more. The chase went through Harborough; where the King had already been that morning, when in an evil hour he turned back, to revenge some 'surprise of an outpost at Naseby the night before,' and give the Roundheads battle.

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Ample details of this Battle, and of the moments prior and posterior to it, are to be found in Sprigge, or copied with some abridgment into Rushworth; who has also copied a strange old Plan of the Battle; half plan, half picture, which the Sale-Catalogues are very chary of, in the case of Sprigge. By assiduous attention, aided by this Plan, as the old names yet stick to the iocalities, the Narrative can still be, and has lately been, pretty accurately verified, and the Figure of the old Battle dimly brought back again. The reader shall imagine it for the present. On the crown of Naseby Height stands a modern Battlemonument; but, by an unlucky oversight, it is above a mile to the east of where the Battle really was. There are likewise two modern Books about Naseby and its Battle; both of them without value.

The Parliamentary Army stood ranged on the Height still partly called Mill Hill,' as in Rushworth's time, a mile and half from Naseby; the King's Army, on a parallel 'Hill,' its back to Harborough ;-with the wide table of upland now named Broad Moor between them; where indeed the main brunt of the action still clearly enough shows itself to have been. There are hollow spots, of a rank vegetation, scattered over that Broad Moor which are understood to have once been burial mounds;-some

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of which have been (with more or less of sacrilege) verified as such, A friend of mine has in his cabinet two ancient grinderteeth, aug lately from that ground,-and waits for an cpportunity to rebury them there. Sound effectual grinders, one of them very large; which ate their breakfast on the fourteenth morning of June, two hundred years ago, and, except to be clenched once in grim battle, had never work to do more in this world! A stack of dead bodies, perhaps about 100, had been buried in this Trench; piled as in a wall, a man's length thick : the skeletons lay in courses, the heads of one course to the heels of the next;-one figure, by the strange position of the bones, gave us the hideous notion of its having been thrown in before death! We did not proceed far:-perhaps some half-dozen skeletons. The bones were treated with all piety; watched rigorously, over Sunday, till they could be covered in again.'* Swee friends, for Jesus' sake forbear!—

At this battle Mr. John Rushworth, our Historical Rushworth, had, unexpectedly, for some instants, sight of a very famous per son. Mr. John is Secretary to Fairfax; and they have placed him to-day among the Baggage-wagons, near Naseby Hamlet, above a mile from the fighting, where he waits in an anxious manner. It is known how Prince Rupert broke our left wing, while Cromwell was breaking their left. 'A Gentleman of Pub. lic Employment in the late Service near Naseby' writes next day, 'Harborough, 15th June, 2 in the morning,' a rough graphic Letter in the Newspapers,† wherein is this sentence:

**A party of theirs that broke through the left wing of horse, came quite behind the rear to our Train; the Leader of them, being a person somewhat in habit like the General, in a red montero, as the General had. He came as a friend; our commander of the guard of the Train went with his hat in his hand, and asked him, How the day went? thinking it had been the General; the Cavalier, who we since heard was Rupert, asked

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King's Pamphlets, small 4to., no. 212, § 26, p. 2; the punctual contemporaneous Collector has named him with his pen : Mr. Rushworth's Letter, being the Secretary to his Excellency.'

him and the rest, If they would have quarter? They cried, No; gave fire, and instantly beat them off. It was a happy deliver ance,'-without doubt.

There were taken here a good few 'ladies of quality in carriages ;'—and above a hundred Irish ladies not of quality, tattery camp-followers' with long skean-knives about a foot in length,' which they well knew how to use; upon whom I fear the Ordi. nance against Papists pressed hard this day.* The King's Carriage was also taken, with a Cabinet and many Royal Autographs in it, which when printed made a sad impression against his Majesty,gave in fact a most melancholy view of the veracity of his Majesty, "On the word of a King." All was lost!—

Here is Cromwell's Letter, written from Harborough, or 'Haverbrow' as he calls it, that same night; after the hot Battle and hot chase were over. The original, printed long since in Rushworth, still lies in the British Museum,-with a strong steady signature,' which one could look at with interest. The Letter consists of two leaves; much worn, and now supported by pasting; red seal much defaced; is addressed on the second leaf.'

For the Honorable William Lenthall, Speaker of the Commons House of Parliament: These.

Harborough, 14th June, 1645.

SIR,

Being commanded by you to this service, I think myself bound to acquaint you with the good hand of God towards you and us.

We marched yesterday after the King, who went before us from Daventry to Harborough; and quartered about six miles from him. This day we marched towards him. He drew out to meet us; both armies engaged. We, after three hours fight very doubtful, at last routed his army; killed and took about 5000,-very many officers, but of what quality we yet know not. We took also about 200 carriages, all he had; and all his guns, being 12 in number, whereof two were demicannon, two demi-culverins, and I think the rest sackers. We pursued

• Whitlocke.

The King's Cabinet opened; or Letters taken in the Cabinet at Naseby Field (London, 1645):-reprinted in Harleian Miscellany (London 1810), v., 514

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