[Footnote 1:  Journals, 308, 349, 351, 362, 364, 367.  Commons, July 5.  Whitelock, 315, 316, 318, 319.  Ludlow, i. 251.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1648.  April 28.]

The king’s adherents in the northern counties had already surprised Berwick and Carlisle; and, to facilitate his entry, had for two months awaited with impatience his arrival on the borders.  The approach of Lambeth, the parliamentary general, compelled them to seek shelter within the walls of Carlisle, and the necessity of saving that important place compelled the duke to despatch a part of his army to its relief.  Soon afterwards[a] he arrived himself.  Report exaggerated his force to thirty thousand men, though it did not in fact amount to more than half that number; but he was closely followed by Monroe, who led three thousand veterans from the Scottish army in Ireland, and was accompanied or preceded by Sir Marmaduke Langdale, the commander of four thousand Cavaliers, men of approved valour, who had staked their all on the result.  With such an army a general of talent and enterprise might have replaced the king on his throne; but Hamilton, though possessed of personal courage, was diffident of his own powers, and resigned himself to the guidance of men who sacrificed the interests of the service to their private jealousies and feuds.  Forty days were consumed in a short march of eighty miles; and when the decisive battle was fought, though the main body had reached the left bank of the Ribble near Preston, the rear-guard, under Monroe, slept in security at Kirkby Lonsdale.  Lambert had retired slowly before the advance of the Scots, closely followed by Langdale and his Cavaliers; but in Otley Park he was joined by Cromwell, with several regiments which had been employed in the reduction of Pembroke.  Their united force did not exceed nine thousand men; but the impetuosity of the general despised inequality of numbers; and the

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1648.  July 8.]

ardour of his men induced him to lead them without delay against the enemy.  From Clithero, Langdale fell back on the Scottish army near Preston, and warned the duke to prepare for battle on the following day.[a] Of the disasters which followed, it is impossible to form any consistent notion from the discordant statements of the Scottish officers, each of whom, anxious to exculpate himself, laid the chief blame on some of his colleagues.  This only is certain, that the Cavaliers fought with the obstinacy of despair; that for six hours they bore the whole brunt of the battle; that as they retired from hedge to hedge they solicited from the Scots a reinforcement of men and a supply of ammunition; and that, unable to obtain either, they retreated into the town, where they discovered that their allies had crossed to the opposite bank, and were contending with the enemy for the possession of the bridge.  Langdale, in this extremity, ordered his infantry to disperse, and, with the cavalry and