157 
and being on Toghill with his officers and some soldiers about 
him, and standing near an ammunition waggon containing eight 
barrels of powder, the latter suddenly exploded, killing two 
captains, and wounding Prince Maurice and about twenty more. 
Sir Ralph Hopton frightfully injured was put in a litter and 
carried to bed, being hardly alive and a “ miserable spectacle,” his 
head as “‘ big as three and both eyes blinded.” ‘The loss of the 
powder, too, was a serious one as only about nine barrels more 
remained.* After this discouraging mishap, the men pined with 
hunger and extremely dejected, “for indeed Sir Ralph was the 
soldiers’ darling,” settled down about Marshfield for a few days’ 
repose. ‘ 
By both sides this fight was fought most gallantly, the 
Hoptonians as if ‘each were to be made a Baron ora Knight,;” ~ 
and Waller’s men as if “for their birthright, the religion and 
“liberties of them and their posterity.” 
The royalist horse were so shattered, that of two thousand who 
went on the field in the morning but six hundred remained at 
night.t They had besides to lament the loss of Sir Beyil 
Grenville which was most deeply felt, and several elegiac poems 
were written at the time in his honour. On the Parliament side, 
the horse had been on continual duty for three days, and at the 
end of the fight without food or water for twenty-four hours, yet 
they with Sir Arthur Haselrig and his regiment of “lobsters” 
“ fought like Romans ;” and Sir Arthur, wounded in the neck, was 
additionally so severely injured by the fall of his horse under him, 
shot in six places, that his life was despaired of; and on the 9th 
July, prayers for his recovery were offered in the London churches. 
The number killed on either side was variously stated, neither 
acknowledging to many but reporting a great loss for the other 
One account says as many as seven hundred Hoptonians were slain, 
and seven cart-loads were seen being carried off the ground. The 
* Clar. MSS. + Clar. MSS, 1738, 
