201 murd'rous crew] [Grimes, now a Captain, formerly a tinker at St. Albans, with his own hand killed four of the prisoners, being not able for faintness to go on with the rest, of which number Lieutenant Woodward was one. Likewise at Thame, and at Whateley ( = Wheatley), some others were killed.] This story is backed up by not a few similar ones in different accounts of the time. And indeed, as King very cogently goes on to argue, your tinker-captain is capable of anything.
222 It was Sir Horace Vere (1565-1635), afterwards Lord Vere of Tilbury, under whom Fairfax served, and whose daughter Anne he married.
231 Whalley (spelt, as often with the name, Whaley in printed original) is cleared by others, though he is said by them as by King to have been present and to have had some private grudge against Lisle. Lucas had not only thrown Fairfax's troops into disorder at Marston Moor but is said by some to have actually wounded him in the face. He had also held Berkeley Castle against Rans- or Rainsborough till the outworks were taken, and the guns turned from them on the Castle itself. Rainsborough, with Whalley and Ireton, was actually present at the execution—which as a duty could hardly be incumbent on all three, and with which they were often reproached; and as a matter of course Rainsborough's death shortly afterwards was counted as a 'judgement'. His father had been an officer in the Navy, and the son commanded both by sea and land.
284 Algol] A star of great but varying brightness, the name of which—'The ghoul'—and its position in the head of Medusa in the constellation Perseus, explains the text.
311 long and doubtful] Fairfax, to enhance his exploit, called it 'four months close siege'. It was actually not quite eleven weeks, but the place yielded to nothing but starvation.
An Elegy upon the most Incomparable King Charles the First.
Call for amazed thoughts, a wounded sense
And bleeding hearts at our intelligence.
Call for that Trump of Death, the Mandrake's groan