At Bolingbroke, Manchester designed to wait for the enemy; but Cromwell, actuated by prudence, urged the delaying of the battle, since the troops, upon whose prowess and exertion success depended, were wearied, and little able to sustain the ardour of the fight. {18} The royal army were however too eager to secure the promises of a victory, to permit their adversaries to renew their strength by avoiding the contest. As soon as the morning had dawned and the silence of the surrounding country assured them that their enemies were withdrawn from near them, and were assembling together at Bolingbroke, they arrayed themselves for the encounter. Before the middle of the day they marched out, in strength about seventy-five troops of horse, and five thousand foot, to meet the soldiers of the parliament. Foreboding with certainty that this would be their determination, Manchester was constrained to the resolution of giving them battle, and immediately advanced towards them. The spot upon which the contending armies engaged was a gently rising and broadly extended eminence, at a village called Winceby, midway between Horncastle and Bolingbroke. It commands an extensive prospect of the far stretched fen-lands of the county; whilst to the westward is seen those cliffs, on the summit of one of which magnificently rises the cathedral of Lincoln. This the royal army had contemplated as a district, which by victory was either to be restored to the authority of the king; or by defeat to afford an effectual check to the military operations in the north, and to be ensured as a further resource to the parliament. The noon was already passed when the armies came in sight of each other. The royalists trusting with confidence to their mutual ardor, rejoiced when they beheld the adverse soldiers advancing to meet them, though amid the wild chant of hymns for mercy and for victory. In the fields immediately before them they fixed the order of their battle: formed into closely compacted lines, the cavalry was placed in the advance, and covered the infantry. The left wing of this array, was commanded by the general Sir John Henderson. {19a}