In reference to the Civil Wars in this county, the following extracts from Dugdale's Diary will be found to possess some interest:
"March 22, 1644. This night, —— brother to Fox ye tinker (wch. keeps a garrison of rebells in Edgbaston House, com. Warr.) entred Sturton Castle, com. Stafford, with 200 men from —— to plant a garrison there.
"May 3 [1644].—Sr. Tho. Littleton, of Frankley, com. Wigorn, taken prisoner by a p'ty of horse (sent by Fox, the tinker from Edgbaston) to Ticknall Mannor near Beaudley."
John Fox "the Tinker," as he is here and before called, and "that rogue Fox" as the Royalists sometimes term him, appears to have been a very active officer, and no small annoyance to his adversaries. Amongst the papers of the republican Earl of Denbigh, who was commander in chief of the forces in the counties of Warwick, Worcester, Stafford, and Salop, is a memorandum, made about March, 1643-4, of a commission granted to John Fox to be colonel of a regiment to consist of six troops of horse and two companies of dragoons, and a commission to Reynold Fox to be his major. The same collection (which is arranged in two large folio volumes) contains several letters from Fox, during his occupation of Edgbaston House, where nothing but the enthusiasm of party could have kept his ill-clothed and ill-paid soldiers together. Indeed, at one time, he confesses that he durst not leave them to wait upon his Lordship, "for feare of mutunyes and a general departure." Fox signs in an illiterate manner, and his letters are always in the writing of another hand, probably that of a German, as he mentions "Hampton, Brewood, and the Dorpes [villages] thereabouts." By referring to October 5, following, it will be found that the united forces from Worcester and Dudley Castle were not able to unkennel him in his little garrison at Edgbaston, but "returned without doing anything;" or—as Fox would probably have said—were repulsed with loss. Odious enough in the eyes of the Cavaliers, for his successful opposition, he was surcharged with being one of King Charles's executioners: "Some have a conceit that he that gave the stroke was one Collonell Foxe, and the other Captain Joyce, who took the King from Holmby, but that is not believed."—Journal of the Earl of Leicester, in Sydney Papers, by Blencowe, p. 61.
"October 5.—Forces went out of Worcester and joyned with others from Dudley Castle to recover Edgbaston House from ye Rebells. Returned without doing anything."
THE END.
