According to the Duchess, the Scottish General was ignorant of Newcastle’s arrival, expected no opposition, consequently approached the town incautiously and was repulsed with considerable loss. She writes as to what immediately followed:—
“The Enemy being thus stopt before the Town, thought fit to quarter near it, in that part of the Country; and so soon as my Lords Army was come up, he” (i.e., Newcastle) “designed one night to have fallen into their Quarter; but by reason of some neglect of his Orders in not giving timely notice to the party designed for it, it took not an effect answerable to his expectation. In a word, there were three Designs taken against the Enemy, whereof if one had but hit, they would doubtless have been lost; but there was so much Treachery, Jugling and Falshood in my Lord’s own Army” (were the poets and the divines quarrelling?) “that it was impossible for him to be successful in his Designs and Undertakings. However, though it failed in the Enemies Foot-Quarters, which lay nearest the Town; yet it took good effect in their Horse Quarters, which were more remote; for my Lord’s Horse, Commanded by a very gallant and worthy Gentleman”—can this have been the reinstated Goring?—“falling upon them, gave them such an Alarm, that all they could do, was to draw into the Field, where my Lord’s Forces charged them, and in a little time routed them totally, and kill’d and took many Prisoners, to the number of 1500.”
Whitelock gives a slightly different account of this affair. “The Scots besieged Newcastle, and took a main outwork, and beat back the enemy sallying out upon them. The Marquess of Newcastle being in the town, burnt a hundred houses in the suburbs; the inhabitants clamour against him. Seven of the Parliamentary frigates lay in the mouth of the haven to stop their passage by seas. The Marquess ordered the firing of the coal-mines, but that was prevented by General Leslie’s surprising of all the boats and vessels.”
The Scots withdrew; but they went Southwards and got into Newcastle’s rear. Both armies manœuvred against each other in various parts of the county of Durham, for some time, without coming into actual collision, the Scots seeming anxious to avoid an engagement; indeed their failure to take an immediate initiative with their large preponderance in numbers was the cause of much discontent and grumbling among the supporters of the Parliament in London.
On more than one occasion, we have seen the King desiring that Newcastle should march his army to the support of that in the South. The tables were now turned. On 16 February, Newcastle wrote to Charles, urging him to send troops to the North against the powerful Scottish army, and expressing a strong opinion that, unless reinforcements were sent thither, and sent very speedily, the King would be in danger of losing his crown.
Some desultory fighting took place in the beginning of March, of which Newcastle gave an account to the King; and, as a specimen of his military dispatches, parts of it shall be given here. They can be read, or skipped at the reader’s pleasure.[85]
[85] Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Charles Ist, vol. LX, pp. 42-43. March 9th, 1644. No. 13.
(Dispatch communicating the doings of the army under the Marquis of Newcastle to the King.) It is headed “A True relation of all the observable passages that have happened in these (northern) parts since my last to your Majesty; with the reason of the impossibility of making good the Tyne against the Scots.... Sir Thos. Riddell sent about 50 musketeers from Tynemouth Castle to destroy some corn in the enemies’ quarters, from whence they were drawn out, as he was informed: But it seems his intelligence betrayed them to the enemy and about 45 of them were taken prisoners, who being carried to Leslie (Earl of Leven) he sent them to me as a token, and I returned him thanks for his civility, with this answer, that I hoped very shortly to repay that debt with interest, which I did in a few days.”