Sir Richard Bulstrode, Memoirs and Reflections upon the Reign and Government of King Charles (1721)

But News being then brought to the King, that Essex was advancing towards him, and had possessed the passes of Windsor, Kingston and Acton, and that if Essex should also take Brentford the King would be wholly surrounded, and deprived either of moving or subsisting:  Whereupon a Council of War was called, and resolutions taken, that the King’s Army should advance to Brentford where, at first, we found considerable opposition.  The Prince of Wales’s regiment of Horse, where I was, being drawn up behind a great hedge, where the enemy had planted some cannon, which we saw not, till they played so fast upon us, that we lost some men, and were obliged to draw off and retire for our better security; and upon our foot’s coming up, we beat the regiments of Hambden and Hollis out of the town, took several prisoners and arms, and sunk two great barks in the river Thames with many soldiers; And as two other regiments came up to their succour, they were also beaten, and we took some colours and cannon and were intire masters of Brentford, until the night; but then finding the Earl of Essex, with his Army, was drawn out upon Turnham Green, with the Trained Bands of the City, and that the Enemy’s Army was double to the King’s, and that most of our ammunition was spent; it was therefore thought fit by the Council, that the King should retreat.  Whereupon the King retired that night to Lord Cottington’s House, near Hounslow, and we marched the next day by Colnbrook, towards Reading and Oxford, the first of which places was garrisoned, and Oxford was the King’s headquarters, where he made his residence.  

By kind permission of the British Library