Goring commanded the army before Taunton.
On Fairfax's approach, the siege of Taunton was raised; and the royalists retired to Lamport, an open town in the county of Somerset.
Fairfax attacked them in that post, beat them from it, killed about three hundred men, and took one thousand four hundred prisoners.[**] After this advantage, he sat down before Bridgewater, a town esteemed strong, and of great consequence in that country.

When he had entered the outer town by storm, Windham, the Governor, who had retired into the inner, immediately capitulated, and delivered up the place to Fairfax.
The garrison, to the number of two thousand six hundred men, were made prisoners of war.
Fairfax, having next taken Bath and Sherborne, resolved to lay siege to Bristol, and made great preparations for an enterprise which, from the strength of the garrison, and the reputation of Prince Rupert, the governor, was deemed of the last importance.

But, so precarious in most men is this quality of military courage, a poorer defence was not made by any town during the whole war; and the general expectations were here extremely disappointed.

No sooner had the parliamentary forces entered the lines by storm, than the prince capitulated, and surrendered the city to Fairfax.[***] A few days before, he had written a letter to the king, in which he undertook to defend the place for four months, if no mutiny obliged him to surrender it.
* Rush, vol.vii.p.

49.
** Rush, vol.vii.p.