Further, in the evening after the battle, in a letter to the "Honourable Committee of Lancashire, sitting at Manchester," dated "Preston, 17th August, 1648," Cromwell expresses some uncertainty as to the forces stationed at Clitheroe, which evidently shows he made no stay in the immediate neighbourhood. He says—"We understand Colonel-General Ashton's [forces] are at Whalley; we have seven troops of horse or dragoons that we believe lie at Clitheroe. This night I have sent order to them expressly to march to Whalley, to join to these companies; that so we may endeavour the ruin of the enemy."
Captain John Hodgson, of "Coalley," near Halifax, whom Thomas Carlyle somewhat unceremoniously and unnecessarily describes as an "honest-hearted, pudding-headed Yorkshire Puritan,"[33] left behind him a kind of journal, in which the details of the campaign are described with great clearness and minuteness. Hodgson, as his conduct shows, was not only an honest, but a brave and skilful soldier. He says—"The next day we marched to Clitheroe; and at Waddey [Waddow, between Clitheroe and Waddington,] our forlorn of horse took Colonel Tempest and a party of horse, for an earnest of what was behind. That night we pitched our camp at Stanyares Hall, a Papist's house, one Sherburne; and the next morning a forlorn was drawn out of horse and foot; and, at Langridge Chapel, our horse gleaned up a considerable parcel of the enemy, and fought them all the way until within a mile of Preston."
If any military action, of even trifling importance, had taken place at Clitheroe it could not possibly have escaped the notice both of the general and his detail-loving "commander of the forlorn of foot." After describing the earlier portion of the struggle with Langdale's troops on Ribbleton moor, he says—"My captain sees me mounted[34] and orders me to ride up to my colonel, that was deeply engaged both in front and flank: and I did so, and there was nothing but fire and smoke; and I met Major-General Lambert coming off on foot, who had been with his brother Bright, and coming to him, I told him where his danger lay, on his left wing chiefly. He ordered me to fetch up the Lancashire regiment; and God brought me off, both horse and myself. The bullets flew freely; then was the heat of the battle that day. I came down to the muir, where I met with Major Jackson, that belonged to Ashton's regiment, and about three hundred men were come up; and I ordered him to march, but he said he would not, till his men were come up. A serjeant, belonging to them, asked me, where they should march? I shewed him the party he was to fight; and he, like a true bred Englishman, marched, and I caused the soldiers to follow him; which presently fell upon the enemy, and losing that wing the whole army gave ground and fled. Such valiant acts were done by contemptible instruments: The major had been called to a council of war, but that he cried peccavi."
These Lancashire troops, under the command of "Colonel-General" Ashton, appear to have been brave fellows enough; but, like militia-men in general, they appear to have had only lax notions of discipline. If not actually mutinous, they sometimes lacked the subordination essential to military discipline. Their qualities Captain Hodgson sums up in the following pithy sentences—"The Lancashire foot were as stout men as were in the world, and as brave firemen. I have often told them, they were as good fighters, and as great plunderers, as ever went to a field."
[CHAPTER IV.]
ATHELSTAN'S GREAT VICTORY AT BRUNANBURH, A.D. 937., AND ITS CONNECTION WITH THE GREAT ANGLO-SAXON AND DANISH HOARD, DISCOVERED AT CUERDALE, IN 1840.
Harold—(On the morn of the battle of Senlac or Hastings)—Our guardsmen have slept well since we came in?
Leofwin.— * * They are up again
And chanting that old song of Brunanburg,
Where England conquer'd.Tennyson's Harold.
