Between Harborough and Leicester we met with a party of 800 dragoons
of the Parliament forces. They, found themselves too few to attack
us, and therefore to avoid us they had gotten into a small wood; but
perceiving themselves discovered, they came boldly out, and placed
themselves at the entrance into a lane, lining both sides of the
hedges with their shot. We immediately attacked them, beat them from
their hedges, beat them into the wood, and out of the wood again,
and forced them at last to a downright run away, on foot, among the
enclosures, where we could not follow them, killed about 100 of them,
and took 250 prisoners, with all their horses, and came that night to
Leicester. When we came to Leicester, and had taken up our quarters,
Sir Marmaduke Langdale sent for me to sup with him, and told me
that he had a secret commission in his pocket, which his Majesty had
commanded him not to open till he came to Leicester; that now he had
sent for me to open it together, that we might know what it was we
were to do, and to consider how to do it; so pulling out his sealed
orders, we found we were to get what force we could together, and a
certain number of carriages with ammunition, which the governor of
Leicester was to deliver us, and a certain quantity of provision,
especially corn and salt, and to relieve Newark.
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