The rest of the winter was spent in strengthening parties and places, also in fruitless treaties of peace, messages, remonstrances, and paper war on both sides, and no action remarkable happened anywhere that I remember. Yet the king gained ground everywhere, and his forces in the north increased under the Earl of Newcastle; also my Lord Goring, then only called Colonel Goring, arrived from Holland, bringing three ships laden with arms and ammunition, and notice that the queen was following with more. Goring brought 4000 barrels of gunpowder, and 20,000 small arms; all which came very seasonably, for the king was in great want of them, especially the powder. Upon this recruit the Earl of Newcastle draws down to York, and being above 16,000 strong, made Sir Thomas Fairfax give ground, and retreat to Hull.
Whoever lay still, Prince Rupert was always abroad, and I chose to go out with his Highness as often as I had opportunity, for hitherto he was always successful. About this time the prince being at Oxford, I gave him intelligence of a party of the enemy who lived a little at large, too much for good soldiers, about Cirencester. The prince, glad of the news, resolved to attack them, and though it was a wet season, and the ways exceeding bad, being in February, yet we marched all night in the dark, which occasioned the loss of some horses and men too, in sloughs and holes, which the darkness of the night had suffered them to fall into. We were a very strong party, being about 3000 horse and dragoons, and coming to Cirencester very early in the morning, to our great satisfaction the enemy were perfectly surprised, not having the least notice of our march, which answered our end more ways than one. However, the Earl of Stamford's regiment made some resistance; but the town having no works to defend it, saving a slight breastwork at the entrance of the road, with a turnpike, our dragoons alighted, and forcing their way over the bellies of Stamford's foot, they beat them from their defence, and followed them at their heels into the town. Stamford's regiment was entirely cut in pieces, and several others, to the number of about 800 men, and the town entered without any other resistance. We took 1200 prisoners, 3000 arms, and the county magazine, which at that time was considerable; for there was about 120 barrels of powder, and all things in proportion.
I received the first hurt I got in this war at this action, for having followed the dragoons and brought my regiment within the barricado which they had gained, a musket bullet struck my horse just in the head, and that so effectually that he fell down as dead as a stone all at once. The fall plunged me into a puddle of water and daubed me; and my man having brought me another horse and cleaned me a little, I was just getting up, when another bullet struck me on my left hand, which I had just clapped on the horse's main to lift myself into the saddle. The blow broke one of my fingers, and bruised my hand very much; and it proved a very painful hurt to me. For the present I did not much concern myself about it, but made my man tie it up close in my handkerchief, and led up my men to the market-place, where we had a very smart brush with some musketeers who were posted in the churchyard; but our dragoons soon beat them out there, and the whole town was then our own. We made no stay here, but marched back with all our booty to Oxford, for we knew the enemy were very strong at Gloucester, and that way.
Much about the same time, the Earl of Northampton, with a strong party, set upon Lichfield, and took the town, but could not take the Close; but they beat a body of 4000 men coming to the relief of the town, under Sir John Gell, of Derbyshire, and Sir William Brereton, of Cheshire, and killing 600 of them, dispersed the rest.
Our second campaign now began to open; the king marched from Oxford to relieve Reading, which was besieged by the Parliament forces; but General Fielding, Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Arthur Ashton being wounded, surrendered to Essex before the king could come up; for which he was tried by martial law, and condemned to die, but the king forbore to execute the sentence. This was the first town we had lost in the war, for still the success of the king's affairs was very encouraging. This bad news, however, was overbalanced by an account brought the king at the same time, by an express from York, that the queen had landed in the north, and had brought over a great magazine of arms and ammunition, besides some men. Some time after this her Majesty, marching southward to meet the king, joined the army near Edgehill, where the first battle was fought. She brought the king 3000 foot, 1500 horse and dragoons, six pieces of cannon, 1500 barrels of powder, 12,000 small arms.
During this prosperity of the king's affairs his armies increased mightily in the western counties also. Sir William Waller, indeed, commanded for the Parliament in those parts too, and particularly in Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and Berkshire, where he carried on their cause but too fast; but farther west, Sir Nicholas Slanning, Sir Ralph Hopton, and Sir Bevil Grenvile had extended the king's quarters from Cornwall through Devonshire, and into Somersetshire, where they took Exeter, Barnstaple, and Bideford; and the first of these they fortified very well, making it a place of arms for the west, and afterwards it was the residence of the queen.
At last, the famous Sir William Waller and the king's forces met, and came to a pitched battle, where Sir William lost all his honour again. This was at Roundway Down in Wiltshire. Waller had engaged our Cornish army at Lansdown, and in a very obstinate fight had the better of them, and made them retreat to the Devizes. Sir William Hopton, however, having a good body of foot untouched, sent expresses and messengers one in the neck of another to the king for some horse, and the king being in great concern for that army, who were composed of the flower of the Cornish men, commanded me to march with all possible secrecy, as well as expedition, with 1200 horse and dragoons from Oxford, to join them. We set out in the depth of the night, to avoid, if possible, any intelligence being given of our route, and soon joined with the Cornish army, when it was as soon resolved to give battle to Waller; and, give him his due, he was as forward to fight as we. As it is easy to meet when both sides are willing to be found, Sir William Waller met us upon Roundway Down, where we had a fair field on both sides, and room enough to draw up our horse. In a word, there was little ceremony to the work; the armies joined, and we charged his horse with so much resolution, that they quickly fled, and quitted the field; for we over-matched him in horse, and this was the entire destruction of their army. For the infantry, which outnumbered ours by 1500, were now at our mercy; some faint resistance they made, just enough to give us occasion to break into their ranks with our horse, where we gave time to our foot to defeat others that stood to their work, upon which they began to disband, and run every way they could; but our horse having surrounded them, we made a fearful havoc of them.
We lost not about 200 men in this action; Waller lost about 4000 killed and taken, and as many dispersed that never returned to their colours. Those of foot that escaped got into Bristol, and Waller, with the poor remains of his routed regiments, got to London; so that it is plain some ran east, and some ran west, that is to say, they fled every way they could.
My going with this detachment prevented my being at the siege of Bristol, which Prince Rupert attacked much about the same time, and it surrendered in three days. The Parliament questioned Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes, the governor, and had him tried as a coward by a court-martial, and condemned to die, but suspended the execution also, as the king did the governor of Reading. I have often heard Prince Rupert say, they did Colonel Fiennes wrong in that affair; and that if the colonel would have summoned him, he would have demanded a passport of the Parliament, and have come up and convinced the court that Colonel Fiennes had not misbehaved himself, and that he had not a sufficient garrison to defend a city of that extent; having not above 1200 men in the town, excepting some of Waller's runaways, most of whom were unfit for service, and without arms; and that the citizens in general being disaffected to him, and ready on the first occasion to open the gates to the king's forces, it was impossible for him to have kept the city. "And when I had farther informed them," said the prince, "of the measures I had taken for a general assault the next day, I am confident I should have convinced them that I had taken the city by storm, if he had not surrendered."
The king's affairs were now in a very good posture, and three armies in the north, west, and in the centre, counted in the musters about 70,000 men besides small garrisons and parties abroad. Several of the lords, and more of the commons, began to fall off from the Parliament, and make their peace with the king; and the affairs of the Parliament began to look very ill. The city of London was their inexhaustible support and magazine, both for men, money, and all things necessary; and whenever their army was out of order, the clergy of their party in but one Sunday or two, would preach the young citizens out of their shops, the labourers from their masters, into the army, and recruit them on a sudden. And all this was still owing to the omission I first observed, of not marching to London, when it might have been so easily effected.