Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/272

258 The general assembly addressed a sharp remonstrance to the king, which was delivered to him soon after the battle of Naseby, but it produced no effect. In fact, it was more calculated to inflame a man of Charles's obstinate temper, for it recapitulated all his crimes against Scotland, from his first forcing the common prayer upon them till then, and called on him to fall down at the footstool of the Almighty and acknowledge his sins, and no longer steep his kingdom in blood.

Winceslaus Hollar. From an Engraving by Himself.

But they did not merely remonstrate, the covenanters continued to fight. But, unfortunately, their commanders having divided their forces, as Hurry was defeated at Auldearn, so Baillie was soon afterwards routed at Alford, in Aberdeenshire, with such effect, that scarcely any but his principal officers and the cavalry escaped. Again the covenanters raised a fresh army of ten thousand men, and sent them against Montrose, and the Scottish army, which lay on the borders of England under the earl of Leven, commenced their march southward, to attack the king himself. On the 2nd of July, the very day on which Montrose won the battle of Alford, they were at Melton Mowbray, whence they marched through Tamworth and Birmingham into Worcestershire and Herefordshire. On the 22nd they stormed Canon-Froom, a garrison of the king's betwixt Worcester and Hereford, and as they were pressing on. Charles sent Sir William Fleming to endeavour to seduce the old earl of Leven and the earl of Calendar from their faith to parliament by magnificent promises, but they sent his letters to the parliament, and marched on and laid siege to Hereford.

Charles thus pressed upon by the Scottish army, quitted Cardiff, and made a grand effort to reach the borders of Scotland to effect a junction with Montrose. He flattered himself that could he unite his forces with those of Montrose, by the genius of that brilliant leader all his losses would be retrieved, and that he should bear down all before him. But he was not destined to accomplish this object. He at first approached Hereford, as if he designed the attempt of raising the siege, but this was too hazardous; and, dismissing his foot, he dashed forward with his cavalry to cut his way to the north. But the earl of Leven sent after him Sir David Leslie, with nearly the whole body of the Scottish cavalry; and from the north, the parliamentarian commanders, Poyntz and Rossiter, put themselves in motion to meet him. He had made a rapid march through Warwickshire and