Lord Fairfax and his son were both engaged at the siege of York, together with Lord Manchester, and the Scotch General, Leven; but there was no good intelligence between the Parliamentary commanders, and they dared not await the onslaught of the Prince. "Their Goliah himself is advancing, with men not to be numbered,"[55] was the report among the Puritans; and when Rupert reached Knaresborough on June 30th, only twelve miles distant from York, the Generals of the Parliament raised the siege and marched off to Marston Moor. They hoped to bar Rupert's passage to the city, but by skilful manoeuvring he crossed the Ouse, and halted outside York. "Prince Rupert had done a glorious piece of work," wrote a soldier of the Parliament. "From nothing he had gathered, without money, a powerful army, and, in spite of all our three generals, had made us leave York."[56] So far all was well, and well for Rupert had he left things thus! But, alas, he was about to make his first great mistake, and to take a decided step on his downward career. {147} The blame of the disastrous battle of Marston Moor has always been laid upon Rupert, but his friends were wont to ascribe it rather to Lord Digby, who, they believed, had inspired the King's "fatal" letter of June 14th; a letter which Rupert carried about him to his dying day, though he never produced it in refutation of any of the charges against him. "Had not the Lord Digby, this year, given a fatal direction to that excellent Prince Rupert to fight the Scottish army, surely that great Prince and soldier had never so precipitately fought them,"[57] declared Sir Philip Warwick, who was himself present at the battle. The King began his letter with apologies for sending such "peremptory commands," but went on to explain: "If York be lost I shall esteem my crown little less.... But if York be relieved, _and you beat the rebels' army of both Kingdoms, which are before it, then, but otherwise not_, I may possibly make a shift, upon the defensive, to spin out time until you come to assist me."[58] The order was plain, and though Rupert did sometimes ignore less congenial commands, he could scarcely disobey such an order as this, unless he had private information that his uncle's situation was less desperate than he had represented it. Culpepper, at least, never doubted what would be the Prince's action: "Before God you are undone!" he cried, when told that the letter was sent--"For upon this peremptory order he will fight, whatever comes on't!"[59]