The king having lodged his train of artillery and baggage in
Donnington Castle, marched the next day for Oxford. There we joined
him with 3000 horse and 2000 foot. Encouraged with this reinforcement,
the king appears upon the hills on the north-west of Newbury, and
faces the Parliament army. The Parliament having too many generals as
well as soldiers, they could not agree whether they should fight or
no. This was no great token of the victory they boasted of, for they
were now twice our number in the whole, and their foot three for one.
The king stood in battalia all day, and finding the Parliament forces
had no stomach to engage him, he drew away his cannon and baggage out
of Donnington Castle in view of their whole army, and marched away to
Oxford.
This was such a false step of the Parliament's generals, that all the
people cried shame of them. The Parliament appointed a committee to
inquire into it. Cromwell accused Manchester, and he Waller, and so
they laid the fault upon one another. Waller would have been glad to
have charged it upon Essex, but as it happened he was not in the army,
having been taken ill some days before.
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