you shall accordingly do your part, doubt not of their total ruin.
We thought fit to speed this to you; to the end you may not be troubled if they shall march towards you, but improve your interest as aforesaid, that you may give glory to God for this unspeakable mercy. This is all at present from, your very humble servant,
OLIVER CROMWELL.[1]
Commons Journals, Monday 21° Augusti 1648: ‘The Copy of a Letter from Lieutenant-General Cromwell, from Preston, of 17° Augusti 1648, to the Committee of Lancashire sitting at Manchester, enclosed in a Letter from a Member of this House from Manchester, of 19° Augusti 1648, were this day read. Ordered, That it be referred to the Committee at Derby House to send away a copy of Lieutenant-General Cromwell’s Letter to the General’ Fairfax, ‘and to the Lord Admiral’ Warwick, to encourage them in their part of the work.—The enclosing ‘Letter from the Member of this House at Manchester,’ short and insignificant, about ‘dispensations,’ ‘providences,’ etc. is also given in the old Pamphlets, and in this Chetham Book now before us. He signs himself ‘W. L.’; probably William Langton, the new member for Preston.
Cromwell, on this Thursday Night, does not yet know all the havoc he has made. Listen to stout Sir James from the other side; and pity poor men embarked in a hollow Cause, with a Duke of Hamilton for General!
‘Beside Preston in Lancashire,’ says the stout Knight, ‘Cromwell falls on Sir Marmaduke’s flank. The English’ of
- ↑ Lancashire during the Civil War (a Collection of Tracts republished by the Chetham Society, Manchester, 1844), p. 257. The Letter is in many old Pamphlets of the time. Langdale’s Letter is also given in this Chetham Book, p. 267.
