Important as the results of the victory were, they would have been more so, had not the retreat of the French across the Tormes been facilitated by a blunder of the Spanish General, Espana, who left the bridge of Alba open to them. This enabled Clausel to get as far as Peneranda with far less punishment than an army so beaten as his was should have received from his pursuers.[36] Wellington followed him to Valladolid, but failed to overtake him; so, while Clausel continued his flight to Burgos, Wellington, after a pause of some days, turned towards Madrid, to free the capital from the presence of Joseph Buonaparte and his army.[37] He entered it in state on the 12th August, Joseph having quitted it without waiting for the Allies; and he remained there until the 1st September, receiving from the Spaniards a perpetual ovation, and learning from England how valuable his services were deemed, by their further recognition in the form of a Marquisate. Affairs in the Peninsula forbade longer repose, nor was Wellington the man to risk his army finding a Capua in Madrid. Soult, alarmed at the news from the north, raised the siege of Cadiz, and let Seville fall into the hands of the Allies, while he moved northward himself. An expedition from Sicily landed in the east of Spain, to co-operate with Lord Wellington, of which it must suffice here to say that the Royal Artillery accompanying it was commanded by Captain--then Brevet Lieut.-Colonel--Holcombe, the same officer whose company had been at the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. And, lastly, the French General, Clausel, had reorganized his army, and was taking the offensive against the Allied troops left in the north. Of the operations of Wellington to check this General, and to defeat him again before Soult’s army could join him from the south, it is proposed to select one, as being a specially Artillery subject--the siege of the Castle of Burgos. [Sidenote: Dickson’s MSS.]