Good and joyful News OUT OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, Being an exact and true Relation of a Battle, stricken betwixt Prince ROBERT and Sir William Balfore;  
Lieutenant General to his Excellency, the Earl of Essex, near Alisbury in that County, on Tuesday last, the first of November, wherein the said. Sir William obtained a happy and glorious Victory.   woodcut of a tree 
London, Printed for Francis Wright, 1642.   

HUmane nature is covetous of novelties; never had that Axiom so pregnant proofs as in these days; never were the people so appetitious of news; never were their desires so answered with diversity of Narrations; and to say truth, never were there broached so many false and improbable relations: every man speaking according to his fancy and wishes, and divers sons of audacity and impudence, confidently committing many illegitimate conceptions of their own to the public view, which have no more affinity with truth, than the opinions of Copernicus, of the motion of the earth, or that relation of our Countryman of the new world in the Moon, or of Domingo Gonzales and his flight thither upon the wings of his Ganzas: But this abs●re, good wine needs no bush: veritas non quarit angulos, our present discourse needs no preface to excuse it, being a positive and confirmed truth: on Tuesday last, All-Saints day, destined for holier uses, Prince Robert, with his well beaten troops, after they were routed in the late known battle by the Parliaments forces wearied with their flight, and bleeding with the wounds they had received there, sought to refresh themselves in the pleasant and plenteous County of Buckingham, in which all things exuberate that might please their appetites, or satisfy their wants (that Country being most odious to them, cause most faithful to the Parliament) they left no expressions of their hostility and rapine unperformed soldiers (especially wanting one's) wishing no better place for plunder then a ●ich and fertile Province, till they arrived at Ailesbu●●, a town one of the most signal and wealthy of that Shire, where Prince Robert with some ten thousand horse and foot, on T●●sd●y morning, about six of the clock entered to the great amazement and fear of the honest inhabitans, who little expecting such a sudden greeting from the Enemy, were unprovided for defence, the faithful M … of that good town, being unable to make resistance against such a multitude of half desperate men, made a virtue of necessity, and gave them a free entertainment; the chief Magistrates there knowing it was, Prudemiae multum dissimulare, affording them good words: and to give the Devil his due, there they remained in indifferent peaceble disposition, till some of Prince Robert's scouts or horse sentinels, upon the spur came in, and with a sudden alarm, gave a speedy and dreadful notice to their General, that there were great and formidable forces approaching the body of an Army, as their fears made them conjecture, of at least six thousand men, when as since it was certainly known, and credibly astirmed they were not above fifteen hundred men, or thereabouts, under the command of the valiant, Sir William Belfore, sometimes Lieutenant of the Tower, and now Lieutenant General of the present forces for the defence of the kingdom, under his Excellency, the Earl of Ess●x, who after the late battle, were sent by the said Earls careful directions, to advance through the neighbouring Counties, and to secure their safeties, there being nothing so requisite and full of commendation in general, as to consider distant dangers of his friends and confederates, with the same eye he looks upon those which are present, and threatening himself: for that end therefore was Sir William Belsire scent forth, who investigating the Enemy's passages, had certain intelligence, that Prince Robert, with some of the prosligated troops, was returned into Bucking hamshire, and had sixth their place of rendezvous at Al●sbury; whither with all convenient speed the said Sir William made, knowing that delays in affairs military, as in all other actions beget dangers, with his fifteen hundred men, being six horse troops, and the foot part of Colonel Hampdens, and part of Colonel Granthams' Regiments, which were the army of six thousand foot and horse, which the Sentinels gave information to the Prince, were then invading him at not half an hours march distance, with which alarm, not affrighted, but a little troubled, he prepared not for his defence, but to give them the bein, or the mal venu (take it as you please) to Alasbury, leaving, lest the townsmen whom he durst not confide in, should fall upon his rear, a troop of horse, and two companies of foot there in perada to secure the inhabitants, where, when they heard of their friends, approaches, were all unmindful to act their parts on that Theatre of war for their own safeties: active spirits forces young men, like Lapwings, to run out of their nest, part of the shell ye● sticking to their temples; so it has done with this Prince Robert, whose fiery soul has rendered him too great a stickler in this kingdom's quarrels, but he having drawn forth his Companies into one entire body, without the town, he espied within a quarter of a mile the Parliaments forces, which were as ready to charge him, as the Prince was them: but their wise and prudent Chief, Sir William Belfore, knowing that hasty attempts beget dangerous and uncertain successes, kept them in, facing the Prince with a narrow body of horsemen, his troop being drawn out like a Pyramid, sharp at the top, and broad by degrees in the gross. Prince Robert with his own troop, the flo●er of the Cavalry, charging through Sir Will. Belfore his front: and thinking to make us find as easy passage through the rest, Was bid to a bloody dinner in the heart of his squadrons. The florsemen there being at least ten broad in rank, thundering death from those engines of destruction, their Carabines and petronels into the bosom of the Prince's Soldiers, who neither knew well to advance nor to retreat. Another Troop if I mistake not, young Master Pyms (the hopeful Son of an excellent father, charging them hotly in their right flanks, so that Prince Roberts maugre his native courage was at his non plus ultra, till Sir Lewis Dives a man of as much acrimony and spleen as any of the malignants against the Parliament: fell in pell mell to the prince's reskues: having behind each of his horsemen a musketier, who being at competent distance, alighted and diffused their dreadful and death bearing bullets through our squadrons, which then began to totter from their order, some ten or fourteen falling in that furious charge: till Captain Herbert Blanchard, Captain of the Earl of Peterborromes' Troop came in with much courage to the aid of Sir William Balfores Troop, and the foot forces on our side having gained both wind and sun, sent cheerful volleys of fire, smoke, and bullets, on the left flank of the Prince's squadrons, the horses galled with the shot overthrowing their riders, And the Soldiers of our foot taking fire from their resolved Captains, animating each other to an assured conquest: Commissary Willmot who all this while had stood as a reserve to the Prince's Forces, then falling into this game of blood and slaughter, reduced the Conflict to an equal scale, killing some threescore of our men, when Sir William Balfore who leaving his own Troops to the charge of his Lieutenant, had retired into the rear of his horse and brought them up to the face of the Enemy, our foot in the interim wheeling about, came in upon theirs with a full charge, beating them from their stations, and disordering their ranks. They sent at least two hundred of their men to salute the earth never more to rise thence. The Prince all this while made good the fight against Sir William with his horse till Commissary Wilmot receiving a shot into the shoulder, They began to shock together, and as it were to retreat: when the flight of their foot, who began to use the virtue of their legs: drive them, spite of Prince Robert's fury, to bear them Company and outstrip them at their own exercise of running away: that Troop and those two foot companies advancing forth of the town to the relief of their companions were undertaken by Captain Ascoughs Troop and some foot forces, till the Townsmen near being rid of their unwelcome guests, to the number of two hundred well armed, charged them upon the backs, than they fell into an appatent rout, following their flying fellows, our horsemen having them in the chase, they did execution on their foot fon the space of a miles riding: killing in the chase and the fight to the number of six hundred men, most of which were the infantry their Cavalry escaping by the benefit of their Horses, found the Proverb verified, one pair of legs is worth two pair of hands. Prisoners of the common sort there were taken two hundred; of note, not any but one Dudley Smith a young gentleman of much courage, who died some hours after of his wounds received in the battle: of our part there fell about fourscore and ten persons: too great a number to be lost, yet gloriously they did being, as it were, their Country's Martyrs. Sir William Balfore after his victory, marching to Alisbury, spent the rest of that day in prayers and thanksgiving for his good success, to that great God of battles, in whose dispose is Conquest, and by whose almighty and and out sirecched arm, this victory arrived to his servants, Prince Robert with his flying Troops, as it were, in revenge of that overthrow, burning the poor Country villages in his retreat towards Oxford, where it is reported he is: and whence shortly it is hoped, he and all those perverse malignants will be brought to condign punishment. Thus it hath pleased the Lord of Hosts to give victory to the Parliaments Forces by an handful, if compared with the Enemy's numbers: In his power it is to save with few, as well as with multitudes. To him therefore we ought to ascribe all praise, trusting that he will deliver us from all our enemices. Amen.  
FINIS.