f proceeding, no less politic than
magnanimous, was preserved by the parliament throughout the whole course
of the war. Equally indulgent to their friends and rigorous to their
enemies, they employed with success these two powerful engines of reward
and punishment, in confirmation of their authority.

That the king might have less reason to exult in the advantages which
he had obtained in the west, the parliament opposed to him very numerous
forces. Having armed anew Essex's subdued but not disheartened troops,
they ordered Manchester and Cromwell to march with their recruited
forces from the eastern association; and, joining their armies to those
of Waller and Middleton, as well as of Essex, offer battle to the king.
Charles chose his post at Newbury, where the parliamentary armies, under
the earl of Manchester, attacked him with great vigor; and that town
was a second time the scene of the bloody animosities of the English.
Essex's soldiers, exhorting one another to repair their broken honor,
and revenge the disgrace of Lestithiel, made an impetuous assault on the
royalists; and having recovered some of their cannon lost in Cornwall,
could not forbear embracing them with tears of joy. Though the king's
troops defended themselves with valor, they were overpowered by numbers;
and the night came very seasonably to their relief, and prevented a
total overthrow. Charles, leaving his baggage and cannon in Dennington
Castle, near Newbury, forthwith retreated to Wallingford, and thence to
Oxford. There Prince Rupert and the earl of Northampton joined him, with
considerable bodies of cavalry. Strengthened by this reenforcement, he
ventured to advance towards the enemy, now employed before Dennington
Castle.[*] Essex, detained by sickness, had not joined the army since
his misfortune in Cornwall. Manchester, who commanded, though his forces
were much superior to those of the king, declined an engagement, and
rejected Cromwell's advice, who earnestly pressed him not to neglect
so favorable an opportunity of finishing the war. The king's army, by
bringing off their cannon from Dennington Castle in the face of the
enemy, seemed to have sufficiently repaired the honor which they had
lost at Newbury; and Charles, having the satisfaction to excite between
Manchester and Cromwell equal animosities with those which formerly
took place between Essex and Waller,[*] distributed his army into winter
quarters.

* Rush. vol. vi. p, 721