r of Plymouth, to march with all the forces to Dorset. Somerset,
and Devon, and make an entire conquest of Cornwall. The earl of Stamford
followed him at some distance With a considerable supply. Ruthven,
having entered Cornwall by bridges thrown over the Tamar, hastened to
an action, lest Stamwood should join him, and obtain the honor of that
victory which he looked for with assurance. The royalists in like manner
were impatient to bring the affair to a decision before Ruthven's army
should receive so considerable a reenforcement. The battle was fought
on Bradoc Down; and the king's forces, though inferior in number, gave
a total defeat to their enemies. Ruthven, with a few broken troops,
fled to Saltash; and when that town was taken, he escaped with some
difficulty, and almost alone, into Plymouth. Stamford retired, and
distributed his forces into Plymouth and Exeter.

Notwithstanding these advantages, the extreme want both of money and
ammunition under which the Cornish royalists labored, obliged them to
enter into a convention of neutrality with the parliamentary party
in Devonshire; and this neutrality held all the winter season. In
the spring, it was broken by the authority of the two houses; but war
recommenced with great appearance of disadvantage to the king's party.
Stamford, having assembled a strong body of near seven thousand men,
well supplied with money, provisions, and ammunition, advanced upon the
royalists, who were not half his number, and were oppressed by every
kind of necessity. Despair, joined to the natural gallantry of these
troops, commanded by the prime gentry of the county, made them resolve
by one vigorous effort, to overcome all these disadvantages. Stamford
being encamped on the top of a high hill near Stratum, they attacked him
in four divisions, at five in the morning, having lain all night under
arms. One division was commanded by Lord Mohun and Sir Ralph Hopton,
another by Sir Bevil Granville and Sir John Berkeley, a third by
Slanning and Trevannion, a fourth by Basset and Godolphin. In this
manner the action began; the king's forces pressing with vigor
those four ways up the hill, and their enemies obstinately defending
themselves. The fight continued with doubtful success, till word was
brought to the chief officers of the Cornish, that their ammunition
was spent to less than four barrels of powder. This defect, which they
concealed from the soldiers, they resolved to supply by their