Life of the Duke 35 



gentry of the several counties, should select a certain 

 number of themselves to raise money by a regular 

 tax, for the making provisions for the support and 

 maintenance of the army, rather than to leave them 

 to free-quarter, and to carve for themselves; and if 

 any of the soldiers were exorbitant and disorderly, and 

 that it did appear so to those that were authorised 

 to examine their deportment, that presently order 

 shoidd be given to repair those injuries out of the 

 moneys levied for the soldiery ; by which means the 

 country was preserved from many inconveniences, 

 which otherwise would doubtless have followed. 



And though the season of the year might well have 

 invited My Lord to take up his winter-quarters, it 

 being about Christmas ; yet after he had put a good 

 garison into the city of York, and fortified it, upon 

 intelligence that the enemy was still at Tadcaster, 

 and had fortified the place, he resolved to march 

 thither. The greatest part of the town stands on the 

 west side of a river not fordable in any place near 

 thereabout, nor allowing any passage into the town 

 from York, but over a stone-bridge, which the enemy 

 had made impassable by breaking down part of the 

 bridge, and planting their ordnance upon it, and by 

 raising a very large and strong fort upon the top of 

 a hill, leading eastward from that bridge towards 

 York, upon design of commanding the bridge and all 

 other places fit to draw up an army in, or to plant 

 cannon against them. 



But notwithstanding all these discouragements. 

 My Lord after he had refreshed his army at York,, 

 and recruited his provisions, ordered a march before 

 the said town in this manner : That the greatest part 

 of his horse and dragoons should in the night march 

 to a pass at Weatherby, five miles distant from 



