The modelling the Parliament army took them up all this winter, and we were in great hopes the divisions which appeared amongst them might have weakened their party; but when they voted Sir Thomas Fairfax to be general, I confess I was convinced the king’s affairs were lost and desperate.  Sir Thomas, abating the zeal of his party, and the mistaken opinion of his cause, was the fittest man amongst them to undertake the charge.  He was a complete general, strict in his discipline, wary in conduct, fearless in action, unwearied in the fatigue of the war, and withal, of a modest, noble, generous disposition.  We all apprehended danger from him, and heartily wished him of our own side; and the king was so sensible, though he would not discover it, that when an account was brought him of the choice they had made, he replied, “he was sorry for it; he had rather it had been anybody than he.”

The first attempts of this new general and new army were at Oxford, which, by the neighbourhood of a numerous garrison in Abingdon, began to be very much straitened for provisions; and the new forces under Cromwell and Skippon, one lieutenant-general, the other major-general to Fairfax, approaching with a design to block it up, the king left the place, supposing his absence would draw them away, as it soon did.

The king resolving to leave Oxford, marches from thence with all his forces, the garrison excepted, with design to have gone to Bristol; but the plague was in Bristol, which altered the measures, and changed the course of the king’s designs, so he marched for Worcester about the beginning of June 1645.  The foot, with a train of forty pieces of cannon, marching into Worcester, the horse stayed behind some time in Gloucestershire.

The first action our army did, was to raise the siege of Chester; Sir William Brereton had besieged it, or rather blocked it up, and when his Majesty came to Worcester, he sent Prince Rupert with 4000 horse and dragoons, with orders to join some foot out of Wales, to raise the siege; but Sir William thought fit to withdraw, and not stay for them, and the town was freed without fighting.  The governor took care in this interval to furnish himself with all things necessary for another siege; and, as for ammunition and other necessaries, he was in no want.

I was sent with a party into Staffordshire, with design to intercept a convoy of stores coming from London, for the use of Sir William Brereton; but they having some notice of the design, stopped, and went out of the road to Burton-upon-Trent, and so I missed them; but that we might not come back quite empty, we attacked Hawkesley House, and took it, where we got good booty, and brought eighty prisoners back to Worcester.  From Worcester the king advanced into Shropshire, and took his headquarters at Bridgnorth.  This was a very happy march of the king’s, and had his Majesty proceeded, he had certainly cleared the north once more of his enemies, for the country was generally