124 not to stirre, who accordingly shott there, till all their ponder was spent. The licftenant-collonell in vaine importun'd Ballard to send them ammunition and reliefe, but could obteine neither, and so they were forc'd, unwillingly, to retreate, which they did in so good order, the men first, and then their captaines, that they lost not a man in comming of. The towne was sallying upon them, but they discharg'd a drake and beate them back. The next day all the Captaines importun'd Ballard they might fall on again, but he would neither consent nor give any reason of his deniall, so that the Nottingham forces return'd with greate dissatisfaction, though Ballard, to stop their mouths, gave them two pieces of ordnance. It being necessary to carrie on the maine story, for the better understanding the motion of those lesser wheeles that moov'd within the greate orbe, I shall but name in what posture things were abroad in the kingJome, while these affaires I relate were transacted at Nottingham. After the retreate from Brainford fight, a treaty was ineffectually carried on betweene the king and parliament from the 31st of January 1642, to the 17th of April! 1643, after which my Lord of Essex marched to Reading, where the king had a garrison, and besieg'd it. The king's horse came to relieve it, anJ had an encounter with my lord's armie, wherein many gentlemen of quallity fell on the king's side, the king himselfe being in a place where he saw them. In a few dayes after Reading was yielded upon composition to the Earle of Essex, whose souldiers having bene promis'd their pay and a gratuity to spare the plunder of the towne, fell into a mutiny upon the failing of the pertonnance, and many of them disbanded. Among those who remain'd there was a greate mortallity, occasioned by the inf~cteJ ayre in the towne of Reading; in so much that my lord was forc'd to returne and quarter his sick and weake armie a:bout Kingston and those townes neere London. And now were all the countryes in England noe longer idle -spectators, but severall stages, whereon the tragedie of the civill
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