Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

which the base was the road running east and west
from York to Wetherby, and the two sides were the
rivers Nidd and Ouse, the junction of which formed
the apex.[1] Here it was covered with gorse, there
with crops of wheat and rye. Forests of spears -- for
the bayonet had not yet been invented -- marked
the positions taken up by the pikemen in their steel
morions, their corsets and proof-cuirasses. On
either flank of their squares were the musketeers,
similarly armed, with their bandoliers thrown over
their shoulders, holding a dozen charges. They
were supported by the cavalry: the cuirassiers in
casque, cuirass, gauntlet, and greave; the carbineers
and dragoons in their buff coats, and armed with
sword, pistols, and short musket. Then came the
artillery, with their culverins and falconets.[2] The
Royalist forces appeared late on the field; the
Scots, to beguile the time, began to sing psalms.
Their general, Leslie, now Earl of Leven, had
mingled, as we have already said, in many of the
bloody scenes of the Thirty Years' War, and so
bravely acquitted himself that he was the favorite
field-marshal of Gustavus Adolphus. Altogether
there were close on 50,000 men on that memorable
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