The next day Fairfax sent Colonel Fiennes and his regiment to London with the prisoners and the colours taken, above a hundred of them, and he prayed that a day of thanksgiving might be appointed for the victory. But the most essential fruit of the victory was the reading in Parliament of the king's letters. In these the affair of the Duke of Lorraine came to light--the attempt to bring in the Lorrainers, the French, the Danes, and the Irish to put down the Parliament, whilst Charles had been making the most sacred protestations to that body that he abhorred bringing in foreign soldiers. There appeared his promise to give the Catholics full liberty of conscience, whilst he had been vowing constantly that he would never abrogate the laws against Popery; and his letter to his wife, showing that at the treaty of Uxbridge he was merely conceding the name of a Parliament, with a full determination, on the first opportunity, to declare it no Parliament at all. These exposures were so dreadful, and gave such an assurance that the king was restrained by no moral principle, that the Royalists would not believe the documents genuine till they had examined them for themselves; and for this examination the Parliament wisely gave the amplest facilities. There were copies of his letters to the queen, in which he complained of the quarrels and harassing jealousies of his own courtiers and supporters, and of his getting rid of as many as he could by sending them on one pretence or another to her. The sight of these things struck his own party dumb with a sense of his hollowness and ingratitude; and the battle of Naseby itself was declared far less fatal to his interests than the contents of his cabinet. From this moment his ruin was certain, and the remainder of the campaign was only the last feeble struggles of the expiring Cause. His adherents stood out rather for their own chance of making terms than from any possible hope of success. [Illustration: CHARLES AT THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. (_See p._ 40.)]