Note 101 — Chapter XII
Reading edition
Sir Philip Warwick (p. 278), who was present at the battle which followed, wrote: “Had not the Lord Digby, this year, given a fatal direction to that excellent Prince Rupert to fight the Scottish Army, surely that great Prince and soldier had never so precipitately fought them”.
Digby was supposed to have inspired the King to write the letter to Rupert here mentioned. The letter said: “If York be lost, I shall esteem my crown little less.... But if York be relieved, and you beat the rebels of both Kingdoms which are before it, then, but not otherwise, I may possibly make a shift.” Lord Culpepper, when the King told him that this letter had been sent, exclaimed: “Why, then, before God you are undone; for upon this peremptory order he will fight, whatever comes of it” (Warburton’s Prince Rupert, vol. II, p. 438).