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I thought religion, rightly practised on both sides, would have made us all better friends; and, therefore, sometimes I began to think, that both the bishops of our side, and the preachers on theirs, made religion rather the pretence than the cause of the war; and from those thoughts I vigorously argued it at the council of war against marching to Brentford, while the address for a treaty of peace from the parliament was in hand; for I was for taking the parliament by the handle which they had given us, and entering into a negotiation with the advantage of its being at their own request.

I thought the king had now in his hands an opportunity to make an honourable peace; for this battle of Edgehill, as much as they boasted of the victory to hearten up their friends, had sorely weakened their army, and discouraged their party too, which in effect was worse as to their army. The horse were particularly in an ill case, and the foot greatly diminished; and the remainder very sickly. But, besides this, the parliament were greatly alarmed at the progress we made afterwards; and still fearing the king's surprising them, had sent for the Earl of Essex to London, to defend them; by which the country was, as it were, deserted and abandoned, and left to be plundered; our parties overrun all places at pleasure. All this while I considered, that whatever the soldiers of fortune meant by the war, our desires were to suppress the exorbitant power of a party, to establish our king in his just and legal rights; but not with a design to destroy the constitution of government, and the being of parliament; and therefore I thought now was the time for peace, and there were a great many worthy gentlemen in the army of my mind; and, had our master had ears to hear us, the war might have had an end here.

This address for peace was received by the king at Maidenhead, whither this army was now advanced, and his majesty returned answer by Sir Peter Killegrew, that he desired nothing more, and would not be wanting on his part. Upon this the parliament named commissioners, and his majesty, excepting against Sir John Evelyn, they left him out, and sent others; and desired the king to appoint his residence near London, where the commissioners might wait upon him. Accordingly the king appointed Windsor for the place of treaty, and desired the treaty might be hastened. And thus all things looked with a favourable aspect. when one unlucky

action knocked it all on the head, and filled both parties with more implacable animosities than they had before, and all hopes of peace vanished.

During this progress of the king's armies, we were always abroad with the horse ravaging the country, and plundering the roundheads. Prince Rupert, a most active vigilant partyman, and, I must own, fitter for such than for a general, was never lying still, and I seldom stayed behind; for our regiment being very well mounted, he would always send for us, if he had any extraordinary design in hand.

One time in particular he had a design upon Aylesbury, the capital of Buckinghamshire; indeed our view at first was rather to beat the enemy out of the town, and demolish their works, and perhaps raise some contributions on the rich country round it, than to garrison the place, and keep it; for we wanted no more garrisons, being masters of the field.

The prince had two thousand five hundred horse with him in this expedition, but no foot; the town had some foot raised in the country by Mr Hampden, and two regiments of country militia, whom we made light of, but we found they stood to their tackle better than well enough. We came very early to the town, and thought they had no notice of us; but some false brother had given them the alarm, and we found them all in arms, the hedges without the town lined with musketeers, on that side in particular where they expected us, and two regiments of foot drawn up in view to support them, with some horse in the rear of all.

The prince willing however to do something, caused some of his horse to alight, and serve as dragoons; and having broken away into the enclosures, the horse beat the foot from behind the hedges, while the rest who were alighted charged them in the lane which leads to the town. Here they had cast up some works, and fired from their lines very regularly, considering them as militia only, the governor encouraging them by his example; so that finding without some foot there would be no good to be done, we gave it over and drew off; and so Aylesbury escaped a scouring for that time.

I cannot deny but these flying parties of horse committed great spoil among the country people; and sometimes the prince gave a liberty to some cruelties which were not at all for the king's interest: because, it being still upon our own

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country, and the king's own subjects, whom, in all his declarations, he protested to be careful of, it seemed to contradict all those protestations and declarations, and served to aggravate and exasperate the common people; and the king's enemies made all the advantages of it that was possible, by crying out of twice as many extravagancies as were committed.

It is true the king, who naturally abhorred such things, could not restrain his men, no nor his generals, so absolutely as he would have done. The war, on his side, was very much a la voluntier; many gentlemen served him at their own charge, and some paid whole regiments themselves. Sometimes also the king's affairs were straiter than ordinary, and his men were not very well paid, and this obliged him to wink at their excursions upon the country, though he did not approve of them; and yet, I must own, that in those parts of England where the war was hottest, there never was seen that ruin and depopulation, murders, ravishments, and barbarities, which I have seen even among protestant armies abroad in Germany, and other foreign parts of the world. And if the parliament people had seen those things abroad, as I had, they would not have complained.

The most I have seen was plundering the towns for provisions, drinking up their beer, and turning our horses into their fields, or stacks of corn; and sometimes the soldiers would be a little rude with the wenches; but, alas! what was this to Count Tilly's ravages in Saxony? Or what was our taking of Leicester by storm, where they cried out of our barbarities, to the sacking of New Brandenburgh, or the taking of Magdeburgh? In Leicester, of seven or eight thousand people in the town, three hundred were killed; in Magdeburgh, of twenty-five thousand, scarce two thousand seven hundred were left, and the whole town burnt to ashes. I myself have seen seventeen or eighteen villages on fire in a day, and the people driven away from their dwellings, like herds of cattle; the men murdered, the women stript, and seven or eight hundred of them together, after they had suffered all the indignities and abuses of the soldiers, driven stark naked in the winter through the great towns, to seek shelter and relief from the charity of their enemies. I do not instance these greater barbarities to justify the lesser actions, which are nevertheless irregular; but, I do say, that circum.

stances considered, this war was managed with as much humanity on both sides as could be expected, especially also considering the animosity of parties.

CHAPTER XI.

COMICAL ADVENTURES, IN WHICH A FEMALE CAPTAIN IS VICTORIOUS-BRAVERY OF THE PARLIAMENT TROOPS AT BRENTFORD THE WINTER SPENT IN FRUITLESS TREATIES I AM WOUNDED IN A SKIRMISH WITH THE ENEMY -FARTHER PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARMIES.

BUT to return to the prince; he had not always the same success in these enterprises; for sometimes we came short home. And I cannot omit one pleasant adventure which happened to a party of ours, in one of these excursions into Buckinghamshire. The major of our regiment was soundly beaten by a party, which, as I may say, was led by a woman; and, if I had not rescued him, I know not but he had been taken prisoner by a woman. It seems our men had besieged some fortified house about Oxfordshire, towards Tame, and the house being defended by the lady in her husband's absence, she had yielded the house upon a capitulation; one of the articles of which was to march out with all her servants, soldiers, and goods, and to be conveyed to Tame; whether she thought to have gone no farther, or that she reckoned herself safe there, I know not; but my major, with two troops of horse, meets with this lady and her party, about five miles from Tame, as we were coming back from our defeated attack of Aylesbury. We reckoned ourselves in an enemy's country, and had lived a little at large, or at discretion, as it is called abroad; and these two troops with the major were returning to our detachment from a little village, where, at the farmer's house, they had met with some liquor, and truly some of his men were so drunk they could but just sit upon their horses. The major himself was not much better, and the whole body were but in a sorry condition to fight. Upon the road they meet this party; the lady having no design of fighting, and being, as she thought, under the protection of the articles, sounds a parley, and

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desired to speak with the officer. The major, as drunk as he was, could tell her, that by the articles she was to be assured no farther than Tame, and being now five miles beyond it, she was a fair enemy, and therefore demanded to render themselves prisoners. The lady seemed surprised; but being sensible she was in the wrong, offered to compound for her goods, and would have given him 3007., and, I think, seven or eight horses. The major would certainly have taken it, if he had not been drunk; but he refused it, and gave threatening words to her, blustering in language which he thought proper to frighten a woman, viz., that he would cut them all to pieces, and give no quarter, and the like. The lady, who had been more used to the smell of powder than he imagined, called some of her servants to her, and, consulting with them what to do, they all unanimously encouraged her to let them fight; told her it was plain that the commander was drunk, and all that were with him were rather worse than he, and hardly able to sit their horses; and that therefore one bold charge would put them all into confusion. In a word, she consented, and, as she was a woman, they desired her to secure herself among the waggons; but she refused, and told them bravely, she would take her fate with them. In short, she boldly bade my major defiance, and that he might do his worst, since she had offered him fair and he had refused it; her mind was altered now, and she would give him nothing, and bade his officer that parleyed longer with her, begone; so the parley ended. After this, she gave him fair leave to go back to his men; but before he could tell his tale to them, she was at his heels, with all her men, and gave him such a homecharge as put his men into disorder; and, being too drunk to rally, they were knocked down before they knew what to do with themselves; and in a few minutes more they took to a plain flight. But what was still worse, the men, being some of them very drunk, when they came to run for their lives, fell over one another, and tumbled over their horses, and made such work, that a troop of women might have beaten them all. In this pickle, with the enemy at his heels, I came in with him, hearing the noise; when I appeared, the pursuers retreated, and, seeing what a condition my people were in, and not knowing the strength of the enemy, I contented myself with bringing them off without pursuing

VOL. II.

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