the king and queen at Oxford, she carried with her the two young gentlewomen aforesaid, and they were to her as her own daughters. My Lord Brandon, then, was presented to Mrs Penfold as a match she should do well to accept, though he was well advanced in years, and little beautified by the chances of war, and my father cast his eyes upon the gentlewoman that bare this lady company. And Mrs Brodie, hearing of his feats of arms in the wars of Germany, and finding his person not disagreeable to her, was not loath to look kindly upon her servant.[1] He then, discovering in her not only great beauty of countenance, but also a sweet civility of manner and marvellous parts of mind, did ask her hand of my lady duchess. Who did grant him, with many kind words, the boon he craved; and my father and mother were wedded at the same time and place with my lord and Mrs Penfold, and lived together for over seven years thereafter in the enjoyment of a rare peace and felicity, though troubled on all sides by the evil chances of the time. This same year was memorable for that my father was knighted on the field of battle by the hand of his sacred majesty himself, after a certain skirmish near to the city of Bristow,[2] since that he did, by his skill in war, save the king’s forces when near to their destruction. ’Twas at Oxford that I was born, in the year 1646, in a mean lodging in a certain poor street of that town, since my mother was afraid to show herself in any more convenient dwelling, and my father durst only visit her secretly by night for fear of capture, my Lord-General Fairfax having but just then took the city.