ame fluctuating and contradictory.[a]
After much hesitation, they resolved to proceed to Nantwich and defend the
passage of the Weever; but so rapid had been the march of the enemy, who
sent forward part of the infantry on horseback, that the advance was
already arrived in the neighbourhood; and, while the royalists lay
unsuspicious of danger in the town, Lambert forced the passage of the river
at Winnington.[b] In haste, they filed out of Nantwich into the nearest
fields; but here they found that most of their ammunition was still at
Chester;[c] and, on the suggestion that the position was

[Footnote 1: Parl. Hist. xxiii. 107.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1659. August 16.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1659. August 18.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1659. August 19.]

unfavourable, hastened to take possession of a neighbouring eminence.
Colonel Morgan, with his troop, attempted to keep the enemy in check; he
fell, with thirty men; and the rest of the insurgents, at the approach of
their adversaries, turned their backs and fled. Three hundred were made
prisoners in the pursuit, and few of the leaders had the good fortune to
escape. The earl of Derby, who had raised men in Lancashire to join the
royalists, was taken in the disguise of a servant. Booth, dressed as a
female, and riding on a pillion, took[a] the direct road for London, but
betrayed himself at Newton Pagnell by his awkwardness in alighting from
the horse. Middleton, who was eighty years old, fled to Chirk Castle; and,
after a defence of a few days, capitulated,[b] on condition that he should
have two months to make his peace with the parliament.[1]

The news of this disaster reached the duke of York at Boulogne, fortunately
on the very evening on which he was to have embarked with his men. Charles
received it at Rochelle, whither he had been compelled to proceed in search
of a vessel to convey him to Wales. Abandoning the hopeless project, he
instantly continued his journey to the congress at Fuentarabia, with the
delusive expectation that, on the conclusion of peace between the two
crowns, he should obtain a supply of money, and perhaps still more
substantial aid, from a personal interview with the ministers, Cardinal
Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro.[2] Montague, who had but recently become a
proselyte to the royal cause,

[Footnote 1: Clar. Hist. iii. 672-675. Clar. Pap. iii. 673, 674. Ludlow,
ii. 223. Whitelock, 683. Carte's Letters, 194, 202. Lambert's Letter,
printed for Thomas Neuc