In this disastrous battle the slain on the part of the royalists amounted to three thousand men, the taken to a still greater number. The cavalry escaped in separate bodies; but so depressed was their courage, so bewildered were their counsels, that they successively surrendered to smaller parties of their pursuers. Many officers of distinction attempted, single and disguised, [Footnote 1: These were the earl of Cleveland, Sir James Hamilton, Colonel Careless, and captains Hornyhold, Giffard, and Kemble.--Boscobel, 20.] [Footnote 2: See Blount, Boscobel, 14-22; Whitelock, 507, 508; Bates, part ii. 221; Parl. Hist. xx. 40, 44-55; Ludlow, i. 314. Nothing can be more incorrect than Clarendon's account of this battle, iii. 409. Even Cromwell owns that "it was as stiff a contest for four or five hours as ever he had seen."--Cary's Memorials, ii. 356.] to steal their way through the country; but of these the Scots were universally betrayed by their accent, whilst the English, for the most part, effected their escape.[1] The duke of Hamilton had been mortally wounded on the field of battle; the earls of Derby, Rothes, Cleveland, Kelly, and Lauderdale; the lords Sinclair, Kenmure, and Grandison; and the generals Leslie, Massey, Middleton, and Montgomery, were made prisoners, at different times and in separate places. But the most interesting inquiry regarded the fortune of the young king. Though the parliament offered[a] a reward of one thousand pounds for his person, and denounced the penalties of treason against those who should afford him shelter; though parties of horse and foot scoured the adjacent counties in search of so valuable a prize; though the magistrates received orders to arrest every unknown person, and to keep a strict watch on the sea-ports in their neighbourhood, yet no trace of his flight, no clue to his retreat, could be discovered. Week after week passed