lt and danger. But Holles and his adherents
refused to yield; conference after conference was held; and the two parties
continued for more than a month to debate the subject without interruption
from the Independents. These had no leisure to attend to such disputes.
Their object was to fight and conquer, under the persuasion that victory in
the field would restore to them the ascendancy in the senate.[1]

It was now the month of July, and the English royalists had almost
abandoned themselves to despair, when they received the cheering
intelligence that the duke of Hamilton had at last redeemed his promise,
and entered[a] England at the head of a numerous army.[a]

[Footnote 1: Journals, 308, 349, 351, 362, 364, 367. Commons, July 5.
Whitelock, 315, 316, 318, 319. Ludlow, i. 251.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1648. April 28.]

The king's adherents in the northern counties had already surprised Berwick
and Carlisle; and, to facilitate his entry, had for two months awaited
with impatience his arrival on the borders. The approach of Lambeth, the
parliamentary general, compelled them to seek shelter within the walls of
Carlisle, and the necessity of saving that important place compelled the
duke to despatch a part of his army to its relief. Soon afterwards[a] he
arrived himself. Report exaggerated his force to thirty thousand men,
though it did not in fact amount to more than half that number; but he
was closely followed by Monroe, who led three thousand veterans from the
Scottish army in Ireland, and was accompanied or preceded by Sir Marmaduke
Langdale, the commander of four thousand Cavaliers, men of approved valour,
who had staked their all on the result. With such an army a general of
talent and enterprise might have replaced the king on his throne; but
Hamilton, though possessed of personal courage, was diffident of his own
powers, and resigned himself to the guidance of men who sacrificed the
interests of the service to their private jealousies and feuds. Forty days
were consumed in a short march of eighty miles; and when the decisive
battle was fought, though the main body had reached the left bank of the
Ribble near Preston, the rear-guard, under Monroe, slept in security at
Kirkby Lonsdale. Lambert had retired slowly before the advance of the
Scots, closely followed by Langdale and his Cavaliers; but in Otley Park he
was joined by Cromwell, with several regiments which had been employed in
the reduction of Pembroke. Thei