As the war proceeded, it was clear that Essex and Manchester were at best half-hearted in pursuing the fight against the royalists, an attitude that became ever more apparent as the struggle became more radical. The growing rift between the Lords and the Commons finally came to a point of crisis when the fruits of the great victory at the Battle of Marston Moor were allowed to slip away at the disappointing Second Battle of Newbury. It was after this that the political tensions between Cromwell and Manchester could no longer be contained by the established forms of command.