be. Having consulted Mr. Pelham, one of the two Members of Parliament
for the town, Sir John Hotham caused the bridges to be drawn up, the
gates to be closed, and the walls to be lined with soldiers. The Mayor
and townsfolk were ordered to keep within their houses.
It was eleven o’clock in the morning when the King, with a bodyguard of
some three hundred soldiers, arrived before the Beverley Gate, where
only three years before he had received such a cordial welcome. Now,
when he commanded Sir John Hotham to open the Gate, he was met with a
polite refusal. The Governor was very sorry to have to disobey the
King’s command, but ‘he durst not open the gates to him, being intrusted
by the Parliament with the safety of the town.’
[Illustration: KING CHARLES I. AT THE BEVERLEY GATE, KINGSTON-UPON-HULL,
A.D. 1642.]
To the offer of the King, that he would leave all his train outside the
Gate, with the exception of twenty horse, the Governor proved equally
unresponsive.
From eleven o’clock till four o’clock the parleying of King and Governor
went on. Then the King ‘retired to a little house without the walls, and
after an hour’s stay returned’ and demanded a final answer. Would Sir
John Hotham admit the King to ‘a town and fort of our own, wherein our
own magazine lay;’ or would he forthwith be proclaimed a traitor?
Sir John chose the latter alternative, and was at once proclaimed guilty
of high treason by the King’s heralds. Then the King withdrew to
Beverley, and the first act of open hostility between Parliament and
King was ended. The Great Civil War had, in fact, begun.
XXII.
HOW HULL WAS TWICE BESIEGED.
The events of April 23rd, 1642, were immediately followed by the sending
of letters to Parliament. Sir John Hotham forwarded an account of how he
had obeyed the orders of Parliament to the best of his ‘understanding
and utmost endeavours, though with some hazard of being misconceived by
His Majesty’; while the King wrote demanding that ‘his said town and
magazine might be immediately delivered up unto him, and that such
severe exemplary proceedings should be taken against those persons who
had offered him that insupportable affront, as by the law was provided.’
To the King’s letter no reply was given. But in reply to that of Sir
John Hotham a deputation of members was sent to thank him and the
soldiers under him for their services. Two warships were ordered to sail
immediately to Hull under the command of the Earl of Warwick; and the
following resolutions were passed by the two Houses:—
(1) That Sir John Hotham has done nothing but in obedience to the
commands of both Houses of Parliament.
(2) That this declaring Sir John Hotham a traitor—being a Member of
the House of Commons—is a high breach of the privilege of
Parliament.
Copies of these resolutions, and of the ‘Declaration’ which accompanied
them, were printed and spread abroad among the people. So also, from a
printing-press established in St. William’s College at York, were issued
pamphlets giving the King’s version of recent affairs. In one of these
King Charles states his views in these words:—
We would fain be answered, what title any subject of our kingdom has
to his house or land that we have not to our town of Hull? Or what
right has he to his money, plate, or jewels, that we have not to our
magazine or munition there? If we had ever such a title we would
know when we lost it? And if that magazine and munition, bought with
our own money, were ever ours, when and how the property went out of
us?
The answer of the Houses of Parliament to the King’s questions was
contained in _A Declaration of the Lords and Commons on the 26th of
May_:—
By the known law of the kingdom, the very jewels of the Crown are
not the King’s proper goods, but are only intrusted to him for the
use and ornament thereof; as the towns, forts, treasure, magazine,
offices, and people of the kingdom, and the whole kingdom itself,
are intrusted to him, for the good and safety, and best advantage
thereof; and as this trust is for the use of the kingdom, so ought
it to be managed by the advice of the Houses of Parliament, whom the
kingdom has trusted for that purpose.
While letters, pamphlets, and declarations were thus being composed,
both King and Parliament were making preparations for actual warfare.
And herein are seen the far-reaching effects of the prologue to the
drama of the Great Civil War. The King had not—so the Royalist
historian, the Earl of Clarendon, tells us—‘one barrel of powder, nor
one musket, nor any other provision necessary for an army; and, what was
worse, was not sure of any port to which they might be securely
assigned; nor had he money for the support of his table for the term of
one month.’
To purchase a supply of arms and ammunition by the sale of her own
jewels, as well as of the Crown jewels, which Parliament was shortly to
declare were ‘not the King’s proper goods,’ the Queen had sailed to
Holland; and as the result of her journey a small ship, named the
_Providence_, arrived in the Humber and was run ashore in Keyingham
Creek. Sir John Hotham, hearing of its arrival, sent out from Hull a
party of soldiers to seize its cargo. But his men were unsuccessful, and
thus a small supply of military stores reached the King at York.
Meanwhile Parliament was busy in borrowing money ‘to raise forces which
should defend the Protestant religion ... and the privileges of
Parliament.’
These few words show us what was really the cause of the trouble. There
had been growing up in the country a strong religious spirit which we
call Puritanism, and the Puritans hated everything that savoured of
Roman Catholicism. The Queen, Henrietta Maria, was a Roman Catholic, and
the King was thought to have leanings to ‘idolatry’ himself. It was
feared, in fact, that King Charles’ intention of raising an army of
22,000 soldiers for service in Ireland, and of arming them from the
magazine at Hull, was only a subterfuge. What he really intended, so the
Puritans said, was to overawe Parliament, and make England again a Roman
Catholic country.
By the judicious spreading abroad of such pamphlets as the following—
More news from Hull; or a most happy and fortunate prevention of a
most hellish and devillish plot, occasioned by some unquiet and
discontented spirits against the town of Hull, endeavouring to
command their admittance by casting balls of wild fire into the
town, which by policy and treaty they could not obtain
—Parliament succeeded in borrowing a large sum of money, and large
quantities of plate.
On June 3rd there assembled on Heworth Moor, close to the walls of York,
a huge gathering of the King’s adherents, whose help was asked in ‘the
defence of true religion, and of the laws and constitutions of this
kingdom.’ The King was here accompanied by his son, Prince Charles, a
bodyguard of 150 knights in armour, and some 800 soldiers. A month later
the Court was moved to Beverley, where the King took up residence in the
house of Lady Gee, a short distance within the North Bar.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SIR JOHN HOTHAM.]
Now began the first of two sieges which the town of Hull sustained
during the war. The King’s forces are said to have amounted to 3,000
foot soldiers and 1,000 horsemen. Two hundred of the latter, under the
command of Lord Willoughby de Eresby and Sir Thomas Glemham, were sent
to establish forts at Paull and Hessle, on the shore of the Humber,
above and below the town. A similar number of the former were employed
in digging trenches to divert the stream which gave the town its
water-supply.
But the Royalists were no match for the defenders of the town. The
Governor called a Council of War, and the Council decided on a bold
stroke of defence—nothing less than the cutting of the banks of the
Humber and the Hull. This was immediately carried out, with the result
that the low-lying lands surrounding the town were submerged, and any
widely-planned measures of attack were rendered impossible. Sir John
Meldrum, a Scots officer whom Parliament had sent down to assist the
Governor, also organised a surprise attack on the King’s forces. The
foot soldiers fled at the first blow, and the horse soldiers, thus left
unsupported, were compelled to retreat to Beverley.
Luck was, it seemed, entirely against the King. Off Paull one of the
Earl of Warwick’s ships of war fought with and sank a vessel bringing
guns and ammunition to him, and in an engagement in the village of
Anlaby a barn was set on fire which contained a large portion of the
ammunition which he then possessed. These reverses caused the King to
decide on raising the siege, and on retiring to York.
The measures adopted by the Governor for the defence of Hull thus proved
entirely successful. But an interesting side-light on these measures is
thrown by _The Humble Petition of the Gentry and Inhabitants of
Holderness_, which was signed by ‘neer three hundred’ of his ‘Majesties
most loyall and oppressed subjects,’ and ‘delivered to His Majestie at
Beverley the sixth of July, 1642.’ The petitioners declare that they
have
for the space of four moneths (with much patience and prejudice)
endured great and insupportable Losse ...
They further complain that the cutting of the river banks Drowning
part, and indangering the rest of the Levell of Holderness, is a
Presumption higher than was ever yet attempted by any Subject.
The answer of ‘the Kings most excellent Majestie,’ signed by Lord
Falkland, contains many fair words, and a promise that he will
by drawing such Forces together as he shall be able to leavie,
endeavour the Petitioners Relief in their present sufferings—
a promise which the ‘Gentry and Inhabitants of Holderness’ probably did
not consider altogether satisfactory.
Queen Henrietta Maria, who had during all this time been raising
supplies of money for her husband, set sail from Holland on February
2nd, 1643, bringing with her a supply reckoned by popular rumour at
£2,000,000. For nine days the small fleet accompanying her battled
against a storm, and the Queen’s personal bravery was shown when she
kept up the spirits of her terrified attendants with the jest that
‘Queens of England are never drowned.’
After a second start she eventually reached Bridlington Quay, and slept
once more on land. But in the early hours of the February morning the
little seaport was awakened with the noise of guns, and the crashing of
shot among the houses. Four ships of the Parliamentarians were outside
the harbour firing at the Dutch vessels which had brought over her and
her supplies.
Once again the Queen showed her courage. For, hurrying to a place of
safety in what scanty clothing she could lay hands on, she remembered
that she had left behind her little lap-dog, and would not rest content
until she had returned to her bedroom and rescued it. The rest of that
night the Queen spent taking refuge in a ditch, but the morning brought
to her aid some of the forces of the Earl of Newcastle, and the journey
to York was accomplished in safety.
* * * * *
Less than twelve months after the first siege of Hull, the town came
within an ace of falling into the hands of the King, and this through
treachery on the part of its former defender.
Sir John Hotham, who had on more than one occasion shown a certain
amount of indecision, and who was credited by some with secret leanings
to the King’s party, was greatly angered by the decision of Parliament
that its forces in the North of England should be under the command of
another Yorkshireman, Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax. Considering himself and
his services slighted, he now, with his son, Captain Hotham, plotted to
give up the town to the Queen.
But the plot was discovered, owing to counter-treachery on the part of
one of his relatives; and on June 29th Captain Mayer, in command of the
_Hercules_, then lying in the Humber, landed a hundred men and seized
the castle and block-houses.
[Illustration: MEDAL STRUCK IN MEMORY OF SIR JOHN HOTHAM.]
Meanwhile the Mayor, Mr. Thomas Raikes, had placed a guard over the
Governor’s house, and had secured possession of Captain Hotham. The
Governor himself effected his escape, passed out of the town by the
Beverley Gate, attempted unsuccessfully to cross the river Hull at
Stoneferry and at Wawne, decided to attempt to reach his house at
Scorborough, was met in Beverley by his nephew, Colonel Boynton, and was
knocked off his horse and captured by one of the latter’s soldiers.
Both father and son were sent to London on board the _Hercules_, and
were then committed to the Tower. After an imprisonment lasting for
seventeen months they were tried at the Guildhall, and condemned to
death on a charge of ‘traitorously betraying the trust imposed upon them
by Parliament.’ New Year’s Day, 1645, saw the execution of Captain
Hotham on Tower Hill, the following day saw that of his father.
To return to the events of 1643—Lord Ferdinando Fairfax was appointed
Governor of Hull in place of Sir John Hotham, and to raise money for the
payment of his soldiers sold to the Trinity House his store of family
plate. The agreement made on the occasion runs as follows:—
Whereas I Ferdinando Lord Fairfax, Lord Gen̄all of the Northerne
forces raised for the Kinge, & Parlmᵗ; and Governor of the Towne of
Kingston upon Hull, have received the some of ffoure hundered
pownds, & foure shillings of the Guild, or Brotherhood of Maisters
Pilotts, & seamen of the Trynity howse of the said Towne, for the
use of the King, & Parlmᵗ: I doe hereby grant, bargaine, & sell
sev̄all peices of silver plate conteining in weight one thousand six
hundered ffiftie six ownces, to the said Trynity howse, & their
successours for ever and have delivered the said plate to Willm
Peck, & Willm Rayks Wardens of the said howse to the use thereof. In
witnesse whereof, I have hereto sett my hand & seale the 4th day of
September, Anno dni 1643
Fer: fairfax.
Two days before the signing of this agreement the second siege of Hull
had been begun by the Marquis of Newcastle, with a force of 4,000 horse
soldiers and 12,000 foot. This had been rendered necessary by the fact
that Newcastle’s _Cavaliers_ would not leave their Yorkshire homes on a
march southward, while the hated _Roundheads_ remained in possession of
a stronghold from which they could with ease ravage the surrounding
country. Hence Newcastle wanted, above all things, to gain possession of
the town.
The second siege of Hull was very largely a repetition of the first. The
besiegers cut off the water-supply, and also succeeded in mounting guns
within half-a-mile of the town walls. With these guns much damage was at
first done; for by constructing a furnace for the heating of balls, the
gunners were enabled to fire red-hot balls over the walls of the town.
But this was not for long, Lord Fairfax’s erection of a flanking battery
soon putting these guns out of action.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_
Hull’s Water Gate.[55]
]
At the beginning of the siege the Governor’s son, Sir Thomas Fairfax,
who had been driven out of Beverley, had taken refuge within the walls
with a large body of cavalry. But horse soldiers are not of much use in
repelling a siege, and their horses are likely to be a severe hindrance.
So it was in this case; and when the opportunity was afforded by the
arrival of some of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers at Barton, Sir Thomas and
his ‘twenty troops of horse’ were ferried across to Lincolnshire.
Footnote 55:
This passage, which connects Blackfriargate and Little Humber Street,
was, in the seventeenth century, the only entrance to the town from
the landing-place on the Humber. It is less than seven feet wide.
On the 22nd of September—a day being held in the town as one of fasting
and humiliation—Cromwell himself crossed over the Humber, bringing a
fresh supply of muskets and powder. The town was now once more entirely
surrounded by water. For a fortnight before this the former Governor’s
plan of cutting the rivers’ banks had been carried out, and the
Royalists thus compelled to abandon their positions.
Things were going badly for the besiegers. On September 28th their
powder magazine at Cottingham was blown up, but whether by accident or
by treachery is not known. On October 5th a reinforcement of 500 men
crossed over to Hull from Lincolnshire, and six days later the garrison
made a successful sally and captured one of a pair of huge guns known
familiarly as ‘the Queen’s pocket pistols.’ That night the Marquis of
Newcastle determined to raise the siege, and on the 12th of October the
besieging army withdrew to York, smaller by one-half than it had been
six weeks earlier.
* * * * *
The importance of the two sieges of Hull cannot be overestimated. Had
the first been successful, the King would have been in the position to
strike a decisive blow before the forces of Parliament were organised.
In 1643 the King’s plan of campaign was that his three armies—his own at
Oxford, that under Sir Ralph Hopton in Cornwall, and that under the Earl
of Newcastle in Yorkshire—should converge on London, the headquarters of
Parliament.
But for this plan to succeed two obstacles must be removed. The
Parliamentarians held the seaport towns of Plymouth and Hull. The siege
of each was undertaken; and the siege of each failed, mainly because
Parliament held ‘the command of the sea.’ Thus, in the words of the
great historian of the Great Civil War, ‘Hull and Plymouth saved the
Parliamentary cause.’
XXIII.
SOME ANCIENT EAST RIDING FAMILIES.
‘My ancestor came over with William the Conqueror,’ boasts one who is
proud of his long line of ancestors. ‘So did mine’—‘and mine’—‘and
mine’—might say a good number of us. Perhaps we could not prove our
statement, but never mind. If we cannot prove that an ancestor of ours
did come over with William the Conqueror, no one can prove that he
didn’t.
Of course we all of us had ancestors living somewhere or other in the
year 1066, but there are very few who can identify those ancestors. How
many of us can trace back our pedigree for a couple of hundred years?
Few probably. But the family descent of some of our countrymen and
countrywomen can be traced back for several hundred years. These are our
nobles and landed gentry.
Thus the descent of the present Baron Hotham of South Dalton can be
traced back, through the Sir John Hotham who defied King Charles I., to
an ancestor who in the twelfth century changed his name from De Trehouse
to Hotham; that of Major Chichester-Constable of Burton Constable to an
Ulbert Constable who lived in the reign of Henry I.; that of the Duchess
of Norfolk to a William Fitz Nigel, who was Lord of Flamborough in the
same reign; that of Mr. W. H. St. Quintin of Scampston Hall to a Sir
Herbert de St. Quintin who was one of the companions-in-arms of William
the Conqueror; and that of the Duke of Northumberland and Earl of
Beverley to a Willelmus de Perci, who ‘came over with the Conqueror’ in
the year 1067.
* * * * *
Proudest of all the proud nobles of the North were the PERCYS, whose
descent from Willelmus de Perci has just been mentioned. Willelmus took
his surname from the village of Perci in Normandy, and himself boasted a
descent from one of the companions of that Rolf the Viking who sailed up
the Seine in the year 912. _Als Gernons_ he was nicknamed, from his
habit of wearing whiskers, whence the name ‘Algernon’ which was given
generation after generation to the male members of the family.
In the Domesday Book Willelmus de Perci is recorded as the
tenant-in-chief of more than a hundred manors in Yorkshire, and of
twenty-three in Lincolnshire. Among the former were Leconfield,
Scorborough, and Nafferton; among the latter Immingham. Willelmus was
one of the Norman knights who accompanied Duke Robert of Normandy in the
First Crusade, and he died at Mountjoy within sight of the Holy City.
Century after century the Percys took part in all great affairs of
state. A Percy fought in the Battle of the Standard, another took part
in the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede, another was taken prisoner
with the King at the battle of Lewes, another fought in the great naval
victory of Sluys, and helped to win the battle of Neville’s Cross six
years later.
The thirteenth Baron Percy was created Earl of Northumberland on the day
of Richard II.’s coronation. But he and his son ‘Harry Hotspur’—the hero
of the famous battle known as ‘Chevy Chace’—befriended Henry of
Lancaster when he landed at Ravenser Spurn. Afterwards, however, both
father and son rebelled, and Hotspur met his death at Shrewsbury, while
his father was slain at Bramham Moor, in Northumberland. Hotspur’s son,
the second Earl, fell at the battle of St. Albans which opened the ‘Wars
of the Roses,’ and his grandson, the third Earl, fell at Towton six
years later. Such a race of fighters were the Percys.
Most princely of the line was Henry Algernon Percy, the fifth Earl,
nicknamed ‘Henry the Magnificent.’ He took part in the Field of the
Cloth of Gold, and ruined himself by the expense there entailed. This
Henry Percy possessed a castle at Wressle, and a fortified manor-house
at Leconfield—the latter a large house standing ‘withyn a great Mote,’
and built ‘three partes ... of tymbere,’ the fourth part being ‘of stone
and some brike.’ The ‘Mote’ remains, but all traces of the ‘large House’
with its eighty-three rooms have disappeared.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] Wressle Castle. [_C.W. Mason_
]
Wressle Castle, or rather a part of it, still exists—the only ancient
castle in the whole of the East Riding. Built in the closing years of
the fourteenth century, it remained the chief Yorkshire seat of the
Percys till the time of the Great Civil War; when orders for its
destruction were issued by a Parliamentary Committee at York, although
the owner—the tenth Earl of Northumberland—had sided with Parliament
against the King.
The castle was built round a central courtyard, and in 1650 three sides
of the square were pulled down, only the south side being left standing.
A fire which broke out about 120 years ago completed the destruction of
the interior of this remaining side, so that what exists to-day is a
mere shell.
This block of buildings contained the Great Chamber or Dining Hall, the
Drawing-Chamber, and the Chapel. The last was afterwards used as the
Parish Church. On its ceiling was painted the Percy motto:—
=Esperance en Dieu ma Comforte.=
Above the chapel was a small chamber which is thus described by a
visitor in the reign of Henry VIII.:—
One thing I likid exceedingly yn one of the Towers, that was a
Study, caullid Paradise; where was a Closet in the midle, of 8
squares latised aboute, and at the Toppe of every square was a Desk
ledgid to set Bookes on Cofers withyn them, and these semid as
yoinid hard to the Toppe of the Closet; and yet by pulling, one or
al wold cum downe briste higthe in rabettes,[56] and serve for
Deskes to lay Bokes on.
Footnote 56:
_Rabbets_ are grooves cut in the edge of a piece of wood.
Much interesting information as to life in a mediæval castle can be
gleaned from what is known as _The Northumberland Household Book_.[57]
The original manuscript of this was prepared in 1512 by the orders of
Henry the Magnificent, and gives a detailed account of the estimated
household expenditure for a year and of the regulations of the
household.
Footnote 57:
A reprint was published in 1905 by A. Brown & Sons, Ltd.
From this book we learn that the staff at Wressle Castle consisted of
166 persons, of whom eleven were priests, and that ‘the Hole Expensys
... for oone hole Yere amounted to DCCCCXXXIIJ_L._ VJ_S._ VIIJ_D._’ It
is strange to find that beds, hangings, and furniture were moved from
one residence to another when the Earl travelled, and that there is no
mention of glass among the table requisites, vessels for eating and
drinking being solely of wood or pewter.
For travelling and for hunting the Earl’s stables contained _vj Gentle
Hors_, _iiij Palfreis_ (one for my Lady and three for my Lady’s
gentlewomen), _iij Naggs_, _iij Sumpter Hors_ and _Mail Hors_ (for
carrying the bed, coffers, and coats of mail), vij Hors for the use of
servants, and _vij Charriot-hors to drawe in the Charriot_.
* * * * *
Very precise rules are given for the serving of meals. Breakfast was
served at eight, and dinner at eleven, each morning. Among the rules to
be observed for the serving of meals are these:—