Charles, thus pressed by the Scottish army, quitted Cardiff and made a grand effort to reach the borders of Scotland to effect a junction with Montrose. He flattered himself that could he unite his forces with those of Montrose, by the genius of that brilliant leader his losses would be retrieved, and that he should bear down all before him. But he was not destined to accomplish this object. He at first approached Hereford, as if he designed the attempt of raising the siege; but this was too hazardous, and, dismissing his foot, he dashed forward with his cavalry to cut his way to the North. But the Earl of Leven sent after him Sir David Leslie, with nearly the whole body of the Scottish cavalry; and from the North, the Parliamentarian commanders, Poyntz and Rossiter, put themselves in motion to meet him. He had made a rapid march through Warwickshire and Northamptonshire to Doncaster, when these counter-movements of the enemy convinced him that to reach the Border was hopeless; and he made a sudden divergence south-east, to inflict a flying chastisement on those counties of the Eastern Association, which had so long kept him at bay, and sent out against him the invincible Cromwell and his Ironsides. These were now engaged in the West, and he swept through Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, ravaging and plundering without stint or remorse. On the 24th of August he took Huntingdon itself by assault; he did not delay, however, but continued his marauding course through Woburn and Dunstable, thence into Buckinghamshire, and so to Oxford, where he arrived on the 28th. In this flying expedition, Charles and his soldiers had collected much booty from his subjects, and especially from the town of Huntingdon, no doubt with much satisfaction, from its being Cromwell's place of residence.