been gallantly defended
during eighteen weeks by the resolution of the countess of Derby. On the
receipt of the royal command, he took with him a portion of his own men,
and some regiments lately arrived from Ireland; reinforcements poured in
on his march, and on his approach the combined army deemed it prudent to
abandon the works before the city. He was received[e] with acclamations of
joy; but left York the next day[f] to fight the bloody and decisive battle
of Marston Moor.[2] Both armies, in accordance with the military tactics
of the age, were drawn up in line, the infantry in three divisions, with
strong bodies of cavalry on each flank. In force they were nearly equal,
amounting to twenty-three or twenty-five thousand men; but there was this
peculiarity in the arrangement of the parliamentarians, that in each
division the

[Footnote 1: See his letter in Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. App. 88. It completely
exculpates Rupert from the charges of obstinacy and rashness in having
fought the subsequent battle of Marston Moor.]

[Footnote 2: Rushworth, v. 307, 623, 631.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1644. June 14.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1644. March 21.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1644. May 25.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1644. June 11.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1644. July 1.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1644. July 2.]

English and the Scots were intermixed, to preclude all occasion of jealousy
or dispute. It was now five in the afternoon, and for two hours a solemn
pause ensued, each eyeing the other in the silence of suspense, with
nothing to separate them but a narrow ditch or rivulet. At seven the signal
was given, and Rupert, at the head of the royal cavalry on the right,
charged with his usual impetuosity, and with the usual result. He bore down
all before him, but continued the chase for some miles, and thus, by his
absence from the field, suffered the victory to slip out of his hands.[1]

At the same time the royal infantry, under Goring, Lucas, and Porter, had
charged their opponents with equal intrepidity and equal success. The line
of the confederates was pierced in several points; and their generals,
Manchester, Leven, and Fairfax, convinced that the day was lost, fled in
different directions. By their flight the chief command devolved upon
Cromwell, who improved the opportunity to win for himself the laurels of
victory. With "his ironsides" and the Scottish horse he had driven the
royal cavalry, under the earl of Newcastle, from their position on the
left.