Sir Charles Lucas 213 



the first, that his engagement to Fairfax had been ended by his 

 payment of a composition for his estates ; the second, that the 

 action of the Parliament against him had justified him in taking 

 up arms in self-defence. With regard to the first it may fairly be 

 held that the personal obligation to Fairfax had been superseded 

 and ended by the arrangement with the civil government ; from 

 being a prisoner Lucas had become a citizen, and substituted for 

 his former obligation to the commander-in-chief a new obligation 

 to the civil power. In the list of compounders Sir Charles Lucas, 

 knight, of Horsey, Essex, appears as having paid in part a fine 

 fixed at ^508, ios. But the committee at Goldsmith's Hall, to 

 which this composition was paid, exacted from delinquents an oath 

 not to assist the King against the Parliament, ' nor any forces 

 raised without the consent of the two Houses of Parliament in 

 this cause or war ' (vide Husbands' Collection of Ordinances, fob, 

 1646, pp. 636, and 739). We know from his own petition that 

 Lucas took this oath. The action of Sir Charles in taking up arms 

 again in 1648 was a distinct breach of this engagement {Calendar 

 of the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents, iii, 1821). 



With reference to the second plea it may be stated that Lucas 

 more than any other man was responsible, if Matthew Carter is 

 to be trusted, for the refusal by the loyalists of Essex of the in- 

 demnity offered them by Parliament if they laid down their arms. 

 (Passed in the House of Commons, June 5, 1648). Rushworth 

 gives the following news from Essex under June 7 : ' That the 

 Parliament's commissioners having published the indemnity at 

 Bow to those that should lay down arms, Sir William Hicks and 

 divers others of the gentlemen submitted, and the Lord Goring re- 

 treated back from thence. But Sir Charles Lucas, that eminent 

 cavalier, is come into them, and keeps up the soldiers, making great 

 promises to them ; and by his insinuations hath prevailed with the 

 discontented party not to lay down arms.' It must be admitted 

 that this circumstance, confirmed by the evidence of Rushworth 

 and Carter, does not seem to bear out the statement of Sir Charles 

 Lucas that he took up arms in self-defence. At the same time he 

 expressly states that the committee of Derby House put a price 

 upon his head, and till the truth or falsehood of that statement is 

 ascertained a final judgment on this second plea is hardly possible. 



For a detailed account of the siege the reader must be referred to 

 Mr. G. F. Townshend's Siege of Colchester, to Mr. Markham's Life 

 of Fairfax, and to the anonymous author of The History and Antiqui- 

 ties of Colchester Castle (Colchester, 1882). Carter's True Relation 

 of the Honourable though Unfortunate Expedition of Kent, Essex and 

 Colchester, together with the contemporary diurnals and the ex- 

 tracts in Rushworth, supply a full account of the incidents of the 



