ing, caused some of his
horse to alight, and serve as dragoons; and having broken a way into
the enclosures, the horse beat the foot from behind the hedges, while
the rest who were alighted charged them in the lane which leads to
the town. Here they had cast up some works, and fired from their
lines very regularly, considering them as militia only, the governor
encouraging them by his example; so that finding without some foot
there would be no good to be done, we gave it over, and drew off; and
so Aylesbury escaped a scouring for that time.

I cannot deny but these flying parties of horse committed great spoil
among the country people; and sometimes the prince gave a liberty to
some cruelties which were not at all for the king's interest; because
it being still upon our own country, and the king's own subjects, whom
in all his declarations he protested to be careful of, it seemed to
contradict all those protestations and declarations, and served to
aggravate and exasperate the common people; and the king's enemies
made all the advantages of it that was possible, by crying out of
twice as many extravagancies as were committed.

Tis true, the king, who naturally abhorred such things, could not
restrain his men, no, nor his generals, so absolutely as he would
have done. The war, on his side, was very much _a la_ volunteer;
many gentlemen served him at their own charge, and some paid whole
regiments themselves: sometimes also the king's affairs were straiter
than ordinary, and his men were not very well paid, and this obliged
him to wink at their excursions upon the country, though he did not
approve of them. And yet I must own, that in those parts of England
where the war was hottest, there never was seen that ruin and
depopulation, murders, and barbarities, which I have seen even among
Protestant armies abroad, in Germany and other foreign parts of the
world. And if the Parliament people had seen those things abroad, as I
had, they would not have complained.

The most I have seen was plundering the towns for provisions, drinking
up their beer, and turning our horses into their fields, or stacks
of corn; and sometimes the soldiers would be a little rude with the
wenches; but alas! what was this to Count Tilly's ravages in Saxony?
Or what was our taking of Leicester by storm, where they cried out of
our barbarities, to the sacking of New Brandenburg, or the taking of
Magdeburg? In Leicester, of 7000 or 8000 people in th