would
to God I had died upon the place."--Ibid.; also Turner, Memoirs, 38.]

royalists in the northern counties. The prince and the marquess had long
cherished a deeply-rooted antipathy to each other. It had displayed itself
in a consultation respecting the expediency of fighting; it was not
probable that it would be appeased by their defeat. They separated the next
morning; Rupert, hastening to quit a place where he had lost so gallant an
army, returned to his former command in the western counties; Newcastle,
whether he despaired of the royal cause, or was actuated by a sense of
injurious treatment, taking with him the lords Falconberg and Widerington,
sought an asylum on the continent. York, abandoned to its fate, opened its
gates to the enemy, on condition that the citizens should not be molested,
and that the garrison should retire to Skipton. The combined army
immediately separated by order of the committee of both kingdoms.
Manchester returned into Nottinghamshire, Fairfax remained in York, and
the Scots under Leven retracing their steps, closed the campaign with the
reduction of Newcastle. _They_ had no objection to pass the winter in the
neighbourhood of their own country; the parliament felt no wish to see them
nearer to the English capital.[1]

In the mean time Essex, impatient of the control exercised by that
committee, ventured to act in opposition to its orders; and the two houses,
though they reprimanded him for his disobedience, allowed him to pursue the
plan which he had formed of dissolving with his army the association of
royalists in Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall.[a] He relieved Lime,
which had long been besieged by Prince Maurice, one[a] of the king's
nephews, and advanced in the direction

[Footnote 1: Clarendon, ii. 504.]

[Sidenote a: A.D.. 1644. June 25.]

of Exeter, where the queen a few days before[a] had been delivered of a
daughter. That princess, weary of the dangers to which she was exposed in
England, repaired to Falmouth, put to sea[b] with a squadron of ten Dutch
or Flemish vessels, and, escaping the keen pursuit of the English fleet
from Torbay, reached[c] in safety the harbour of Brest.[1]

Essex, regardless of the royalists who assembled in the rear of his
army, pursued[d] his march into Cornwall. To most men his conduct was
inexplicable. Many suspected that he sought to revenge himself on the
parliament by betraying his forces into the hands of the enemy. At
Lestwit