Two days before the signing of this agreement the second siege of Hull had been begun by the Marquis of Newcastle, with a force of 4,000 horse soldiers and 12,000 foot. This had been rendered necessary by the fact that Newcastle’s Cavaliers would not leave their Yorkshire homes on a march southward, while the hated Roundheads remained in possession of a stronghold from which they could with ease ravage the surrounding country. Hence Newcastle wanted, above all things, to gain possession of the town.
The second siege of Hull was very largely a repetition of the first. The besiegers cut off the water-supply, and also succeeded in mounting guns within half-a-mile of the town walls. With these guns much damage was at first done; for by constructing a furnace for the heating of balls, the gunners were enabled to fire red-hot balls over the walls of the town. But this was not for long, Lord Fairfax’s erection of a flanking battery soon putting these guns out of action.
| Photo by] | [C.W. Mason |
| Hull’s Water Gate.[[55]] | |
At the beginning of the siege the Governor’s son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had been driven out of Beverley, had taken refuge within the walls with a large body of cavalry. But horse soldiers are not of much use in repelling a siege, and their horses are likely to be a severe hindrance. So it was in this case; and when the opportunity was afforded by the arrival of some of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers at Barton, Sir Thomas and his ‘twenty troops of horse’ were ferried across to Lincolnshire.
On the 22nd of September—a day being held in the town as one of fasting and humiliation—Cromwell himself crossed over the Humber, bringing a fresh supply of muskets and powder. The town was now once more entirely surrounded by water. For a fortnight before this the former Governor’s plan of cutting the rivers’ banks had been carried out, and the Royalists thus compelled to abandon their positions.
Things were going badly for the besiegers. On September 28th their powder magazine at Cottingham was blown up, but whether by accident or by treachery is not known. On October 5th a reinforcement of 500 men crossed over to Hull from Lincolnshire, and six days later the garrison made a successful sally and captured one of a pair of huge guns known familiarly as ‘the Queen’s pocket pistols.’ That night the Marquis of Newcastle determined to raise the siege, and on the 12th of October the besieging army withdrew to York, smaller by one-half than it had been six weeks earlier.
The importance of the two sieges of Hull cannot be overestimated. Had the first been successful, the King would have been in the position to strike a decisive blow before the forces of Parliament were organised. In 1643 the King’s plan of campaign was that his three armies—his own at Oxford, that under Sir Ralph Hopton in Cornwall, and that under the Earl of Newcastle in Yorkshire—should converge on London, the headquarters of Parliament.
But for this plan to succeed two obstacles must be removed. The Parliamentarians held the seaport towns of Plymouth and Hull. The siege of each was undertaken; and the siege of each failed, mainly because Parliament held ‘the command of the sea.’ Thus, in the words of the great historian of the Great Civil War, ‘Hull and Plymouth saved the Parliamentary cause.’