in on his march, and on his approach the combined army deemed it prudent to abandon the works before the city.  He was received[e] with acclamations of joy; but left York the next day[f] to fight the bloody and decisive battle of Marston Moor.[2] Both armies, in accordance with the military tactics of the age, were drawn up in line, the infantry in three divisions, with strong bodies of cavalry on each flank.  In force they were nearly equal, amounting to twenty-three or twenty-five thousand men; but there was this peculiarity in the arrangement of the parliamentarians, that in each division the

[Footnote 1:  See his letter in Evelyn’s Memoirs, ii.  App. 88.  It completely exculpates Rupert from the charges of obstinacy and rashness in having fought the subsequent battle of Marston Moor.]

[Footnote 2:  Rushworth, v. 307, 623, 631.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1644.  June 14.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1644.  March 21.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1644.  May 25.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1644.  June 11.] [Sidenote e:  A.D. 1644.  July 1.] [Sidenote f:  A.D. 1644.  July 2.]

English and the Scots were intermixed, to preclude all occasion of jealousy or dispute.  It was now five in the afternoon, and for two hours a solemn pause ensued, each eyeing the other in the silence of suspense, with nothing to separate them but a narrow ditch or rivulet.  At seven the signal was given, and Rupert, at the head of the royal cavalry on the right, charged with his usual impetuosity, and with the usual result.  He bore down all before him, but continued the chase for some miles, and thus, by his absence from the field, suffered the victory to slip out of his hands.[1]

At the same time the royal infantry, under Goring, Lucas, and Porter, had charged their opponents with equal intrepidity and equal success.  The line of the confederates was pierced in several points; and their generals, Manchester, Leven, and Fairfax, convinced that the day was lost, fled in different directions.  By their flight the chief command devolved upon Cromwell, who improved the opportunity to win for himself the laurels of victory.  With “his ironsides” and the Scottish horse he had driven the royal cavalry, under the earl of Newcastle, from their position on the left.  Ordering a few squadrons to observe and harass the fugitives, he wheeled round on the flank of the royal infantry, and found them in separate bodies, and in disorder, indulging in the confidence and license of victory.  Regiment after regiment was attacked and dispersed; but the “white coats,” a body of veterans raised by Lord Newcastle, formed in a circle; and, whilst their pikemen kept the cavalry at bay, their

[Footnote 1:  Sir Thomas Fairfax says that at first he put to flight part of the loyal cavalry, and pursued them on the road to York.  On his return he found that the rest of his wing had been routed by the prince.—­Fairfax, 438.]

musketeers poured repeated volleys into the ranks of the enemy.  Had these brave men been supported by any other corps, the battle might have been restored; but, as soon as their ammunition was spent, an opening was made, and the white coats perished, every man falling on the spot on which he had fought.