[Footnote 1:  Balfour, iii. 341.  Thurloe, i. 72.  The next year the garrison of Dunavertie, three hundred men, surrendered to David Leslie “at the kingdom’s mercie.”  “They put to the sword,” says Turner, “everie mother’s sonne except one young man, Machoul, whose life I begged.”—­Turner’s Memoirs, 46, also 48.]

[Footnote 2:  Rush. vi. 237.  Guthrie, 301.  Journals, vi. 584.  Wishart, 203.  Baillie, ii. 164.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1645.  Dec. 23.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1645.  Sept. 3.]

suburbs of Chester, and threatened to deprive him of that, the only port by which he could maintain a communication with Ireland.  He hastened to its relief, and was followed at the distance of a day’s journey by Pointz, a parliamentary officer.  It was the king’s intention[a] that two attacks, one from the city, the other from the country, should be simultaneously made on the camp of the besiegers; and with this view he left the greater part of the royal cavalry at Boutenheath, under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, while he entered Chester himself with the remainder in the dusk of the evening.  It chanced that Pointz meditated a similar attempt with the aid of the besiegers, on the force under Langdale; and the singular position of the armies marked the following day with the most singular vicissitudes of fortune.  Early in the morning[b] the royalists repelled the troops under Pointz; but a detachment from the camp restored the battle, and forced them to retire under the walls of the city.  Here, with the help of the king’s guards, they recovered the ascendancy, but suffered themselves in the pursuit to be entangled among lanes and hedges lined with infantry, by whom they were thrown into irremediable disorder.  Six hundred troopers fell in the action, more than a thousand obtained quarter, and the rest were scattered in every direction.  The next night Charles repaired to Denbigh, collected the fugitives around him, and, skilfully avoiding Pointz, hastened[c] to Bridgenorth, where he was met by his nephew Maurice from the garrison of Worcester.[1]

The only confidential counsellor who attended the king in this expedition was Lord Digby.  That nobleman,

[Footnote 1:  Clarendon, ii. 712.  Thurloe, i. 3.  Rush. vi. 117.  Journals, vi. 608.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1645.  Sept. 23.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1645.  Sept. 23.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1645.  Sept. 30.]

unfortunately for the interests of his sovereign, had incurred the hatred of his party:  of some, on account of his enmity to prince Rupert; of the general officers, because he was supposed to sway the royal mind, even in military matters; and of all who desired peace, because to his advice was attributed the obstinacy of Charles in continuing the war.  It was the common opinion that the king ought to fix his winter quarters at Worcester; but Digby, unwilling to be shut up during four months in a city of which the brother of Rupert was governor, persuaded him to