Editor's Preface ix 



setting to work uncomplainingly to restore his ruined estate. 

 It lies rather in the portrait drawn of a great English nobleman 

 of the seventeenth century ; his manners and his habits, his 

 occupations and amusements, his maxims and his opinions, 

 his domestic policy and his alliances with neighbouring poten- 

 tates, all are recorded and set down with the loving fidelity 

 of a Boswell. For the account of her husband's exile and the 

 description of his daily life the Duchess depended on her own 

 observations and recollections. But for that part of the book 

 which treats of his warlike exploits she relied on the informa- 

 tion she received from his secretary, John Rolleston. 



Rolleston had rilled a position which must have enabled 

 him to know the truth on many doubtful points, and to explain, 

 had he thought fit, the causes which determined the strategy 

 of his General. It is therefore much to be regretted that so 

 meagre an account is given of many important incidents and 

 resolutions during the Yorkshire campaigns. For these 

 campaigns exercised a decisive influence on the course of the 

 Civil War in the eastern and midland counties, and had New- 

 castle been a more capable general, the northern army might 

 have forestalled the New-Model. The first and one of the 

 most important services of Newcastle was the occupation of 

 the town from which he took his title. The ports of the south 

 and east of England, from Bristol to the towns of the York- 

 shire coast, were all in the hands of the Parliament, and with- 

 out communication with the Continent the King could hardly 

 have conducted one campaign. The possession of Newcastle 

 enabled him to receive the arms and ammunition which he 

 urgently needed, and supplied, a landing-place for the old 

 soldiers who flocked from Holland and Germany to officer 

 his armies. In the next place, the great territorial influence 

 of Lord Newcastle enabled him to raise an army in the four 

 northern counties with unusual speed ; and, at a period when 

 2000 or 3000 men was a large army, to advance with double 

 that number into Yorkshire, and occupy York just when it 

 was on the point of falling into the hands of Lord Fairfax. 

 Considering the great superiority of his forces, Newcastle's 

 operations against Lord Fairfax, which commenced in Decem- 

 ber 1642, can hardly be considered very creditable to his 

 military talents. It required three separate attacks to expel 

 the Fairfaxes from the West Riding. The first commenced 



