“Sir John Hotham to William Lenthall.[46]
“1642, Oct., Hull.... Upon Sunday night last, as the neighbours of Sherborne tell our men, they” (the cavaliers) “drew certain forces out of York to have set upon my son’s men at Cawood. When they came in Sherborne, a village three miles from Cawood, they espied a windmill, which they took for my son’s colours marching to meet them, and certain stooks of beans for his men in order. Whereupon they returned in more haste than they came.”
[46] Portland MSS., vol. I, 67.
When the winter set in,[47] Newcastle, with the King’s troops, held all the country between York and the border of Scotland, while the south of Yorkshire was under the control of Fairfax and the troops of the Parliament.
[47] In 1642, Newcastle sent his friend, Sir William Savile, to take possession of the manufacturing towns in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Some interesting letters relating to Newcastle and Sir William may be found in Hunter’s Hallamshire.
As no supplies came from the Government for the army of Newcastle, he had to provide for it otherwise. The Duchess tells us how this was managed: “It was agreed, That the Nobility and Gentry of the several Counties, should select a certain number of themselves to raise money by a regular Tax, for the making provisions for the support and maintenance of the Army, rather than to leave them to free-quarter and to carve for themselves”.
The seizure of York by Newcastle had been a step of the greatest importance. Clarendon says of it:[48] “It cannot be denied that the Earl of Newcastle, by the quick march of his troops, as soon as he had received his commission to be General, and in the depth of winter,”—late autumn would have been more accurate—“redeemed, or rescued the city of York from the rebels, when they looked upon it as their own, and had it even within their grasp; and as soon as he was master of it, he raised men apace”. The Duchess says that he raised from first to last 100,000;[49] but this must surely be an exaggeration—“and drew an army together, with which he fought many battles, in which he had always (the last excepted,) success and victory”—another exaggeration.
[48] Hist., vol. II, part II. book viii.
[49] “And afterwards upon this ground, at several times, and in several places, so many several Troups, Regiments and Armies, that in all from the first to the last, they amounted to above 100,000 men, and those most upon his own Interest, and without any other considerable help or assistance, which was much for a particular Subject, and in such a conjuncture of time.”
Although Newcastle’s seizure of York was of the utmost importance, the King was somewhat premature in thinking that now “the business in Yorkshire” was “almost done”. On 15 December, 1642, he wrote (see Ellis’s Letters, series 3, vol. III, p. 293):—