The Parliament cried victory here too, as they always did; and indeed
where the foot were concerned they had some advantage; but our horse
defeated them evidently. The king drew up his army in battalia, in
person, and faced them all the next day, inviting them to renew the
fight; but they had no stomach to come on again.
It was a kind of a hedge fight, for neither army was drawn out in the
field; if it had, 'twould never have held from six in the morning to
ten at night. But they fought for advantages; sometimes one side had
the better, sometimes another. They fought twice through the town, in
at one end, and out at the other; and in the hedges and lanes, with
exceeding fury. The king lost the most men, his foot having suffered
for want of the succour of their horse, who on two several occasions
could not come at them. But the Parliament foot suffered also, and two
regiments were entirely cut in pieces, and the king kept the field.
Essex, the Parliament general, had the pillage of the dead, and left
us to bury them; for while we stood all day to our arms, having given
them a fair field to fight us in, their camp rabble stripped the dead
bodies, and they not daring to venture a second engagement with us,
marched away towards London.
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