waste, partly marshy and partly sandy, but affording firm was unenclosed, and formed part of a large tract of level

passes over ground which in the time of the civil wars SS.W. until it strikes the village of Long Marston. It

footing for cavalry at Midsummer; known in various parts of it by the names of Marston, Tockwith, Hessam, and Monkton Moors. Westward from this lane lies the scene

of action.

The lane ends at the western extremity of Long Marston; a straggling place, as its name implies, built along a road running nearly east and west; that is, nearly at right angles to the said lane. It is a village more pleasing to the eye of a member of the Antiquarian Society, than of a sanitary reformer. Its detached, poor-looking red-brick cottages, with thatched roofs higher than the walls, its two or three granges, alehouses, and blacksmiths' shops, present an appearance very little different from that which they must have exhibited to Fairfax's troopers: nay, many of them have doubtless stood with little change since the battle. From the west end of Marston, the road (or, rather, broad country lane) continues in the same direction, a little north of west, for nearly a mile and a half, until it reaches Tockwith, another straggling hamlet. Going from Marston to Tockwith, the visitor has on his left (south) a slightly rising ground: this is the hill' of the contemporary narratives, on which the Parliament's army was drawn up. This rising ground is covered now, as it was then, with corn-fields; but now enclosed, then open arable.' In its higher part, a field, with a single conspicuous tree, called Clump Hill by the neighbours, served, according to tradition, as the head-quarters for the rebel leaders. On his right (north), the traveller has the square enclosures which occupy the level ground, formerly the Moor.* And the road in question (which we will call

The exact division between moor and field it is not easy to trace. It is important in the account of the battle, because the Royalist line was protected, in front by the enclosure, ditch, &c., which constituted this division. In Griffiths's large Map of Yorkshire (1771) Marston Moor proper is repre

for brevity's sake, the Tockwith Road) pretty nearly divides what was arable from what was waste.

At about a quarter of the distance from Marston to Tockwith, a green lane, called 'Moor Lane,' diverges to the right. It enters at once on the quondam moor, crosses a deep ditch-provincially 'foss'—at one or two hundred yards, and comes shortly after to an open space called Four Loans' (i. e. lanes) Meet, which seems to have been left as a carrefour at the time of the enclosure. Beyond this, and at the distance of a mile northward from the nearest point of the Tockwith Road, a wood of a few acres of tall trees catches the observer's eye: this is Wilstrop or Wilsthorpe Wood, much mentioned in the accounts of the battle. And now, if we draw a line from Marston to Tockwith, and lines from the west end of Marston and east end of Tockwith respectively to the southern end of Wilstrop Wood, we shall describe a triangle, not very far from equilateral, within which boundary the field of battle of that second of July is nearly confined.

In order to make its history intelligible, it is necessary to recapitulate briefly the events which led to it. Three Parliamentary armies-Lord Leven's Scotchmen, the northern force of Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas, and the Earl of Manchester's levies from the associated counties were besieging York. It was defended by the King's chief adherent in the North, the Marquis of Newcastle, a very respectable commander for an amateur;' with a garrison raised chiefly by his own efforts, and at his own expense. Rupert came from Lancashire-holding, much to the Marquis's disgust, the king's commission as

sented as enclosed but large tracts of unreclaimed ground remain, called Poppleton, Hessy, and Tockwith Moors. The last contains a considerable portion of the field of battle, and extends even a little to the south of the lane here called the Tockwith Road.

general-to relieve the place, if possible. The rebels moved from their leaguer to intercept him, and took post on Marston and the adjacent moors; commanding the roads leading westward, both to Wetherby and Knaresborough. But Rupert, by a manoeuvre, for the cleverness displayed in which his best friends would not have given him credit, having advanced from the west by the Wetherby Road, instead of attacking the enemy, executed a flank movement to the left, crossed the Ouse at Poppleton, and entered York by its left bank, to the great satisfaction of townsfolk and garrison. Here he remained a day; which he and the Marquis made as uncomfortable by their dissensions as they could. Meanwhile, the Roundhead chieftains were still less agreed. To keep together twenty-six thousand men, Scots, Presbyterians, and Zealots (as the new Cromwellian soldiery were beginning to be styled), was no easy task. The English wanted to fight; the Scots were for leaving Rupert in possession, and marching southward. And (as usual in councils of war) the most peaceful suggestion prevailed. By the middle of the second of July, they were moving from Marston, south-westward, over the open corn-fields; the van of the Scotch had almost reached Tadcaster, when the news suddenly arrived that Rupert had marched out of York in pursuit of them, and had drawn up his battalia on the ground abandoned by them, namely, on Marston Moor, in a line of nearly two miles in length. Then the rebel leaders took brief counsel together; the army halted, faced about, and soon occupied in battle array the northward slope of the hill' toward the Tockwith Road: a slope then covered with rye nearly ripe, which almost rose to the soldier's faces.

6

If Napoleon's maxim, that one bad general is better than two good ones, be of any value, the odds were greatly against the Parliamentarians; for Newcastle, though sorely

grumbling, could not but respect Rupert's commission whereas the Roundheads had half a dozen generals at least. The Fairfaxes, father and son, always stood together in their chivalry,' and may be counted as one; but they had no control over Leven or Manchester; while the two latter were sorely hadden down,' as the Scotch express it, by their respective subordinates, David Leslie and Cromwell. But Rupert is alleged by strategists to have committed two great mistakes. The first was in fighting at all. Had he left the Roundheads to continue their march, it is probable that their own dissensions, and the loss of prestige consequent on their retreat from York, would have broken up their force without hand.' To this charge, Rupert invariably made answer by showing a letter from the king, which, according to some biographers he kept in his pocket for that purpose to his dying day; but which letter, duly considered, seems rather a warrant for fighting than an absolute order. His second alleged mistake was, that he waited for the enemy on Marston Moor, instead of taking the initiative, following them in their march on Tadcaster, and delivering on their rear or flank such a blow as that administered by Wellington to Marmont, at Salamanca. But when we examine the question and the ground, this accusation must in fairness be withdrawn. Rupert could hardly have ventured on so bold a move with his own force only (scarcely 16,000 strong), and that of Newcastle was not on the field until the evening. Nor indeed was Rupert himself. What detained him? Alas! the prosaic cause which makes so many a gallant enterprise 'lose the name of action.' Rupert was money-bound, in York. We learn this, much the most probable solution of the question, from Arthur Trevor, a lively special correspondent of that day, whose letters are to be found in Carte's Life of Orinonde.' 'The army,'