>>5388401>>5388402Your men are angry - he was just a boy! These rebellious puritan heretics are scum, and deserve all the wrath God sees fit to pour upon them. Right now, the wrath of god is embodied best in your harquebuses, your sabres and the thundering of hooves on dew-wet grass. You order the charge - Davis' troop thunders off around the back of your foe, between them and their homes. The other two circle around their flanks. Their men are drawn up in a loose square - mostly pikemen with a few musketmen.
The bullets begin to fly, and the air is thick with shot - neither of you have much ammunition, but they don't know that. Your men fire in good order, lines of cavalry circling to the back once their shots have been made. Their arquebuses fire wild, and begin to hit the lightly armoured horse in the front ranks. You give the order to skirmish, a trumpet is blown to signal, and the cavalry draw closer to the square, darting in to spook the musketeers before rushing off - swinging sabres like madmen into the gaps in the formation. A few inexperienced men are caught on the ends of pikes.
You are bloodied, but the infantry seem fit to break. Men tremble - a few try to run and are cut down once they leave the safety of their formation. At last, you decide to commit your lifeguard to break their backs. Your body of heavily armoured men braces into a tight wedge, and are screened by the circling light-cavalry as they approach, before opening a gap and launching at the pikemen.
With you at their head, their inexperience is remedied by good order. You roar with the charge - at once, all twenty men launch a volley of pistol-fire into the line of pikes. The few with lances in the front line out-range the remaining pikes facing you, and in a moment you are buried in their midst, swinging sabres like furies. You have known battle before, and are ready for the frenzy, but your men are clearly over-taken in the battle-fury.
It matters little, though - the parliamentarians are broken by the impact, and they take to flight towards Barnstaple. They have no chance of making it there - surrounded by mobile cavalry, their lives are already spent. You wipe your blood-soaked sword on the white coat of your charger, and your men look for your signal;
>Give quarter - take prisoners. It is likely many of these men are merely misguided - that they might be convinced to switch sides, a significant boon to your force.>No quarter - they are rebels, you do not automatically owe them such. Besides, you need the wealth of Barnstaple, and need to stay swift on horse-back. 