leaving Monk with seven thousand
men to complete the reduction of Scotland, followed the king with all
the expedition possible.

Charles found himself disappointed in his expectations of increasing
his army. The Scots, terrified at the prospect of so hazardous an
enterprise, fell off in great numbers. The English Presbyterians, having
no warning given them of the king's approach, were not prepared to join
him. To the royalists, this measure was equally unexpected; and they
were further deterred from joining the Scottish army by the orders which
the committee of ministers had issued, not to admit any, even in this
desperate extremity, who would not subscribe the covenant. The earl of
Derby, leaving the Isle of Man, where he had hitherto maintained his
independence, was employed in levying forces in Cheshire and Lancashire;
but was soon suppressed by a party of the parliamentary army. And the
king, when he arrived at Worcester, found that his forces, extremely
harassed by a hasty and fatiguing march, were not more numerous than
when he rose from his camp in the Torwood.

Such is the influence of established government, that the commonwealth,
though founded in usurpation the most unjust and unpopular, had
authority sufficient to raise every where the militia of the counties;
and these, united with the regular forces, bent all their efforts
against the king. With an army of about thirty thousand men, Cromwell
fell upon Worcester; and attacking it on all sides, and meeting with
little resistance, except from Duke Hamilton and General Middleton,
broke in upon the disordered royalists. The streets of the city were
strowed with dead. Hamilton, a nobleman of bravery and honor, was
mortally wounded; Massey wounded and taken prisoner; the king himself,
having given many proofs of personal valor, was obliged to fly. The
whole Scottish army was either killed or taken prisoners. The country
people, inflamed with national antipathy, put to death the few that
escaped from the field of battle.

The king left Worcester at six o'clock in the afternoon, and without
halting, travelled about twenty-six miles, in company with fifty or
sixty of his friends. To provide for his safety, he thought it best
to separate himself from his companions; and he left them without
communicating his intentions to any of them. By the earl of Derby's
directions, he went to Boscobel, a lone house in the borders of
Staffordshire, inhabited by one Penderell, a