left. We made but short work of them, and drove them headlong from the
field, chasing them in great disorder for three miles, and taking much
plunder in Kineton among the Parliament baggage-wagons. Thinking that
the fight was over, we then prepared to ride back. When we came to the
field we found that all was changed. The main body of the Roundheads had
pressed hotly upon ours and had driven them back. Lord Lindsey himself,
who had gone into the battle at the head of the pikemen carrying a pike
himself like a common soldier, had been mortally wounded and taken
prisoner, and grievous slaughter had been inflicted. The king's standard
itself had been taken, but this had been happily recovered, for two
Royalist officers, putting on orange scarfs, rode into the middle of the
Roundheads, and pretending that they were sent by Essex, demanded the
flag from his secretary, to whom it had been intrusted. The scrivener
gave it up, and the officers, seizing it, rode through the enemy and
recovered their ranks. There was much confusion and no little angry
discussion in the camp that night, the footmen accusing the horsemen of
having deserted them, and the horsemen grumbling at the foot, because
they had not done their work as well as themselves. In the morning the
two armies still faced each other, neither being willing to budge a
foot, although neither cared to renew the battle. The rest of the
Parliamentary forces had arrived, and they might have struck us a heavy
blow had they been minded, for there was much discouragement in our
ranks. Lord Essex, however, after waiting a day and burying his dead,
drew off from the field, and we, remaining there, were able to claim the
victory, which, however, my son, was one of a kind which was scarce
worth winning. It was a sad sight to see so many men stretched stark and
dead, and these killed, not in fighting with a foreign foe, but with
other Englishmen. It made us all mightily sad, and if at that moment
Lord Essex had had full power from the Parliament to treat, methinks
that the quarrel could have been settled, all being mightily sick of