84 The Wiltshire Compounders. 
suspicion that he was about to take prominent action against the 
Parliament, he was captured in Oxfordshire as early as the summer 
of 1642 and sent to the Tower. The first document, therefore, to be 
cited in his case is the following appeal to the House of Lords, dated 
from the Tower, 5th September, 1642 :— 
“The humble petition of Thomas, Earl of Berkshire ;—That your lordships 
will be pleased to admit him into your presence and give him leave to speak for 
himself. Or, if by occasion of your important affairs, your lordships cannot be 
at leisure to hear him, his humble desire is that your lordships will be pleased 
to permit him for his health’s sake to remain at his house near St. James’, upon 
promise of his honour or upon bail or any other security your lordships shall 
think fit, to appear whensoever your lordships shall command. And he shall 
ever pray, &c. 
“ BERKSHIRE.” 
On the 14th he was brought to the House, where, kneeling at 
bar, he reiterated his request. On being charged with having 
entered Oxfordshire with intent to put in execution the King’s 
commission of array, he protested as in the sight of Heaven, that it 
had all along been his fixed resolution to have nothing to do with 
that commission, regarding it as injurious to the King; and that 
the meeting at Watlington with Lord Waineman, Mr. Whitelock, 
and others, was only to concert measures for guarding their respective 
habitations from plunder; and he further declared that there were 
no arms in his house. On which the Lords agreed to release him 
from the Tower and allow him to remain at his Town house, if he 
would undertake to appear whensoever summoned, at six hours’ notice 
—to which arrangement he assented, with expression of thanks. In 
the spring of 1643 he obtained a pass to go into the country with 
ten servants and his coach and horses, on passing his word of honour 
to the Speaker of the House of Lords that he would not go to 
Oxford, but only to his own house. And he appears to have duly 
returned to London, for it is certain he was a prisoner there when, 
in the following spring, his mansion at Charlton fell into the hands 
of a party of Parliamentarians stationed at Malmesbury, who 
plundered it, in March, 1644. Such, at least, was the affirmation 
of his Countess, who was probably resident here at the time, for 
she forwarded a petition, 27th March, praying the Lords to allow 
