"The continuance of the civil war for a whole year after the decisive battle of Naseby is a proof of the King's selfishness, and of his utter indifference to the sufferings of the people. All rational hope was gone, and even Rupert advised his uncle to make terms with the Parliament. Yet Charles, while incessantly vacillating as to his plans, persisted in retaining his garrisons, and required his adherents to sacrifice all they possessed in order to prolong a useless struggle for a few months. Bristol, therefore, was to stand a siege, and Charles expected the garrison to hold out, without an object, to the last extremity, entailing misery and ruin on the second commercial city in the kingdom. Rupert was sent to take the command there, and when the army of Sir Thomas Fairfax approached, towards the end of August, he had completed his preparations." Fairfax had marched promptly and rapidly westward, after the battle of Naseby. He had driven Goring from the siege of Taunton, had defeated him in a sharp battle at Langport, taking 1,400 prisoners, and had carried Bridgewater by storm, July 21, capturing 2,000 prisoners, with 36 pieces of artillery and 5,000 stand of arms. On the 21st of August he arrived before Bristol, which Prince Rupert had strongly fortified, and which he held with an effective garrison of 2,300 men. On the morning of the 10th of September it was entered by storm, and on the following day Rupert, who still occupied the most defensible forts, surrendered the whole place. This surrender so enraged the King that he deprived his nephew of all his commissions and sent him a pass to quit the kingdom. But Rupert understood, as the King would not, that fighting was useless--that the royal cause was lost. _C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 21-22._ ALSO IN. _Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 9._ _W. Hunt, Bristol, chapter 7._ _E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, volume 3, chapter 1._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (SEPTEMBER). Defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh. See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645. ENGLAND: A. D. 1646 (MARCH). Adoption of Presbyterianism by Parliament.