in the great work of their salvation. When they were marching to battle,
the whole field resounded, as well with psalms and spiritual songs
adapted to the occasion, as with the instruments of military music:[*]
and every man endeavored to drown the sense of present danger in the
prospect of that crown of glory which was set before him. In so holy a
cause, wounds were esteemed meritorious; death, martyrdom; and the hurry
and dangers of action, instead of banishing their pious visions, rather
served to impress their minds more strongly with them.

The royalists were desirous of throwing a ridicule on this fanaticism
of the parliamentary armies, without being sensible how much reason they
had to apprehend its dangerous consequences. The forces assembled by
the king at Oxford, in the west, and in other places, were equal, if
not superior in number to their adversaries; but actuated by a very
different spirit. That license which had been introduced by want of
pay, had risen to a great height among them, and rendered them more
formidable to their friends than to their enemies. Prince Rupert,
negligent of the people, fond of the soldiery, had indulged the troops
in unwarrantable liberties: Wilmot, a man of dissolute manners, had
promoted the same spirit of disorder: and the licentious Goring,
Gerrard, Sir Richard Granville, now carried it to a great pitch of
enormity. In the west especially, where Goring commanded, universal
spoil and havoc were committed; and the whole country was laid waste
by the rapine of the army. All distinction of parties being in a manner
dropped, the most devoted friends of the church and monarchy wished
there for such success to the parliamentary forces as might put an end
to these oppressions. The country people, despoiled of their substance,
flocked together in several places, armed with clubs and staves; and
though they professed an enmity to the soldiers of both parties, their
hatred was in most places levelled chiefly against the royalists, from
whom they had met with the worst treatment. Many thousands of these
tumultuary peasants were assembled in different parts of England;
who destroyed all such straggling soldiers as they met with, and much
infested the armies.[**]

* Dugdale, p. 7. Rush. vol. vi. p. 281.

** Rush. vol. vii. p. 52, 61, 62. Whitlocke, p. 130, 131,
133, 136, Clarendon, vol. v. p. 665.

The disposition of the forces on both sides was as follows: part of
the