So far things went altogether well for the King. But when his Majesty would himself attack the enemy he fared not so well. The bridge he could not take for all his endeavours, which he continued from three of the clock in the afternoon till nightfall; and though his men took the ford that was below and a mill adjoining thereto, and held them that day and the next also, not being supported by their fellows, they were compelled to retire. 'Tis beyond doubt, however, that the victory rested with the King; for though when the battle was finished each party held the same ground that it had at the first, yet the enemy lost many times more both in killed and prisoners. Nor must it be forgotten, as showing what the rebels themselves did think of the matter, that whereas Sir William Waller on the day of the battle had eight thousand men with him, fourteen days afterward there remained with him not half that number. The next day the cornet of horse whom my father had taken prisoner was exchanged. It was his good fortune that on our side also there had been taken an officer of the same degree. He was a lad of sixteen or thereabouts, somewhat weakly of body, though of a very high spirit, and was carried by his horse, which he could not by any means restrain, into the midst of the enemy. As for the colonels and others of high degree, they had to wait, there not being any of ours who could be exchanged against them. We had some talk with the lad while we lay encamped that night on the field of battle, but he held back and would say but little. But this much I gathered from him, that he had gone to the wars without the consent of his father. At the same time he was very hot about certain wrongs which his father had suffered from the King or the King's Ministers, though what they were he did not more particularly set forth. He told me that he came from Northamptonshire, and that his father had purposed to send him to Lincoln College, in which this county, as belonging to the diocese of Oxford, has with others a certain preference. On the last day of June I returned to Oxford, my father remaining with the King, who was minded to march westward. CHAPTER VIII. OF THE PLAGUE AT OXFORD AND OTHER MATTERS.