Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681). Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson. 1906.

The Life of John Hutchinson: 1645

The committee-men that ran away when the governor returned had taken the treasurer away with them, and left neither any money, nor so much as the rent-rolls whereby the governor could be instructed where to fetch in any; but by the prudence and interest of himself and his friends, he procured a month’s pay for the foot, and twenty shillings a man for the horse, as soon as he came home; and recruited all the stores, which the committee had purposely wasted in his absence, and fetched in a small stock of powder they had laid in at Salusbury’s house. While he was thus industriously setting the things in order which they had confounded, they at London were as maliciously active to make more confusion. They contrived many false and frivolous articles and petitions against him, and proceeded to that degree of impudence in desiring alterations, and casting reflections upon the sub-committee itself, that they grew weary of them. Mr. Pierrepont and Sir H. Vane being now taken notice of as leaders of the independent faction, when those gentlemen out of mere justice and honour discountenanced their envy and malice, they applied themselves to the presbyterian faction, and insinuating to them that the justice of those gentlemen was partiality to the governor, because he was a protector of the now hated separatists, they prevailed to have Sir Philip Stapleton and Sir Gilbert Garrett, two fierce presbyterians, added to the subcommittee, to balance the other faction, and found this wicked invention not a little advantageous to them: yet Mr. Hollis, who was a person of honour, did not comply with their factious spirits, but gave the governor all just assistance against their malice which lay in his power. But they quitting all modesty, and pressing the committee with false affirmations and forgeries, that all men would lay down their arms if the governor were not removed, at length they prevailed, that he was the second time sent for to London to justify himself against them. In that blank, to which they had by fraud and threats procured so many hands, they writ a petition, alleging that the governor was so generally detested, that if he were not removed all men would fling down their arms; and the subscriptions they thus abused were those they procured to vindicate Mr. Millington. Salusbury and one Silvester had, for their own profit, gotten a commission to set on foot the excise in the country, and joined with them one Sherwin. These two were such pragmatical knaves, that they justly became odious to all men; and although necessity might excuse the tax in other places, yet here it was such a burden that no man of any honesty or conscience could have acted in it. For when plundering troops killed all the poor countrymen’s sheep and swine, and other provisions, whereby many honest families were ruined and beggared, these unmerciful people would force excise out of them for those very goods which the others had robbed them of; insomuch that the religious soldiers said they would starve before they would be employed in forcing it, or take any of it for their pay. The governor, being inclined in conscience to assist the poor country, was very active in his endeavours to relieve them from this oppression, which his enemies highly urged in their articles against him. These excisemen came very pressingly to urge the governor to enforce the payment of it in the town; he told them before he would use compulsion he would try fair means, and call a hall to see whether the townsmen would be persuaded, which accordingly he did: but when the day came the excisemen came to the governor and advised him to take a strong guard with him, telling him that the butchers had been whetting their knives, and intended mischief, and had cast out many words intimating a dangerous design. The governor told them he should not augment his usual guard, and could fear nothing, having no intent to do anything that might provoke them to mutiny. They went again to the men and told them the governor intended to come with many armed men, to compel them to pay it: whereupon when he came to the hall he found but a very slender appearance; yet those who were there were all fully resolved not to pay it; but the governor wrought with them to represent their reasons, in a humble manner, to the committee of both kingdoms, and that there should be a fuller meeting for that purpose the next week, and that in the meantime both parties should forbear any private addresses in this matter. To this the excisemen agreed; yet, notwithstanding, the governor took a whole packet of their letters going to London, which when he discovered, he also wrote to his friends in London on behalf of the garrison. The next week at a full meeting, a petition was signed, which the governor offered the town to have carried, being himself to go up, but they in a compliment refused to give him the trouble, pitching upon Captain Coates and the town-clerk to go up with it. They accordingly went, about the time that, after seven weeks’ stay in the garrison, the governor was called again up to London to justify himself against the malicious clamours of his adversaries. When Captain Coates and the other came to London they applied themselves to Mr. Millington, who, perceiving that the governor stood for the ease of the garrison, put them into a way to frustrate their own designs, and so they returned home; and at the sessions, rendering the town an account of their negotiations, they told them they found it an impossible thing to get the excise taken off. Yet the governor knew a way to ease them, but they feared he would be discouraged in it, because at his coining up he had found their disaffections expressed against him in a petition to cast him out of his command, ‘which’, said the clerk ‘you cannot do, for he still is and must be governor; therefore, if any of you have been cheated of your hands, contrary to your intentions and desires, you would do well to testify your honesty, by disclaiming what goes under your name’. Soon after, these malignants stirred up the soldiers to mutiny, and there being no governor in the garrison, that could tell how to order them otherwise, they were appeased with money; upon which occasion a general muster being called, the major told the soldiers how they were injured at London by a petition, preferred in the name of the whole garrison, to cast the governor out of his command, which, if it were not their desire, he wished them to certify to the contrary. They all with one voice cried, they desired no other governor; whereupon a certificate was drawn up; but when it came to be subscribed, certain of the committee faction went up and down persuading the companies not to subscribe; and when they found how little they prevailed, they foamed for anger, and such malicious railing, that one of the governor’s soldiers, not able to bear them longer, cried out, ‘Why do we suffer these fellows to vapour thus? let us clout them out of the field’: but the major hearing it, committed him; and the next morning the certificate went up, subscribed with seven hundred townsmen’s hands. After all was done, the major gave some small sum to the soldiers to drink, and the malicious faction, when they saw they could not hinder this certificate, made another false one of their own, that the major had with crowns a-piece hired all these subscriptions, with other such like lies, which when they could not make good, it is said they retracted their certificate at London.

The committee at London could never finish the business by reason of the impertinent clamours of the governor’s enemies, therefore at length, wearied with the continual endless papers they had daily brought in, they made an order, wherein they assigned a certain day for the determination of the power, and in the meantime commanded all matter of crimination on both sides should be forborne. At the day they both appeared, but Mr. Millington presented a petition of a most insolent nature, and fresh articles against the governor, which gave the committee much distaste. The petition was, that whereas the committee had kept them ten weeks at great charges, they desired a speedy dispatch now, according to their propositions. The committee were much offended at this, and told them they did them much injury to lay their stay upon them, who five weeks before desired them to return, and only leave a solicitor for each, and then they refused it; that they had broken their orders, and given no satisfaction for it, and now also their last, in bringing in articles against the governor. They took it very ill that they, who were plaintiffs, should prescribe to them, who were judges, how to determine the business; wherefore they ordered that the governor should return and pursue his first instructions, till he received new ones, and that the business should be reported to the house. The governor sent his brother down to take care of his garrison, and stayed himself to receive the final determination of the house, where Mr. Millington, through his interest, kept off the report, by several tricks and unjust delays, for about three or four months.

When the lieutenant-colonel came down, the captains were wonderful obedient, and all things pretty quiet, but the governor’s officers were discouraged at the countenance which was given to his enemies, and the impunity of all the crimes of that faction. He having a certain spirit of government, in an extraordinary manner, which was not given to others, carrying an awe in his presence that his enemies could not withstand, the garrison was much disordered by his absence, and in daily peril; although the lieutenant-colonel was as faithful and industrious in managing that charge as any person could be, and as excellent a person, but in a different way from his brother. Firmness and zeal to the cause, and personal valour he had equally, but that vigour of soul which made him invincible against all assaults, and overcame all difficulties he met in his way, was proper to himself alone. The lieutenant-colonel was a man of the kindest heart and the most humble familiar deportment in the world, and lived with all his soldiers as if they had been his brothers; dispensing with that reverence which was due to him, and living cheerful and merry, and familiar with them, in such a manner that they celebrated him, and professed the highest love for him in the world, and would magnify his humility and kindness, and him for it, in a high degree above his brother. But with all this they grew so presumptuous that, when any obedience was exacted beyond their humours or apprehensions, they would often dare to fail in their duty; whereas the governor, still keeping a greater distance, though with no more pride, preserved an awe that made him to be equally feared and loved, and though they secretly repined at their subjection, yet durst they not refuse it; and, when they came to render it on great occasions, they found such wisdom and such advantage in all his dictates that, their reason being convinced of the benefit of his government, they delighted in it, and accounted it a happiness to be under his command, when any public necessity superseded the mutiny of those private lusts, whereby all men naturally, but especially vulgar spirits, would cast off their bridle, and be their own only rulers.

As the governor’s absence was the occasion of many neglects in the government, not by his brother’s fault, but the soldiers’, who wanting of their pay (which, while the committee should have been providing, they were spending it in vexatious prosecutions of the governor), and therefore discontented, and through that, careless of their duty; so, on the other side, the cavaliers, who were not ignorant of the dissensions in the garrison, took the advantage, and surprised the lieutenant-colonel’s fort at the Trent bridges, while he was employed in keeping the castle. His soldiers in his absence lying out of their quarters, had not left above thirty men upon the guard, who were most of them killed, the ensign fighting it out very stoutly, after their entrance, till he died. The lieutenant-colonel was exceedingly afflicted with this loss, but presently applied himself to secure what remained. The whole town was in a sad uproar, and this happening upon a Lord’s day in the morning, in May, 1645, all the people were in such a consternation that they could keep no sabbath that day. Then the lieutenant-colonel had an experiment of vulgar spirits, for even his own soldiers, who were guilty of the loss of the place by being out of their quarters, began to exclaim against him for a thousand causeless things; and although he laboured amongst them with as much courage and vigour as any man could use, to settle their spirits and regain the place, yet they slighted him most unjustly, and all cried out now to have the governor sent for, as if he himself had been their castle.

Immediately after the unhappy surprise of the bridges, the lieutenant-colonel sent away to his brother a post, who by some of the lower fords got over the water, and carried his sad news to London. A trumpet was sent to the bridges, and obtained the dead bodies of the soldiers who were slain at the surprise, and they were brought up to the town in carts and buried. There was about twenty of them, very good and stout men, though it availed them not in their last need, when a multitude had seized them unawares. All that day a body of the enemy faced the town, which, through terrors without and discouragements and discontents within, was in a very sad posture. The malignant faction against the governor improved even this occasion, and suggested to the town that the castle would be the cause of their ruin; that the governor and his soldiers would secure themselves there, and leave the town undefended; and because the lieutenant-colonel was very strict that none of the castle-soldiers should lie out of their quarters, lest that place might be surprised as well as the other, the townsmen renewed their railings against the castle, and their malice to all that were in it; but the lieutenant-colonel, regarding none of their unjust railings, by God’s blessing upon his vigilance, kept the town and castle till his brother’s return.

As soon as the news came to the governor at London, he thought it time to throw off that patience with which he had hitherto waited at great expense, and went to the parliament-house before the house sat, and there acquainted the Speaker what was befallen at Nottingham, desiring he might be called to make a relation of it in the open house, or else he told the Speaker, though he died for it, he would press in and let them know how much the cause suffered by the indirect practices, which were partially connived at by some of their members. The Speaker seeing him so resolved, procured him, when the house was set, to be called in: and there he told them how their fort was lost, and, for aught he knew, the garrison, by that time; which was no more than what he had long expected through the countenance that was, by one of their members, given to a malignant faction, that obstructed all the public service, disturbed all the honest soldiers and officers in their duty, and spent the public treasury, to carry on their private malice. He further told them, how dishonourable, as well as destructive to their cause, it was that their members should be protected in such unjust prosecutions, and should make the privilege of their house the shelter, to oppress the most active and faithful of their servants. This and many other things he told them, with such boldness, that many of the guilty members had a mind to have committed him, but he spoke with such truth and convincing reason, that all those of more generous spirits were much moved by it, and angry that he had been so injuriously treated, and desired him to take post down and to use all means to regain the place, and gave him full orders to execute his charge without disturbance. From that time Mr. Millington so lost his credit, that he never recovered the esteem he formerly had among them; and after that time, the governor’s enemies perceiving they were not able to mate him, made no more public attempts, though they continued that private malice, which was the natural product of that antipathy there was between his virtues and their vices. Neither was it his case alone; almost all the parliament-garrisons were infested and disturbed with like factious little people, insomuch that many worthy gentlemen were wearied out of their commands, and oppressed by a certain mean sort of people in the house, whom to distinguish from the more honourable gentlemen, they called Worsted stocking Men. Some as violently curbed their committees, as the committees factiously molested them. Nor was the faction only in particular garrisons, but the parliament house itself began to fall into the two great oppositions of Presbytery and Independency: and, as if discord had infected the whole English air with an epidemical heart-burning and dissension in all places, even the king’s councils and garrisons were as factiously divided. The king’s commissioners and the governor at Newark fell into such high discontents, that Sir Richard Biron, the governor was changed, and Sir Richard Willis put into his place. This accident of the bridges put an end to that vexatious persecution wherewith the governor had had many sore exercises of his wisdom, patience, and courage, and many experiences of God’s mercy and goodness, supporting him in all his trials, and bearing him up against all discouragements, not only to stand without the least dejection himself, but to be able to hold up many others, who were ready to sink under the burthen of unrighteousness and oppression, where they expected just thanks and rewards. It cost the governor above three hundred pounds to defend himself against their calumnies, renewed forgeries, and scandals, laid upon him; but God was with him in all in a wonderful manner, bringing truth to light through all the clouds of envy that sought to obscure it, and making his innocence and uprightness to shine forth as the noon-day, justifying him even in the eyes of his enemies, and covering them with shame and confusion of face. They maintained their prosecution of him out of the public stock, and were not called to account for so mis-spending it. Mr. Millington perceiving how much he had lost himself by it, applied himself to seek a reconciliation by flattering letters, and professions of conviction and repentance of his unjust siding with those men. The governor, who was of a most reconcilable nature, forgave him, and ever after lived in good friendship with him. Others of them also afterwards, when they saw the governor out of their power, some through fear, and others overcome with his goodness, submitted to him, who lived to see the end of them all; part of them dying before any disgrace or great sorrows overtook him, and those who survived, renouncing and apostatising from their most glorious engagements, and becoming guilty of those crimes for which they falsely accused him, while he remained firm, and dying sealed up the profession of his life; in all the future difficulties of which, he was still borne up with the experience of God’s goodness and manifold protections.

The governor being dismissed from the parliament, immediately took post, and coming through Northampton, met his old engineer, Hooper, and brought him with him to Nottingham, where, by God’s mercy, he arrived safe about three days after the loss of the bridges, and was welcomed as if safety and victory, and all desirable blessings, had come in his train. His presence reinforced the drooping garrison, and he immediately consulted how to go about regaining the fort. To this purpose, and to hinder the enemy from having an inlet into the town by the bridges, he made a little fort on the next bridge, and put a lieutenant and thirty men into it, thereby enclosing those in the fort the enemy had surprised, whom he resolved to assault on the town side, having thus provided that their friends should not come from the other side to help them. But those of Newark understanding this, came as strong as they could one morning, and assaulted the little new fort, where the lieutenant, Hall, failing of that courage which he had professed when he begged the honour of keeping it, gave it up, which the governor seeing from the other side, was exceedingly vexed at, and marched up to the bridge to assault them in that fort; but he found that they had only stormed the other little fort to make their own way to be gone, and that they had made shift to get to their friends upon the ribs of two broken arches, which, when they had served to help their passage, they pulled up, to hinder pursuit after them: and thus in a month’s space God restored to the governor the fort which was lost in his absence; and he new fortified the place and repaired the bridges, whereby the great market out of the vale was again brought into the town, to their exceeding joy and benefit.

This summer there was another kind of progress made in the war than had been before, and the new parliament army prosecuting it so much in earnest, that they made a show to block up the king in his main garrison at Oxford, he breaks out, and joining prince Rupert’s horse, came, after several attempts otherwhere, to Leicester, which he took by storm. The loss of this town was a great affliction and terror to all the neighbouring garrisons and counties, whereupon Fairfax closely attended the king’s motions, came within a few days and fought with the king, and overcame him in that memorable battle at Naseby, where his coach and cabinet of letters were taken; which letters being carried to London were printed, and manifested his falsehood, when, contrary to his professions, he had endeavoured to bring in Danes and Lorrainers, and Irish rebels, to subdue the good people here, and had given himself up to be governed by the queen in all affairs both of state and religion. After this fight Fairfax took again the town of Leicester, and went into the West, relieved Taunton, took Bristol, and many other garrisons. West Chester also and other places were taken that way. Meanwhile, the king, having coasted about the countries, came at last to Newark, and there his commanders falling out among themselves, he changed the governor, and put the Lord Bellasis into the place, and went himself to Oxford, where he was at last blocked up.

When Sir Thomas Fairfax was made chief general, Poyntz was made major-general of the northern countries, and a committee of war was set up at York, whereof Colonel Pierrepont, by his brother’s procurement, was appointed one, and pretty well satisfied, as thinking himself again set above Colonel Hutchinson, because all the northern garrisons were to receive orders from that committee: but the governor heeding not other men’s exaltations or depressions, only attended to his own duty. About the latter end of this summer, Poyntz came to Nottingham with all the horse that could be gathered in the neighbouring counties. He had before marched with them and the Nottingham regiment into Cheshire, and brought several gentlemen prisoners into the garrison of Nottingham, who had been taken in divers encounters. When he marched out, Palmer the Priest, not daring to venture himself in the field, laid down his commission, when he saw that there was now no connivance to be found at disobeying commands.

By reason of the rout at Naseby, and the surrender of Carlisle to the Scots and several other garrisons, the broken forces of the cavaliers had all repaired to Newark, and that was now become the strongest and best fortified garrison the king had; and Poyntz was ordered to quarter his horse about it, till the Scots should come on the other side and besiege it. At that time also the king himself was there. The governor having informed Poyntz how prejudicial it would be to his design to suffer those little garrisons in the Vale at Shelford and Wiverton to remain, it was agreed that all the forces should take them in their way. But the governor having obtained permission, of Poyntz, through a respect he had to the family, sent to Colonel Philip Stanhope, governor of Shelford, a letter to persuade him to surrender the place he could not hold, and to offer him to obtain honourable terms for him, if he would hearken to propositions. Stanhope returned a very scornful, huffing reply, in which one of his expressions was, that he should lay Nottingham castle as flat as a pancake, and such other bravadoes, which had been less amiss if he had done anything to make them good. Hereupon the whole force marched against the place, and the several posts were assigned to the several colonels. The governor, according to his own desire, had that which seemed most difficult assigned to him, and his quarters that night appointed in Shelford town. When he came thither, a few of Shelford soldiers were gotten into the steeple of the church, and from thence so played upon the governor’s men that they could not quietly take up their quarters. There was a trap door that went into the belfry, and they had made it fast, and drawn up the ladder and the bell-ropes, and regarded not the governor’s threatening them to have no quarter it they came not down, so that he was forced to send for straw and fire it, and smother them out. Hereupon they came down, and among them there was a boy who had marched out with the governor’s company, when he went first against Newark, and carried himself so stoutly, that Captain Wray begged him for a foot-boy, and when his troop was once taken by the enemy, this boy, being taken among them, became one of their soldiers. The governor making him believe he should be hanged immediately for changing his party, and for holding out to their disturbance, where he could not hope for relief, the boy begged he might be spared, and offered to lead them on to a place where only they could enter, where the palisade was unfinished. The governor, without trusting to him, considered the probability of his information, kept him under guard, and set him in the front of his men, and he accordingly proved to have told them the truth in all that he had said, and did excellent good service, behaving himself most stoutly. The governor being armed, and ready to begin the assault, when the rest were also ready, Captain White came to him, and, notwithstanding all his former malicious prosecutions, now pretended the most tender care and love that could be declared, with all imaginable flattery; and persuaded the governor not to hazard himself in so dangerous an attempt, but to consider his wife and children, and stand by among the horse, but by no means to storm the place in his own person. Notwithstanding all his false insinuations, the governor perceived his envy at that honour which his valour was ready to reap in this encounter, was exceedingly angry with him, and went on upon the place. This being seated on a flat, was encompassed with a very strong bulwark, and a great ditch without, in most places wet at the bottom, so that they within were very confident, there being no cannon brought against them, to hold it out; because also a broken regiment of the queen’s, who were all papists, were come in to their assistance. A regiment of Londoners was appointed to storm on the other side, and the governor at the same time began the assault at his post. His men found many more difficulties than they expected, for after they had filled up the ditches with faggots and pitched the scaling-ladders, they were twenty staves too short, and the enemy, from the top of the works, threw down logs of wood, which would sweep off a whole ladderful of men at once; the lieutenant-colonel himself was once or twice so beaten down. The governor had ordered other musketeers to beat off those men that stood upon the top of the works, which they failed of by shooting without good aim; but the governor directed them better, and the Nottingham horse dismounting, and assailing with their pistols and headpieces, helped the foot to beat them down from the top of the works, all except one stout man, who stood alone, and did wonders in beating down the assailants, which the governor being angry at, fetched two of his own musketeers and made them shoot, and he immediately fell, to the great discouragement of his fellows. Then the governor himself first entered, and the rest of his men came in as fast as they could. But while his regiment was entering on this side, the Londoners were beaten off on the other side, and the main force of the garrison turned upon him. The cavaliers had half moons within, which were as good a defence to them as their first works; into these the soldiers that were of the queen’s regiment were gotten, and they in the house shot out of all the windows. The governor’s men, as soon as they got in, had taken the stables and all their horses, but the governor himself was fighting with the captain of the papists and some others, who, by advantage of the half moon and the house, might have prevailed to cut off him and those that were with him, which were not many. The enemy being strengthened by the addition of those who had beaten off the assailants on the other side, were now trying their utmost to vanquish those that were within. The lieutenant-colonel, seeing his brother in hazard, made haste to open the drawbridge, that Poyntz might come in with his horse; which he did, but not before the governor had killed that gentleman who was fighting with him, at whose fall his men gave way. Poyntz seeing them shoot from the house, and apprehending the king might come to their relief, when he came in, ordered that no quarter should be given. And here the governor was in greater danger than before, for the strangers hearing him called governor, were advancing to have killed him, but that the lieutenant-colonel, who was very watchful to preserve him all that day, came in to his rescue, and scarcely could persuade them that it was the governor of Nottingham; because he, at the beginning of the storm, had put off a very good suit of armour that he had, which being musket-proof, was so heavy that it heated him, and so would not be persuaded by his friends to wear any thing but his buff coat. The governor’s men, eager to complete their victory, were forcing their entrance into the house: meanwhile Rossiter’s men came and took away all their horses, which they had taken when they first entered the works and won the stables, and left in the guard of two or three, while they were pursuing their work. The governor of Shelford, after all his bravadoes, came but meanly off; it is said he sat in his chamber, wrapt up in his cloak, and came not forth that day; but that availed him not, for how, or by whom, it is not known, but he was wounded and stripped, and flung upon a dunghill. The lieutenant-colonel, after the house was mastered, seeing the disorder by which our men were ready to murder one another, upon the command Poyntz had issued to give no quarter, desired Poyntz to cause the slaughter to cease, which was presently obeyed, and about sevenscore prisoners saved. While he was thus busied, inquiring what was become of the governor, he was shown him naked upon the dunghill; whereupon the lieutenant-colonel called for his own cloak and cast it over him, and sent him to bed in his own quarters, and procured him a surgeon. Upon his desire he had a little priest, who had been his father’s chaplain, and was one of the committee faction; but the man was such a pitiful comforter, that the governor, who was come to visit him, was forced to undertake that office: but though he had all the supplies they could all ways give him, he died the next day. The house which belonged to his father, the Earl of Chesterfield, was that night burned, none certainly knowing by what means, whether by accident or on purpose; but there was most ground to believe that the country people, who had been sorely infested by that garrison, to prevent the keeping it by those who had taken it, purposely set it on fire. If the queen’s regiment had mounted their horses and stood ready upon them when our men entered, they had undoubtedly cut them all off; but they standing to the works, it pleased God to lead them into that path he had ordained for their destruction, who being papists, would not receive quarter, nor were they much offered it, being killed in the heat of the contest, so that not a man of them escaped.

The next day our party went to Wiverton, a house of the Lord Chaworth’s, which, terrified with the example of the other, yielded upon terms, and was by order pulled down and rendered incapable of being any more a garrison.

Poyntz now quartered all his horse in the towns about Newark, and in regard he had no peculiar regiment of his own, the governor’s regiment served him for his guards. The Scots also came and quartered on the other side of the town towards the north.

All that winter the governor lay at the leaguer, and about Christmas time writs were sent down for new elections to fill up the parliament. There being a burgess-ship void at Nottingham, the town would needs, in a compliment, make the governor free, in order to make an election of him for the parliament. Mr. Francis Pierrepont hearing this, writ to the governor to desire that he would rather come into his father’s place in the county, and give him his assistance in this, as he should engage his own and all his friends’ interest for him in the county. The governor, who was ever ready to requite injuries with benefits, employed his interest in the town to satisfy the gentleman’s desire, and having very many in his regiment that had voices, he sent for them all home the night before the day of election; which had like to have been a very sad one, but that by the mercy of God, and the courage of Poyntz and the lieutenant-colonel and Captain Poulton, it had not so bad event. The Newarkers, hearing that so many of the regiment were away, fell upon their quarters, and most of the men being surprised, were rather endeavouring flight than resistance; when the lieutenant-colonel and Captain Poulton rallied all they could find, lined some pales with musketeers, and beat the enemy again out of their quarters, and Poyntz, mounting with as many horse as were about him, which was very few, followed them in the night up to the very works of Newark. Some loss there was in the quarters, but nothing considerable; some soldiers ran away home, and brought the governor word they were all cut off, but his brother sent a messenger to acquaint him with the contrary. Hereupon, immediately after the election, he returned back again with his men. Not long after, the elections were made for the county, who all pitched upon the governor, in his father’s room. White, whose envy never died, used all the endeavours he could to have hindered it; but when he saw he could do no harm, with a sad heart, under a false face, he came and took his part of a noble dinner the new knights had provided for the gentlemen of the country. Without any competition Mr. Hutchinson had the first voice in the room of his father, and Mr. Pigott the second, in the room of Mr. Sutton, now a commissioner at Newark. About the same time Colonel Thornhagh was chosen burgess for the town of Retford; but none of them went up to their places in parliament till the siege of Newark was finished.