Now we began to reflect again on the misfortune of our master's
counsels. Had we marched to London, instead of besieging Gloucester,
we had finished the war with a stroke. The Parliament's army was in
a most despicable condition, and had never been recruited, had we not
given them a month's time, which we lingered away at this fatal town
of Gloucester. But 'twas too late to reflect; we were a disheartened
army, but we were not beaten yet, nor broken. We had a large country
to recruit in, and we lost no time but raised men apace. In the
meantime his Majesty, after a short stay at Bristol, makes back again
towards Oxford with a part of the foot and all the horse.
At Cirencester we had a brush again with Essex; that town owed us
a shrewd turn for having handled them coarsely enough before, when
Prince Rupert seized the county magazine. I happened to be in the town
that night with Sir Nicholas Crisp, whose regiment of horse quartered
there with Colonel Spencer and some foot; my own regiment was gone
before to Oxford. About ten at night, a party of Essex's men beat up
our quarters by surprise, just as we had served them before.
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