wick, 21,000 strong: on Wednesday they left Dunbar ‘up to the knees in snow’; such a heart of forwardness was in them.[1] Old Lesley, now Earl of Leven, was their General, as before; a Committee of Parliamenteers went with him. They soon drove-in Newcastle’s ‘Papist Army’ within narrower quarters; in May, got Manchester with Cromwell and Fairfax brought across the Humber to join them, and besieged Newcastle himself in York. Which, before long, will bring us to Marston Moor, and Letter Twenty-first.
In this same month of January, 22d day of it, directly after Hitch’s business, Colonel Cromwell, now more properly Lieutenant-General Cromwell, Lieutenant to the Earl of Manchester in the Association, transiently appeared in his place in Parliament; complaining much of my Lord Willoughby, as of a backward General, with strangely dissolute people about him, a great sorrow to Lincolnshire;[2]—and craving that my Lord Manchester might be appointed there instead · which, as we see, was done; with good result.
About the end of next month, February 1644, the Lieutenant-General, we find, has been in Gloucester, successfully convoying Ammunition thither; and has taken various strong-houses by the road,—among others, Hilsden-House in Buckinghamshire, with important gentlemen, and many prisoners; which latter, ‘Walloons, French, and other outlandish men,’ appear in Cambridge streets in a very thirsty condition; and are, in spite of danger, refreshed according to ability by the loyal Scholars, and especially by ‘Mrs Cumber’s maid,’ with a temporary glass of beer.[3] In this expedition there had gone with Cromwell a certain Major-General Crawford, whom he has left
