132 Assoone as Sr. John Meldrum came downe to his charge at No ttingham the queen's forces came and faced the towne, whereupon the cannon discharging upon them, the Duke of Vendosme's sonne and some few others were slaine. The parliament horse drew out of Nottingham to receive the queene's, but they came not on, after this execution of the cannon, for in the mean time the queene was passing by, and although the parliament horse pursued them, yet would not they engage, for it was not their businesse; so when they saw they ,had lost their designe, the horse return'd againe to Nottingham, where the foote had stay'd all the while they were out. When the Earle of Kingston declar'd himselfe for the king he rays'd what forces he could and went into Gainsborough, a towne m Lincolneshire, scituate upon the river of Trent. There, before he was fortifi ed, my lord Willoughby, of Parham, surpriz'd the towne and all his souldiers, who disputed it as long as they could, but being conquer'd, were forc'd to yield, and the em·lc himselfe retreated into the strongest house, which he kept till it was all on flame round him, and then giving himselfe up only to my lord Willoughby, he was immediately sent prisoner to Hull, and shott see united to these such a command over his own thoughts and passions as permitted exactly so much, and no more of them than was conveni ent, to appear : these qualities, though less astonishing than the prescience and almost the power of creating events, which is attributed to him, would and did equally well answer the put pose of his progres3ion; which he effected in such a ms.nner as to fill with the greatest prow priety all the intern1ediate situations through which he passed, to take as it were a firm footing at each gradation, and to arrive at the pinnacle of power without having once run anv considerable risk of an overthrow in his career. Such rational ob::;ervers will li kewise.. see here, what will in the seque l still more st rikingly appear, that if he must be uilled a traitor, he was not of that paltry treachery which sacriftces a man's party to self; he was steadil y bent on procuring the triumph of his own party over their opponents, hut too covetous of commanding his party himself. It may be thought there ·wanted but little, perhaps only the survivance of Ireton, to have made Cromwell intrinsically as well as splendidly great.
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