the town of Kineton, and took up their positions in three lines. "I never saw the rebels in a body before," he said, as he gazed sadly at the subjects arrayed against him. "I shall give them battle. God, and the prayers of good men to Him, assist the justice of my cause." The whole of his forces were not assembled till two o'clock in the afternoon, for the gentlemen who had become officers found it no easy matter to call their farmers and retainers together, and marshal them into any sort of order. Lord Lindsey, who was an old comrade of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, who was by then the commander of the Parliamentarian forces, knew that he would follow the tactics they had both together studied in Holland, little thinking that one day they should be arrayed one against the other in their own native England. He had a high opinion of Essex's generalship, and insisted that the situation of the Royal army required the utmost caution. Rupert, on the other hand, had seen the swift fiery charges of the fierce troopers of the Thirty Years' War, and was backed up by Patrick Ruthven, Lord Ruthven, one of the many Scots who had won honour under King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. A sudden charge of the Royal horse would, Rupert argued, sweep the Roundheads from the field, and the foot would have nothing to do but to follow up the victory. The King, sad enough at having to fight at all with his subjects, and never having seen a battle, seemed entirely bewildered between the ardent words of his spirited nephew and the grave replies of the well-seasoned old Earl. Eventually the King, willing at least not to irritate Rupert, desired that Ruthven should array the troops in the Swedish fashion. It was a greater affront to the General-in-chief than the king was likely to understand, but it could not shake the old soldier's loyalty. He gravely resigned the empty title of General, which only made confusion worse confounded, and rode away to act as colonel of his own Lincolnshire regiment, pitying his master's perplexity, and resolved that no private pique should hinder him from doing his duty. His regiment was of foot soldiers, and was just opposite to the standard of the Earl of Essex. In the afternoon the Royal forces marched down the hill.