Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/221

 him, and going out to fight the Roundheads. The Battle of Marston Moor, fought on the morrow evening, Tuesday 2d July 1644, from 7 to 10 o’clock, was the result,—entirely disastrous for him.

Of this Battle, the bloodiest of the whole War, I must leave the reader to gather details in the sources indicated below; or to imagine it in general as the most enormous hurlyburly, of fire and smoke, and steel-flashings and death-tumult, ever seen in those regions: the end of which, about ten at night, was ‘Four-thousand one-hundred-and-fifty bodies’ to be buried, and total ruin to the King’s affairs in those Northern parts.

The Armies were not completely drawn-up till after five in the evening; there was a ditch between them; they stood facing one another, motionless except the exchange of a few cannon-shots, for an hour and half. Newcastle thought there would be no fighting till the morrow, and had retired to his carriage for the night. There is some shadow of surmise that the stray cannon-shot which, as the following Letter indicates, proved fatal to Oliver’s Nephew, did also, rousing Oliver’s humour to the charging point, bring on the general Battle. ‘The Prince of Plunderers,’ invincible hitherto, here first tasted the steel of Oliver’s Ironsides, and did not in the least like it. ‘The Scots delivered their fire with such constancy and swiftness, it was as if the whole air had become an element of fire,‘―in the ancient summer gloaming there.

“Leaguer before York,” 5th July 1644. Dear Sir,―It’s our duty to sympathise in all mercies; and to praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, that so we may sorrow together.