To the Root-and-branch men the rank, no less than the inactivity of Essex, afforded a legitimate ground of suspicion. In proportion as he sank in their esteem, they were careful to extol the merits and flatter the ambition of Sir William Waller. Waller had formerly enjoyed a lucrative office under the crown, but he had been fined in the Star-chamber, and his wife was a "godly woman;" _her_ zeal and his own resentment made him a patriot; he raised a troop of horse for the service, and was quickly advanced to a command. The rapidity of his movements, his daring spirit, and his contempt of military rules, were advantageously contrasted with the slow and cautious experience of Essex; and his success at Portsmouth, Winchester, Chichester, Malmesbury, and Hereford, all of which he reduced in a short time, entitled him, in the estimation of his admirers, to the quaint appellation of William the Conqueror. While the forces under Essex were suffered to languish in a state of destitution,[1] an army of eight thousand men, well clothed and appointed, was prepared for Waller. But the event proved that his abilities had been overrated. In the course of a week he fought two battles, one near Bath, with Prince Maurice,[a] the other with Lord Wilmot, near Devizes[b]: the first was obstinate but indecisive, the second bloody and disastrous. Waller hastened from the field to the capital, attributing the loss of his army, not to his own errors, but to the jealousy of Essex. His patrons did not abandon their favourite. Emulating the example of the Romans, [Footnote 1: His army was reduced to "four thousand or five thousand men, and these much malcontented that their general and they should be misprised, and Waller immediately prized."--Baillie, i. 391. He had three thousand marching men, and three hundred sick.--Journals, vi. 160.] [Sidenote a: A.D. 1643. July 5] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1643. July 13] they met the unfortunate general in triumphal procession, and the speaker of the Commons officially returned him thanks for his services to his country.[1][a]