In January of the following year, Stone, receiving a reprimand from Lord Baltimore for so easily yielding to Clayborne and his party, appeared in arms with, a considerable force, and marched to “Mr. Preston’s house on the Patuxent,” where the records of the colony were kept, which he seized, and so proceeded on to Providence, as Ann Arundel was now called, where he found the Puritan party fully prepared for their reception. On March 25th a battle was fought, the Catholics advancing with the cry of “Hey for St. Mary’s!” which was the seat of the Catholic government, and the Puritans, whose numbers were inferior to those of their enemies, shouting, “In the name of God, fall on! God is our strength!” The Catholics were completely defeated, about fifty were killed or wounded, and the rest taken prisoners; of the Puritans but very few fell. “God did appear wonderful in the field and in the hearts of his people; all confessing him to be the only worker of this victory and deliverance,” wrote the Puritan Leonard Strong. Stone and his officers were tried by court-martial, and he and ten others condemned to death. His life, however, was spared by the prayers of the enemies’ own soldiers and by the petitions of the women, says Mrs. Stone, in her letter to Lord Baltimore on this sad occasion; four, however, were shot in cold blood, “which, by all relations that ever I did hear of,” says she, “the like barbarous act was never done among Christians.” The Puritan party was now dominant throughout the province. In this miserable state of affairs, Cromwell was appealed to, that he “would condescend to settle the country by declaring his determinate will.” But Cromwell, though still acknowledging Lord Baltimore’s claim, was unwilling to dispute the act of his own political party. Josiah Fendall, who, with the approbation of Cromwell, was appointed governor by Lord Baltimore, was immediately arrested by the Puritan party, and thus Maryland lay for nearly two years the prey of two contending factions. On the death of Cromwell, in 1658, the republican party, uncertain of the turn which affairs might take in England, agreed to a compromise, and the government of the province was surrendered to Fendall. The terms, however, of their resignation show their power in the colony. These were, the possession of their arms, an indemnity for arrears, confirmation of the acts and orders of the late Puritan assemblies, and, strange enough, they especially demanded that the proprietary should maintain the act of toleration by which they had gained a settlement in the colony, but which they had so signally disregarded while themselves in power.