y's Memoirs. Rush. vol. vii. p. 232.

After all these repeated disasters, which every where befell the royal
party, there remained only one body of troops on which fortune could
exercise her rigor. Lord Astley, with a small army of three thousand
men, chiefly cavalry, marching to Oxford in order to join the king, was
met at Stowe by Colonel Morgan, and entirely defeated, himself
being taken prisoner. "You have done your work," said Astley to the
parliamentary officers; "and may now go to play, unless you choose to
fall out among yourselves."[*]

The condition of the king during this whole winter was to the last
degree disastrous and melancholy. As the dread of ills is commonly more
oppressive than their real presence, perhaps in no period of his life
was he more justly the object of compassion. His vigor of mind, which,
though it sometimes failed him in acting, never deserted him in his
sufferings, was what alone supported him; and he was determined, as
he wrote to Lord Digby, if he could not live as a king, to die like a
gentleman; nor should any of his friends, he said, ever have reason
to blush for the prince whom they had so unfortunately served.[**]
The murmurs of discontented officers, on the one hand, harassed their
unhappy sovereign; while they overrated those services and sufferings
which they now saw must forever go unrewarded.[***] The affectionate
duty, on the other hand, of his more generous friends, who respected his
misfortunes and his virtues as much as his dignity, wrung his heart with
a new sorrow, when he reflected that such disinterested attachment would
so soon be exposed to the rigor of his implacable enemies. Repeated
attempts which he made for a peaceful and equitable accommodation with
the parliament, served to no purpose but to convince them that the
victory was entirely in their hands. They deigned not to make the least
reply to several of his messages, in which he desired a passport for
commissioners.[****]

* Rush, vol. vii. p. 141. It was the same Astley who, before
he charged at the battle of Edgehill, made this short
prayer: "O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day.
If I forget thee, do not thou forget me," And with that rose
up and cried, "March on, boys!" Warwick, p. 229. There were
certainly much longer prayers said in the parliamentary
army; but I doubt if there were so good a one.

** Carte's Ormond, vol. iii. No. 433.

***