On the one hand, it seemed more prudent to delay the combat; because Gerrard, who lay in Wales with three thousand men, might be enabled in a little time to join the army; and Goring, it was hoped, would soon be master of Taunton, and having put the west in full security, would then unite his forces to those of the king, and give him an incontestable superiority over the enemy.

On the other hand, Prince Rupert, whose boiling ardor still pushed him on to battle, excited the impatient humor of the nobility and gentry of which the army was full; and urged the many difficulties under which the royalists labored, and from which nothing but a victory could relieve them: the resolution was taken to give battle to Fairfax; and the royal army immediately advanced upon him.
At Naseby was fought, with forces nearly equal, this decisive and well-disputed action between the king and parliament.

The main body of the royalists was commanded by the king himself; the right wing by Prince Rupert; the left by Sir Marmaduke Langdale.

Fairfax, seconded by Skippon, placed himself in the main body of the opposite army; Cromwell in the right wing; Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law, in the left.

The charge was begun, with his usual celerity and usual success, by Prince Rupert.