Maurice retreated to Exeter, while the Earl of Essex continued down into Devon and Cornwall, after sending Blake to capture Taunton. Essex swept through Somerset and Devon, and succeeded in relieving Plymouth. He continued to press his army into Cornwall, but became isolated from supporting Parliamentarian forces. A large Royalist army commanded by the King, with support from the Lord Hopton and Prince Maurice, trapped Essex, and his army suffered a total defeat at the Battle of Lostwithiel in early September 1644. Essex escaped in a fishing boat, while his remaining forces retreated back to Dorset, leaving only Plymouth, Lyme Regis and Taunton under Parliamentarian control in the south-west. Essex, who had been the commander of the entire Parliamentarian army, fell from grace after the defeat; he was one of a committee of leaders appointed at the second Battle of Newbury, and was sidelined by the creation of the New Model Army, eventually resigning his military commissions the following March. Maurice, after success at Lostwithiel, also featured at Newbury, and subsequently commanded the Royalist armies from Worcester. He left the Royalist army in late 1645 after the King charged Prince Rupert with treachery, and the pair both left England for continental Europe the following year.