iv. 149; Commons', iii. 186.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1643. March 2.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1643. July 28.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1643. August 8.]
London was preserved from danger, not by the new lines of circumvallation,
or the prowess of Waller, but through the insubordination which prevailed
among the royalists. The earl, now marquess, of Newcastle, who had
associated the northern counties in favour of the king, had defeated the
lord Fairfax, the parliamentary general, at Atherton Moor, in Yorkshire,
and retaken Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, from the army under Cromwell.
Here, however, his followers refused to accompany him any further. It was
in vain that he called upon them to join the grand army in the south, and
put an end at once to the war by the reduction of the capital. They had
been embodied for the defence of the northern counties, and could not
be induced to extend the limits of that service for which they had been
originally enrolled. Hence the king, deprived of one half of his expected
force, was compelled to adopt a new plan of operations. Turning his back on
London, he hastened towards the Severn, and invested Gloucester, the only
place of note in the midland counties which admitted the authority of
the parliament.
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