ex,
afforded a legitimate ground of suspicion. In proportion as he sank in
their esteem, they were careful to extol the merits and flatter the
ambition of Sir William Waller. Waller had formerly enjoyed a lucrative
office under the crown, but he had been fined in the Star-chamber, and his
wife was a "godly woman;" _her_ zeal and his own resentment made him a
patriot; he raised a troop of horse for the service, and was quickly
advanced to a command. The rapidity of his movements, his daring spirit,
and his contempt of military rules, were advantageously contrasted with
the slow and cautious experience of Essex; and his success at Portsmouth,
Winchester, Chichester, Malmesbury, and Hereford, all of which he reduced
in a short time, entitled him, in the estimation of his admirers, to the
quaint appellation of William the Conqueror. While the forces under Essex
were suffered to languish in a state of destitution,[1] an army of eight
thousand men, well clothed and appointed, was prepared for Waller. But the
event proved that his abilities had been overrated. In the course of a week
he fought two battles, one near Bath, with Prince Maurice,[a] the other
with Lord Wilmot, near Devizes[b]: the first was obstinate but indecisive,
the second bloody and disastrous. Waller hastened from the field to the
capital, attributing the loss of his army, not to his own errors, but
to the jealousy of Essex. His patrons did not abandon their favourite.
Emulating the example of the Romans,

[Footnote 1: His army was reduced to "four thousand or five thousand
men, and these much malcontented that their general and they should be
misprised, and Waller immediately prized."--Baillie, i. 391. He had three
thousand marching men, and three hundred sick.--Journals, vi. 160.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1643. July 5]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1643. July 13]

they met the unfortunate general in triumphal procession, and the speaker
of the Commons officially returned him thanks for his services to his
country.[1][a]

This tone of defiance did not impose on the advocates of peace. Waller's
force was annihilated; the grand army, lately removed to Kingston, had been
so reduced by want and neglect, that Essex refused to give to it the name
of an army; the queen had marched without opposition from Yorkshire to
Oxford, bringing to her husband, who met her on Edge-hill, a powerful
reinforcement of men, artillery, and stores[b]; and Prince Rupert, in the
course of three days