The right wing of the Puritan forces had in the meantime become
aggressive. It was the beginning of the great turning movement which was
repeated in each of the great battles of the war by the Parliamentarians,
in fact, so evident at Naseby and Marston Moor, as to compel belief in
studied uniformity of plan. The abandonment or weakening of one wing, then
the use of all the weight of the other wing with the foot as a centre
pivot, to out-flank, attack, and crush in succession the opposing wing and
centre of the Royalist army. Balfore, Meldrum, and Stapleton's brigades
charged Wilmot's cavalry with such vigour that these were thrust back upon
the three regiments of pikemen, under Lord Carnarvon, and chased up the
hill side. Cannon balls and other remains of the fight found on the hill
slopes at Lower Westcote near the Sun Rising are evidence of this attack.
The infantry under Roberts and Constable having moved forward to aid in
the attack upon Carnarvon, now wheeled upon the King's centre, which soon
became the focus of a fierce and bloody fight, for the elated Roundhead
horse, after crushing in the Royalist left wing, hurled themselves also
upon the flanks of the nearest troops of the King's centre, and the
blue-coated Broughton horsemen had a busy time of it amongst the royalist
gunners as they rode through the battery. Earl Lindsay's Lincolnshire
regiment, which he had led pike in hand, received the brunt of the attack;
it was overpowered, and the unfortunate general left for dead with a
musket ball in his thigh. The Red Regiment moved up in support, only in
turn to be cut up and almost annihilated, and Lord Willoughby was made
prisoner also in the attempt to rescue his father the Earl. Then followed
a brilliant personal fight for the royal standard, but the Puritan
horseman Copley cut down Sir Edmund Verney, knight marshal of the King's
horse, and standard bearer, and secured the prize. The success of this
attack was largely brought about by the ruse alluded to, where,
"pretending to be friends," they broke in upon the King's regiments. If
it is true that they got so near as to shake hands, the business must have
been very simple. Verney had presentiment of his death, and the severed
hand clasping the standard shaft is said to be yet sadly searched for by
the ghost of Claydon House.[Vr] On the finger of the hand was a ring, a
king's gift. Nugent says about the standard's recapture: "The Royal
standard was taken by Mr. Young, one of Sir William Constable's ensigns,
and delivered by Lord Essex to his own Secretary, Chambers, who rode by
his side. Elated by the prize, the Secretary rode about, more proudly than
wisely, waving it round his head. Whereupon in the confusion, one of the
King's officers, Captain Smith, of the Lord John Stewart's troop, seeing
the standard captured, threw round him the orange scarf of a fallen
Parliamentarian, and riding in among the lines of his enemies, told the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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