, to recover the prisoners,
and to repair the disgrace which the army had sustained. Among the rest
Hambden, who had a regiment of infantry that lay at a distance, joined
the horse as a volunteer; and overtaking the royalists on Chalgrave
field, entered into the thickest of the battle. By the bravery and
activity of Rupert, the king's troops were brought off, and a great
booty, together with two hundred prisoners, was conveyed to Oxford. But
what most pleased the royalists was the expectation that some disaster
had happened to Hambden their capital and much dreaded enemy. One of the
prisoners taken in the action, said, that he was confident Mr. Hambden
was hurt: for he saw him, contrary to his usual custom, ride off the
field before the action was finished; his head hanging down, and his
hands leaning upon his horse's neck. Next day the news arrived, that he
was shot in the shoulder with a brace of bullets, and the bone broken.
Some days after, he died, in exquisite pain, of his wound; nor could his
whole party, had their army met with a total overthrow, have been thrown
into greater consternation. The king himself so highly valued him, that,
either from generosity or policy, he intended to have sent him his own
surgeon to assist at his cure.[*] [13]

* See note M, at the end of the volume.

Many were the virtues and talents of this eminent personage; and his
valor during the war had shone out with a lustre equal to that of
the other accomplishments by which he had ever been distinguished.
Affability in conversation; temper, art, and eloquence in debate;
penetration and discernment in counsel; industry, vigilance, and
enterprise in action; all these praises are unanimously ascribed to
him by historians of the most opposite parties. His virtue, too, and
integrity in all the duties of private life, are allowed to have been
beyond exception: we must only be cautious, notwithstanding his generous
zeal for liberty, not hastily to ascribe to him the praises of a good
citizen. Through all the horrors of civil war, he sought the abolition
of monarchy, and subversion of the constitution; an end which, had
it been attainable by peaceful measures, ought carefully to have been
avoided by every lover of his country. But whether, in the pursuit
of this violent enterprise, he was actuated by private ambition or by
honest prejudices, derived from the former exorbitant powers of royalty,
it belongs not to an historian of this age,