e parliament, which he heard was
continually augmenting by supplies from London. In order to bring on
an action, he directed his march towards the capital, which he knew the
enemy would not abandon to him. Essex had now received his instructions.
The import of them was, to present a most humble petition to the king,
and to rescue him and the royal family from those desperate malignants
who had seized their persons.[*] Two days after the departure of the
royalists from Shrewsbury, he left Worcester. Though it be commonly easy
in civil wars to get intelligence, the armies were within six miles of
each other ere either of the generals was acquainted with the approach of
his enemy. Shrewsbury and Worcester, the places from which they set out,
are not above twenty miles distant; yet had the two armies marched ten
days in this mutual ignorance: so much had military skill, during a long
peace, decayed in England.[**]

* Whitlocke, p. 59. Clarendon, vol. iii, p. 27, 28, etc.

** Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 44.

The royal army lay near Banbury; that of the parliament, at Keinton, in
the county of Warwick. Prince Rupert sent intelligence of the enemy's
approach. Though the day was far advanced, the king resolved upon the
attack: Essex drew up his men to receive him. Sir Faithful Fortescue,
who had levied a troop for the Irish wars, had been obliged to serve in
the parliamentary army, and was now posted on the left wing, commanded
by Ramsay, a Scotchman. No sooner did the king's army approach, than
Fortescue, ordering his troop to discharge their pistols in the ground,
put himself under the command of Prince Rupert. Partly from this
incident, partly from the furious shock made upon them by the prince,
that whole wing of cavalry immediately fled, and were pursued for two
miles. The right wing of the parliament's army had no better success.
Chased from their ground by Wilmot and Sir Arthur Aston, they also took
to flight. The king's body of reserve, commanded by Sir John Biron,
judging, like raw soldiers, that all was over, and impatient to have
some share in the action, heedlessly followed the chase which their
left wing had precipitately led them. Sir William Balfour, who commanded
Essex's reserve, perceived the advantage: he wheeled about upon the
king's infantry, now quite unfurnished of horse; and he made great
havoc among them. Lindesey, the general, was mortally wounded, and
taken prisoner. His son, endeavoring his re