Our second campaign now began to open; the king marched from Oxford
to relieve Reading, which was besieged by the Parliament forces;
but General Fielding, Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Arthur Ashton being
wounded, surrendered to Essex before the king could come up; for
which he was tried by martial law, and condemned to die, but the king
forbore to execute the sentence. This was the first town we had lost
in the war, for still the success of the king's affairs was very
encouraging. This bad news, however, was overbalanced by an account
brought the king at the same time, by an express from York, that the
queen had landed in the north, and had brought over a great magazine
of arms and ammunition, besides some men. Some time after this her
Majesty, marching southward to meet the king, joined the army near
Edgehill, where the first battle was fought. She brought the king 3000
foot, 1500 horse and dragoons, six pieces of cannon, 1500 barrels of
powder, 12,000 small arms.
During this prosperity of the king's affairs his armies increased
mightily in the western counties also. Sir William Waller, indeed,
commanded for the Parliament in those parts too, and particularly in
Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and Berkshire, where he carried on their
cause but too fast; but farther west, Sir Nicholas Slanning, Sir Ralph
Hopton, and Sir Bevil Grenvile had extended the king's quarters from
Cornwall through Devonshire, and into Somersetshire, where they
took Exeter, Barnstaple, and Bideford; and the first of these they
fortified very well, making it a place of arms for the west, and
afterwards it was the residence of the queen.
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