However, they defended the bridge, as I have said, and opposed our passage.  I was this day in the van, and our forlorn having entered Huntingdon without any great resistance till they came to the bridge, finding it barricaded, they sent me word; I caused the troops to halt, and rode up to the forlorn, to view the countenance of the enemy, and found by the posture they had put themselves in, that they resolved to sell us the passage as dear as they could.

I sent to the king for some dragoons, and gave him account of what I observed of the enemy, and that I judged them to be 1000 men; for I could not particularly see their numbers.  Accordingly the king ordered 500 dragoons to attack the bridge, commanded by a major; the enemy had 200 musketeers placed on the bridge, their barricade served them for a breastwork on the front, and the low walls on the bridge served to secure their flanks.  Two bodies of their foot were placed on the opposite banks of the river, and a reserve stood in the highway on the rear.  The number of their men could not have been better ordered, and they wanted not courage answerable to the conduct of the party.  They were commanded by one Bennet, a resolute officer, who stood in the front of his men on the bridge with a pike in his hand.

Before we began to fall on, the king ordered to view the river, to see if it was nowhere passable, or any boat to be had; but the river being not fordable, and the boats all secured on the other side, the attack was resolved on, and the dragoons fell on with extraordinary bravery.  The foot defended themselves obstinately, and beat off our dragoons twice, and though Bennet was killed upon the spot, and after him his lieutenant, yet their officers relieving them with fresh men, they would certainly have beat us all off, had not a venturous fellow, one of our dragoons, thrown himself into the river, swam over, and, in the midst of a shower of musket-bullets, cut the rope which tied a great flat-bottom boat, and brought her over.  With the help of this boat, I got over 100 troopers first, and then their horses, and then 200 more without their horses; and with this party fell in with one of the small bodies of foot that were posted on that side, and having routed them, and after them the reserve which stood on the road, I made up to the other party.  They stood their ground, and having rallied the runaways of both the other parties, charged me with their pikes, and brought me to a retreat; but by this time the king had sent over 300 men more, and they coming up to me, the foot retreated.  Those on the bridge finding how ’twas, and having no supplies sent them, as before, fainted, and fled; and the dragoons rushing forward, most of them were killed; about 150 of the enemy were killed, of which all the officers at the bridge, the rest run away.

The town suffered for it, for our men left them little of anything they could carry.  Here we halted and raised contributions, took money of the country and of the open towns, to exempt them from plunder.  Twice we faced the town of Cambridge, and several of our officers advised his Majesty to storm it.  But having no foot, and but 1200 dragoons, wiser heads diverted him from it, and leaving Cambridge on the left, we marched to Woburn, in Bedfordshire, and our parties raised money all over the country quite into Hertfordshire, within five miles of St Alban’s.