before, 18,000 men, and the Earl of Newcastle having joined him with 8000 foot out of the city, were marched in quest of the enemy, had entered the moor in view of their army, and began to draw up in order of battle; but the night coming on, the armies only viewed each other at a distance for that time.  We lay all night upon our arms, and with the first of the day were in order of battle; the enemy was getting ready, but part of Manchester’s men were not in the field, but lay about three miles off, and made a hasty march to come up.

The prince’s army was exceedingly well managed; he himself commanded the left wing, the Earl of Newcastle the right wing; and the Lord Goring, as general of the foot, assisted by Major-General Porter and Sir Charles Lucas, led the main battle.  I had prevailed with the prince, according to the method of the King of Sweden, to place some small bodies of musketeers in the intervals of his horse, in the left wing, but could not prevail upon the Earl of Newcastle to do it in the right, which he afterwards repented.  In this posture we stood facing the enemy, expecting they would advance to us, which at last they did; and the prince began the day by saluting them with his artillery, which, being placed very well, galled them terribly for a quarter of an hour.  They could not shift their front, so they advanced the hastier to get within our great guns, and consequently out of their danger, which brought the fight the sooner on.

The enemy’s army was thus ordered; Sir Thomas Fairfax had the right wing, in which was the Scots horse, and the horse of his own and his father’s army; Cromwell led the left wing, with his own and the Earl of Manchester’s horse, and the three generals, Leslie, old Fairfax, and Manchester, led the main battle.

The prince, with our left wing, fell on first, and, with his usual fury, broke like a clap of thunder into the right wing of the Scots horse, led by Sir Thomas Fairfax, and, as nothing could stand in his way, he broke through and through them, and entirely routed them, pursuing them quite out of the field.  Sir Thomas Fairfax, with a regiment of lances, and about 500 of his own horse, made good the ground for some time; but our musketeers, which, as I said, were such an unlooked-for sort of an article in a fight among the horse, that those lances, which otherwise were brave fellows, were mowed down with their shot, and all was put into confusion.  Sir Thomas Fairfax was wounded in the face, his brother killed, and a great slaughter was made of the Scots, to whom I confess we showed no favour at all.

While this was doing on our left, the Lord Goring with the main battle charged the enemy’s foot; and particularly one brigade commanded by Major-General Porter, being mostly pikemen, not regarding the fire of the enemy, charged with that fury in a close body of pikes, that they overturned all that came in their way, and breaking into the middle of the enemy’s foot, filled all with terror and confusion, insomuch that the three generals, thinking all had been lost, fled, and quitted the field.