ss, which struck a great
terror into the parliamentary army, determined Fairfax to leave Oxford,
which he was beginning to approach; and he marched towards the king,
with an intention of offering him battle. The king was advancing towards
Oxford, in order to raise the siege, which, he apprehended, was now
begun; and both armies, ere they were aware, had advanced within six
miles of each other. A council of war was called by the king, in order
to deliberate concerning the measures which he should now pursue. On the
one hand, it seemed more prudent to delay the combat; because Gerrard,
who lay in Wales with three thousand men, might be enabled in a little
time to join the army; and Goring, it was hoped, would soon be master of
Taunton, and having put the west in full security, would then unite his
forces to those of the king, and give him an incontestable superiority
over the enemy. On the other hand, Prince Rupert, whose boiling ardor
still pushed him on to battle, excited the impatient humor of the
nobility and gentry of which the army was full; and urged the many
difficulties under which the royalists labored, and from which nothing
but a victory could relieve them: the resolution was taken to give
battle to Fairfax; and the royal army immediately advanced upon him.

At Naseby was fought, with forces nearly equal, this decisive and
well-disputed action between the king and parliament. The main body
of the royalists was commanded by the king himself; the right wing by
Prince Rupert; the left by Sir Marmaduke Langdale. Fairfax, seconded by
Skippon, placed himself in the main body of the opposite army; Cromwell
in the right wing; Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law, in the left. The
charge was begun, with his usual celerity and usual success, by Prince
Rupert. Though Ireton made stout resistance, and even after he was run
through the thigh with a pike, still maintained the combat till he
was taken prisoner, yet was that whole wing broken, and pursued with
precipitate fury by Rupert: he was even so inconsiderate as to lose time
in summoning and attacking the artillery of the enemy, which had been
left with a good guard of infantry. The king led on his main body, and
displayed in this action all the conduct of a prudent general, and all
the valor of a stout soldier.[*]

* Whitlocke, p. 146.

Fairfax and Skippon encountered him, and well supported that reputation
which they had acquired. Skippon, being dangerously wounded,