true, I refused
to obey his directions and order: for this it was; his Majesty's horse
being betwixt four and five thousand in a large common, in good order,
he commands me, Mr. Speaker, to charge them; we having no way to come at
them but through a narrow lane, where not above three horse could march
abreast; whereby had I followed his order, we had been all cut off ere
we could have got into any order. Mr. Speaker, (and then he wept; which
he could do _toties quoties_) I, considering that all the visible army
you then had, was by this counsel in danger to be lost, refused thus to
endanger the main strength, which now most of all consisted of those
horse under my command, &c.--This his recrimination was well accepted by
the House of Commons, who thereupon, and from that time, thought there
was none of the House of Lords very fit to be entrusted with their
future armies, but had then thoughts of making a commoner their General;
which afterwards they did, and elected Sir Thomas Fairfax their General,
and Cromwell Lieutenant-General; but it was next spring first. Upon
Essex's being lost in Cornwall, I heard Serjeant Maynard say, 'If now
the King haste to London we are undone, having no army to resist him.'

His Majesty had many misfortunes ever attending him, during his abode at
Oxford; some by reason of that great animosity betwixt Prince Rupert and
the Lord Digby, each endeavouring to cross one another; but the worst of
all was by treachery of several officers under his command, and in his
service; for the Parliament had in continual pay one Colonel of the
King's Council of War; one Lieutenant-Colonel; one Captain; one Ensign;
one or two Serjeants; several Corporals, who had constant pay, and duly
paid them every month, according to the capacity of their officers and
places, and yet none of these knew any thing of each other's being so
employed. There were several well-wishers unto the Parliament in Oxford,
where each left his letter, putting it in at the hole of a glass-window,
as he made water in the street. What was put in at the window in any of
those houses, was the same day conveyed two miles off by some in the
habit of town-gardeners, to the side of a ditch, where one or more were
ever ready to give the intelligence to the next Parliament garrison: I
was then familiar with all the spies that constantly went in and out to
Oxford.

But once more to my own actions. I had, in 1652 and 1653 and 1654, much
contention