Early in the ensuing season, the king gained some considerable advantages; he defeated a Parliamentary army under Sir William Waller at Stratton, and soon after took the city of Bristol. It only remained for him to take Gloucester, in order to confine the insurrection entirely to the eastern provinces. It was even thought at this time that he might have easily obtained possession of London, and thereby put an end to the war. Instead of making such an attempt, he caused siege to be laid to Gloucester, which the army of Essex relieved when it was just on the point of capitulating. As the Parliamentary army was returning to London, it was attacked by the royal forces at Newbury, and all but defeated. Another section of the royal army in the north, under the Marquis of Newcastle, gained some advantages; and, upon the whole, at the close of the campaign of 1643, the Parliamentary cause was by no means in a flourishing condition. In this war there was hardly any respectable military quality exhibited besides courage. The Royalists used to rush upon the enemy opposed to them, without any other design than to cut down as many as possible, and when any part of the army was successful, it never returned to the field while a single enemy remained to be pursued; the consequence of which was, that one wing was sometimes victorious, while the remainder was completely beaten. The Parliamentary troops, though animated by an enthusiastic feeling of religion, were somewhat steadier, but nevertheless had no extensive or combined plan of military operations. The first appearance of a superior kind of discipline was exhibited in a regiment of horse commanded by Oliver Cromwell, a gentleman of small fortune, who had been a brewer, but was destined, by great talent, and address, joined to an unrelenting disposition, to rise to supreme authority. Cromwell, though himself inexperienced in military affairs, showed from the very first a power of drilling and managing troops, which no other man in either army seemed to possess. Hence his regiment soon became famous for its exploits. SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT The Royal successes of 1643 distressed alike the English Parliament and the Scottish nation, who now began to fear the loss of all the political meliorations they had wrested from the king. The two Parliaments therefore entered, in July, into a _Solemn League and Covenant_, for prosecuting the war in concert, with the view of ultimately settling both church and state in a manner consistent with the liberties of the people. In terms of this bond, the Scots raised an army of twenty-one thousand men, who entered England in January 1644; and on the 1st of July, in company with a large body of English forces, overthrew the king’s northern army on Long Marston Moor.