power of the king's forces lay in three places, in Cornwall,
in Yorkshire, and at Shrewsbury. In Cornwall, Sir Ralph Hopton,
afterwards Lord Hopton, Sir Bevil Grenvile, and Sir Nicholas Slanning
secured all the country, and afterwards spread themselves over
Devonshire and Somersetshire, took Exeter from the Parliament,
fortified Bridgewater and Barnstaple, and beat Sir William Waller at
the battle of Roundway Down, as I shall touch at more particularly
when I come to recite the part of my own travels that way.

In the north, The Marquis of Newcastle secured all the country,
garrisoned York, Scarborough, Carlisle, Newcastle, Pomfret, Leeds, and
all the considerable places, and took the field with a very good army,
though afterwards he proved more unsuccessful than the rest, having
the whole power of a kingdom at his back, the Scots coming in with
an army to the assistance of the Parliament, which, indeed, was the
general turn of the scale of the war; for had it not been for this
Scots army, the king had most certainly reduced the Parliament, at
least to good terms of peace, in two years' time.

The king was the third article. His force at Shrewsbury I have noted
already. The alacrity of the gentry filled him with hopes, and all his
army with vigour, and the 8th of October 1642, his Majesty gave orders
to march. The Earl of Essex had spent above a month after his leaving
London (for he went thence the 9th of September) in modelling and
drawing together his forces; his rendezvous was at St Albans, from
whence he marched to Northampton, Coventry, and Warwick, and leaving
garrisons in them, he comes on to Worcester. Being thus advanced, he
possesses Oxford, as I noted before, Banbury, Bristol, Gloucester, and
Worcester, out of all which places, except Gloucester, we drove him
back to London in a very little while.

Sir John Byron had raised a very good party of 500 horse, most
gentlemen, for the king, and had possessed Oxford; but on the approach
of the Lord Say quitted it, being now but an open town, and retreated
to Worcester, from whence, on the approach of Essex's army, he
retreated to the king. And now all things grew ripe for action, both
parties having secured their posts, and settled their schemes of the
war, taken their posts and places as their measures and opportunities
directed. The field was next in their eye, and the soldiers began to
inquire when they should fight, for as yet there had been little or no
bl