Prince Rupert, negligent of the people, fond of the soldiery, had indulged the troops in unwarrantable liberties: Wilmot, a man of dissolute manners, had promoted the same spirit of disorder: and the licentious Goring, Gerrard, Sir Richard Granville, now carried it to a great pitch of enormity.

In the west especially, where Goring commanded, universal spoil and havoc were committed; and the whole country was laid waste by the rapine of the army.

All distinction of parties being in a manner dropped, the most devoted friends of the church and monarchy wished there for such success to the parliamentary forces as might put an end to these oppressions.

The country people, despoiled of their substance, flocked together in several places, armed with clubs and staves; and though they professed an enmity to the soldiers of both parties, their hatred was in most places levelled chiefly against the royalists, from whom they had met with the worst treatment.

Many thousands of these tumultuary peasants were assembled in different parts of England; who destroyed all such straggling soldiers as they met with, and much infested the armies.[**] * Dugdale, p.7.Rush.