as our men had knowledge of (this), they were very full of joy and resolution, thinking it a great mercie that they should now fight. Cromwell led the van.” He gave the watchword “Truth and Peace,” and then gave out a Psalm; and his troops moved on, singing it, to charge the foe. They sustained a hostile fire along the whole of their line, but they rode on unshaken, at full speed. A second volley, at close quarters, killed Cromwell’s charger; and as he rose to his feet, “he was knockit down again by the gentleman who had charged him, who ’twas conceived, was Sir Ingram Hopton;” and for a moment he lay as slain. But he who, as a child, had escaped death in the arms of a monkey, was not to be so easily extinguished; he recovered consciousness, and mounted a trooper’s horse; his opponent, Sir Ingram Hopton, was slain in his turn; and “this first charge was so home-given (says the Chronicler), and with so much admirable courage and resolution by our troops, that the enemy stood not another, but were driven back upon their own body, which was to have seconded them, and at last put them into a plain disorder; and thus, in less than half an hour’s fight, they were all quite routed. Our men pursued, and did execution upon them about five or six miles; all the way being strewed with broken arms, dead men and horses.” Two hundred horses were afterwards found left in Bolingbroke Castle, which had been abandoned by the Royalists in a panic. Many hundreds of the defeated fugitives rushed frantically into “waters up to their arm-holes {230a}; they that lay slain in the highways were very many; and divers of qualitie, for there were brave bodies stript naked. The number of horses taken were about 2000, of prisoners about 1000, . . . of arms 1500, and not 100 of the enemie (’twas verily believed), to be found in a body; of 94 standards 35 were taken, whereas (he adds), wee but lost very few of our men, none of note, (and), wee hardly found above one of our officers hurt.” With the Puritan’s faith he exclaims, “God himself did it all, taking away the enemie’s hearts, and giving resolution and courage to our men; to him therefor be all the honour and glory of this famous victory.” {230b} This was a greater blow to the Royalist cause than has commonly been estimated. Hitherto the struggle had been carried on with varied fortune, but as yet the Royalists had had no reason to despair, and had even achieved considerable successes. At Winceby it may be said, the tide decidedly set in against them. The struggle was prolonged; but Lincoln was taken by Manchester’s forces in the following May (1644). In the same year was fought the disastrous battle of Marston Moor; and the even more fatal fight of Naseby in 1645. After that the issue was almost a foregone conclusion. As to the actual scene of the fight, the Royalists, from Horncastle, would seem to have advanced slightly beyond the village, before they encountered the enemy. The name of “Slash