from Chorley to Wigan. The heads of the opposite columns repeatedly charged
each other; but the desperate courage of the Cavaliers was foiled by the
steadiness and discipline of their opponents; the Lord Widrington, Sir
Thomas Tildesly, Colonel Throckmorton, Boynton, Trollop, and about sixty
of their followers were slain, and above three hundred privates made
prisoners. The earl himself, who had received several slight wounds on the
arms and shoulders, fled to Wigan with the enemy at his heels. Observing a
house open, he flung himself from his horse, and sprung into the passage.
A female barred the door behind him; the pursuers were checked for an
instant; and when they began to search the house, he had already escaped
through the garden. Weak with fatigue and the loss of blood, he wandered in
a southerly direction, concealing himself by day, and travelling by night,
till he found[b] a secure asylum, in a retired mansion, called Boscobel
House, situate between Brewood and Tong Castle, and the property of Mrs.
Cotton, a Catholic recusant and royalist. There he was received and
secreted by William Penderell and his wife, the servants entrusted with the
care of the mansion; and having recovered his strength, was conducted by
the former to the royal army at Worcester.[1]

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 503, 504. Clarendon, iii. 399, 403. Memoirs of the
Stanleys, 112-114. Journals, Aug. 29. Leicester's Journal, 116. Boscobel,
6-8. Boscobel afterwards belonged to Bas. Fitzherbert, Mrs. Cotton's
son-in-law.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. August 25.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. August 29.]

The occurrences of each day added to the disappointment of Charles and the
confidence of his enemies. He had summoned[a] by proclamation all his male
subjects between the age of sixteen and sixty to join his standard at the