All, however, did not spur northward: some spurred to Lincoln, some to Hull, some to Halifax, some to Wakefield, all reporting the utter rout of the Parliamentary army. The news reached Newark, whence the Royalists sent an express messenger to convey the glorious tidings to Oxford. Both at Oxford and at Banbury, Church bells were rung, bonfires were lighted, and fireworks were let off in honour of the great victory of Rupert and Newcastle over the combined armies of the Parliament and the Scotch. The splendid news made happy the heart of King Charles and set his anxious mind at rest.
Reports of the victory spread to London. Vicars, the Puritan author, wrote: “Yea, our sottish and bewitched mole-eyed malignants of London also, were so led along with a spirit of lying, like their father the devil, that they mightily boasted of this robber’s vain victory over us, the vanquishing of our whole three armies, the death and imprisonment of all our three most renowned and precious Generals”.[107]
[107] Jehovah Jireh.
The defeated Roundhead Generals fled for their lives. Manchester ran away, but repented and returned: Lord Leven never drew rein till he reached Leeds, twenty miles from the battle-field; and Lord Fairfax fled for refuge to Cawood Castle, where, finding neither food, fire nor candle, he philosophically got into bed. Indeed Principal Baillee wrote in a letter to a friend, dated 12 July, 1644: “All six generals took to their heels—this to you alone”.
But let us return to the battle-field and observe a few further details of the fight: for thus far we have only been concerned with the Royalist left wing and the Parliamentary right.
At the beginning of the battle, soon after seven in the evening, the left wing of the Roundheads charged the ditch, which was passable in their front. While Manchester’s infantry attacked that of Newcastle, Cromwell’s cavalry charged Rupert’s, Byron’s and the Irish horse. “And now,” wrote Manchester’s chaplain, “you might have seen the bravest sight in the world, for they moved down the hill like so many thick clouds, in brigades of 800, 1,000, 1,200 and 1,500 each.” “We came down the hill,” says Watson, who was with Cromwell’s cavalry, “in bravest order and with the greatest resolution that ever was seen.... In a moment we were passed the ditch and on to the moor upon equal terms with the enemy.” The Royalists abandoned four drakes in the ditch. Watson continues: “Our front division charged their front, Cromwell’s division of 300 horse, in which he himself was in person, charging the first division of Prince Rupert’s, of which himself was in person,[108] in which all were gallant men”.
[108] Some accounts, however, state that, instead of leading his own men, Rupert led Newcastle’s horse on the Royalist left.
Yet it was not all plain sailing for Cromwell and his cavalry. A sword-wound[109] on the neck obliged Cromwell to leave the field and receive surgical treatment in a house hard by, and the Royalist cavalry made a splendid resistance, repelling the Roundheads several times. As was the custom in those days, both sides galloped towards each other until they were within shot, when they pulled up and fired their carbines or pistols, and then charged with their swords. It is said that at the last charge on this occasion, the rival cavalry, after firing, threw their pistols at each others heads.
[109] Mark Trevor, who is said to have given the wound, was created Lord Dungannon, for his services in this war. But Whitelock says that the wound was made by a graze from a pistol bullet, “which some imagined to be by accident and want of care by some of his own men”. General Crawford supports this account of the wound. See Masères’s Tracts. The story of the sword-wound is in Leadman’s Battles Fought in Yorkshire, p. 138; a book giving a very elaborate account of the battle.
Carlyle describes the scene as “the most enormous hurly-burly of fire and smoke and steel flashings and death tumult, ever seen in those regions. We just get a glimpse of them joining battle in complete array and the next shows them scattered, broken, straggling across moor and field on both sides in utter bewilderment.” A spirited account, but somewhat misleading, for they fought long and hard before either side was scattered.