nition, and above 500 of our horse, the foot
shifted away as well as they could. Thus we made off in a shattered
condition towards Farringdon, and so to Oxford, and I was very glad my
regiment was not there.

We had small rest at Oxford, or indeed anywhere else; for the king was
marched from thence, and we followed him. I was something uneasy at my
absence from my regiment, and did not know how the king might resent
it, which caused me to ride after them with all expedition. But the
armies were engaged that very day at Newbury, and I came in too late.
I had not behaved myself so as to be suspected of a wilful shunning
the action; but a colonel of a regiment ought to avoid absence
from his regiment in time of fight, be the excuse never so just, as
carefully as he would a surprise in his quarters. The truth is, 'twas
an error of my own, and owing to two day's stay I made at the Bath,
where I met with some ladies who were my relations. And this is far
from being an excuse; for if the king had been a Gustavus Adolphus, I
had certainly received a check for it.

This fight was very obstinate, and could our horse have come to action
as freely as the foot, the Parliament army had suffered much more; for
we had here a much better body of horse than they, and we never failed
beating them where the weight of the work lay upon the horse.

Here the city train-bands, of which there was two regiments, and whom
we used to despise, fought very well. They lost one of their colonels,
and several officers in the action; and I heard our men say, they
behaved themselves as well as any forces the Parliament had.

The Parliament cried victory here too, as they always did; and indeed
where the foot were concerned they had some advantage; but our horse
defeated them evidently. The king drew up his army in battalia, in
person, and faced them all the next day, inviting them to renew the
fight; but they had no stomach to come on again.

It was a kind of a hedge fight, for neither army was drawn out in the
field; if it had, 'twould never have held from six in the morning to
ten at night. But they fought for advantages; sometimes one side had
the better, sometimes another. They fought twice through the town, in
at one end, and out at the other; and in the hedges and lanes, with
exceeding fury. The king lost the most men, his foot having suffered
for want of the succour of their horse, who on two several occasions
could not come at them. But the