We all
apprehended danger from him, and heartily wished him of our own side;
and the king was so sensible, though he would not discover it, that
when an account was brought him of the choice they had made, he
replied, "he was sorry for it; he had rather it had been anybody than
he."
The first attempts of this new general and new army were at Oxford,
which, by the neighbourhood of a numerous garrison in Abingdon, began
to be very much straitened for provisions; and the new forces under
Cromwell and Skippon, one lieutenant-general, the other major-general
to Fairfax, approaching with a design to block it up, the king left
the place, supposing his absence would draw them away, as it soon did.
The king resolving to leave Oxford, marches from thence with all his
forces, the garrison excepted, with design to have gone to Bristol;
but the plague was in Bristol, which altered the measures, and changed
the course of the king's designs, so he marched for Worcester about
the beginning of June 1645. The foot, with a train of forty pieces of
cannon, marching into Worcester, the horse stayed behind some time in
Gloucestershire.
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