his forces and the increase of his interest, it would be if the king could gain that point, urged the king to march on to London.  Prince Rupert and the fresh colonels pressed for fighting, told the king it dispirited their men to march with the enemy at their heels; that the Parliament army was inferior to him by 6000 men, and fatigued with hasty marching; that as their orders were to fight, he had nothing to do but to post himself to advantage, and receive them to their destruction; that the action near Worcester had let them know how easy it was to deal with a rash enemy; and that ’twas a dishonour for him, whose forces were so much superior, to be pursued by his subjects in rebellion.  These and the like arguments prevailed with the king to alter his wiser measures and resolve to fight.  Nor was this all; when a resolution of fighting was taken, that part of the advice which they who were for fighting gave, as a reason for their opinion, was forgot, and instead of halting and posting ourselves to advantage till the enemy came up, we were ordered to march back and meet them.

Nay, so eager was the prince for fighting, that when, from the top of Edgehill, the enemy’s army was descried in the bottom between them and the village of Kineton, and that the enemy had bid us defiance, by discharging three cannons, we accepted the challenge, and answering with two shots from our army, we must needs forsake the advantages of the hills, which they must have mounted under the command of our cannon, and march down to them into the plain.  I confess, I thought here was a great deal more gallantry than discretion; for it was plainly taking an advantage out of our own hands, and putting it into the hands of the enemy.  An enemy that must fight, may always be fought with to advantage.  My old hero, the glorious Gustavus Adolphus, was as forward to fight as any man of true valour mixed with any policy need to be, or ought to be; but he used to say, “An enemy reduced to a necessity of fighting is half beaten.”

Tis true, we were all but young in the war; the soldiers hot and forward, and eagerly desired to come to hands with the enemy.  But I take the more notice of it here, because the king in this acted against his own measures; for it was the king himself had laid the design of getting the start of Essex, and marching to London.  His friends had invited him thither, and expected him, and suffered deeply for the omission; and yet he gave way to these hasty counsels, and suffered his judgment to be overruled by majority of voices; an error, I say, the King of Sweden was never guilty of.  For if all the officers at a council of war were of a different opinion, yet unless their reasons mastered his judgment, their votes never altered his measures.  But this was the error of our good, but unfortunate master, three times in this war, and particularly in two of the greatest battles of the time, viz., this of Edgehill, and that of Naseby.