Scottish army was employed in taking Pomfret and other towns in
Yorkshire: part of it besieged Carlisle valiantly defended by Sir Thomas
Glenham. Chester, where Biron commanded, had long been blockaded by Sir
William Brereton; and was reduced to great difficulties. The king,
being joined by the princes Rupert and Maurice, lay at Oxford with a
considerable army, about fifteen thousand men. Fairfax and Cromwell were
posted at Windsor, with the new-modelled army, about twenty-two thousand
men. Taunton, in the county of Somerset, defended by Blake, suffered a
long siege from Sir Richard Granville, who commanded an army of about
eight thousand men; and though the defence had been obstinate, the
garrison was now reduced to the last extremity. Goring commanded in the
west an army of nearly the same number.[*]

On opening the campaign, the king formed the project of relieving
Chester; Fairfax, that of relieving Taunton. The king was first in
motion. When he advanced to Draiton, in Shropshire, Biron met him, and
brought intelligence that his approach had raised the siege, and that
the parliamentary army had withdrawn. Fairfax, having reached Salisbury
in his road westward, received orders from the committee of both
kingdoms appointed for the management of the war, to return and lay
siege to Oxford, now exposed by the king's absence. He obeyed, after
sending Colonel Weldon to the west with a detachment of four thousand
men. On Weldon's approach, Granville, who imagined that Fairfax with his
whole army was upon him, raised the siege, and allowed this pertinacious
town, now half taken and half burned, to receive relief: but the
royalists, being reenforced with three thousand horse under Goring,
again advanced to Taunton, and shut up Weldon, with his small army, in
that ruinous place.[**]

The king, having effected his purpose with regard to Chester returned
southwards: and in his way sat down before Leicester, a garrison of the
parliaments. Having made a breach in the wall, he stormed the town on
all sides; and, after a furious assault, the soldiers entered sword in
hand, and committed all those disorders to which their natural violence,
especially when inflamed by resistance, is so much addicted.[***]

* Rush. vol. vii. p. 18, 19, etc.

** Rush, vol. vii. p. 28.

*** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 652.

A great booty was taken and distributed among them: fifteen hundred
prisoners fell into the king's hands. This succe