Meanwhile emissaries from Lambert were also out in all directions, to rouse his friends and bring them to a place of rendezvous in Northamptonshire.  One of these emissaries, a Major Whitby, found Ludlow in Somersetshire, and delivered Lambert’s message to him.  Ludlow was not unwilling to join Lambert, but wanted to know more precisely what he declared for.  With some passion, Whitby suggested that it was not a time to be asking what a man declared for; it was enough to know what he declared against.  Ludlow demurred, and said it was always best to put forth a distinct political programme!  He merely circulated the information; therefore, in Somersetshire and adjoining counties, and waited for further light.  Along many roads, however, especially in the midland counties, others were straggling to the appointed rendezvous.  Discharged soldiers, Anabaptists, Republican desperates of every kind, were flocking to Lambert.—­Alas! before many of these could reach Lambert, it was all over.  Hither and thither, wherever there were signs of disturbance, Monk had been despatching his most efficient officers; and, on the 18th of April, having received more exact information as to Lambert’s whereabouts, he sent off Colonel Richard Ingoldsby to do his very best in that scene of action.  There could not have been a happier choice.  For this was honest Dick Ingoldsby, the Cromwellian, of whom his kinsman Richard Cromwell had said that, though he could neither preach nor pray, he could be trusted.  He was also “Dick Ingoldsby, the Regicide,” who had unfortunately signed the death-warrant of Charles I., to please Cromwell; and that recollection was a spur to him now.  Since the abdication of Richard, he had been telling people that he would thenceforth serve the King and no one else, even though his Majesty, when he came home, would probably cut off his head.  That consequence, however, was to be avoided if possible; and already, since the restoration of the secluded members, Ingoldsby had been doing whatever stroke of work for them might help towards earning his pardon.  Now had come his most splendid opportunity, and he was not to let it slip.—­On Sunday, the 22nd of April, being Easter Sunday, he came up with Lambert in Northamptonshire, about two miles from Daventry.  Lambert had then but seven broken troops of horse, and one foot company; but Colonels Okey, Axtell, Cobbet, Major Creed, and several other important Republican ex-officers, were with him.  Ingoldsby had brought his own horse regiment from Suffolk; Colonel Streater, with 500 men of a Northamptonshire foot-regiment, had joined him; the Royalist gentry round were sending in more horse; the country train-bands were up.  The battle would be very unequal; was it worth while to fight?  For some hours the two bodies stood facing each other, Lambert’s in a ploughed field, with a little stream in his front, to which Ingoldsby rode up frequently, parleying with such of Lambert’s troopers as were nearest, and so effectively as to bring some