with no foe that can match them, until they recoil
at last before the plebeian pikes of the London train-bands. Nor can
even Rupert's men claim to monopolize the courage of the King's party.
The brilliant "show-troop" of Lord Bernard Stuart, comprising the young
nobles having no separate command,--a troop which could afford to
indulge in all the gorgeousness of dress, since their united incomes,
Clarendon declares, would have exceeded those of the whole Puritan
Parliament,--led, by their own desire, the triumphant charge at
Edgehill, and threescore of their bodies were found piled on the spot
where the Royal Standard was captured and rescued. Not less faithful
were the Marquis of Newcastle's "Lambs," who took their name from the
white woollen clothing which they refused to have dyed, saying that
their hearts' blood would dye it soon enough; and so it did: only thirty
survived the battle of Marston Moor, and the bodies of the rest were
found in the field, ranked regularly, side by side, in death as in life.

But here at Chalgrove Field no such fortitude of endurance is needed;
the enemy are scattered, and, as Rupert's Cavaliers are dashing on, in
their accustomed headlong pursuit, a small, but fresh force of Puritan
cavalry appears behind the hedges and charges on them from the
right,--two troops, hastily gathered, and in various garb. They are
headed by a man in middle life and of noble aspect: once seen, he cannot
easily be forgotten; but seen he will never be again, and, for the last
time, Rupert and Hampden meet face to face.

The foremost representative men of their respective parties, they
scarcely remember, perhaps, that there are ties and coincidences in
their lives. At the marriage of Rupert's mother, the student Hampden was
chosen to write the Oxford epithalamium, exulting in the prediction of
some noble offspring to follow such a union. Rupert is about to be made
General-in-chief of the Cavaliers; Hampden is looked to by all as the
future General-in-chief of the Puritans. Rupert is the nephew of the
King,--Hampden the cousin of Cromwell; and as the former is believed
to be aiming at the Crown, so the latter is the only possible rival of
Cromwell for the Protectorate,--"the eyes of all being fixed upon him as
their _pater patriae_." But in all the greater qualities of manhood, how
far must Hampden be placed above the magnificent and gifted Rupert! In
a congress of natural noblemen--for such do the men of the C