192 1(A{MBLES OF A 



later it was resolved by Parliament that " the messenger 

 that brought the good news from Sir Thomas Fairfax, 

 shall have forty pounds bestowed upon him." And 

 further, that there should be at once provided " a jewel 

 of five hundred pounds value to be sent from this house 

 to Sir Thomas Fairfax, as a testimony of their affections 

 to him and of the esteem they have of his services." 



It is hardly half a century since the scene of the battle 

 was identified. So little, indeed, was known, that 

 Carlyle and Arnold fixed on a spot a mile the other side 

 of Naseby village, where the obelisk to commemorate the 

 fight had been set up some years before. But excava- 

 tions, afterwards undertaken in the Doctor's Meadow 

 at Carlyle's request, showed beyond doubt, that there 

 the bodies of the slain were buried. Among the black 

 earth of the hollows once mounds where the dead were 

 heaped by hundreds, and hardly hidden with a scanty 

 covering of soil were found fragments of many skeletons, 

 with here and there a rusted weapon, a sword hilt or a 

 broken rapier. Few relics of the fight are left. In the 

 cornlands, that cross now the place of battle, musket and 

 pistol balls, white with the rust of centuries, still clash 

 at times upon the plough. In a water-course on Broad- 

 moor was found, not long ago, a heavy drinking flask of 

 metal, which doubtless had lain there undisturbed since 

 some trooper, for the last time perhaps, slaked his battle- 

 thirst beside the stream. Ten years ago, or rather more, 

 was found a ring set with a single sapphire. More 

 recently another ring was picked up, by a boy while 

 ploughing, on the spot where the Cavaliers of Langdale 



