POLITICAL HISTORY 



Quennell who had the king's commission and tried to get a force together 

 even before the raising of the king's standard. 



The north-west of the county, beyond a line drawn from Farnham 

 to Kingston, was involved in the operations of the first campaign of the 

 civil wars in 1642. As early as January, 1642, there were rumours of 

 a Royalist plot to seize Kingston. It was supposed to be part of a 

 larger design for securing Portsmouth. Colonel Lunsford and Lord 

 Digby were at Kingston, other cavaliers were collected about Windsor 

 and Hampton Court. A wagon load of supplies was said to have 

 reached Farnham from Windsor on its road to Portsmouth, and the 

 occupation of Kingston would prevent aid from London being sent 

 readily down the Portsmouth road. Moreover since Elizabeth's reign 

 one of the storehouses of the arms of the Surrey trainbands was at 

 Kingston. Perhaps it was the only magazine since Guildford Castle had 

 become a private house. The Parliament ordered the sheriffs of Surrey 

 and of the neighbouring counties to call out the trainbands to guard 

 against any design. The king gave no definite orders, after his manner. 

 Lunsford allowed himself to be arrested, and Digby left the country. 



In August the Civil War broke out in earnest. Sir Richard 

 Onslow was in command of the Surrey trainbands, but at the outset 

 any fighting seemed likely to be far away from Surrey. It was not 

 thought that the king could assemble a really effective army. He had 

 little money or stores. Of the three chief magazines of the kingdom, the 

 Tower and Hull were in the hands of the Parliament, and Portsmouth 

 was quickly seized. The king had got it into his hands after all, but 

 Goring his governor had to evacuate it before the Earl of Hertford could 

 succour him from the west. 1 It was hoped that Essex would overwhelm 

 the king's half organized forces near the Welsh marches, and that no 

 war would come near London. Kingston however, so important for its 

 bridge, and a town of Royalist sympathies, as was natural to a place 

 chartered and favoured by nearly every king who had reigned since 

 Henry III. and not least by Charles, was occupied by Sir Richard 

 Onslow. Farnham, where the bishop's palace was in a naturally strong 

 position, and where the road passed from London to Winchester and 

 Southampton and by one route to Portsmouth, was made a garrison. 

 George Wither the poet, who lived near at hand in Hampshire, was 

 made governor of Farnham Castle on October 14. We know a good 

 deal from one side about his tenure of the post. Wither is not now a 

 popular poet. ' The Shepheard's Hunting ' is nearly forgotten. But 

 his poetry deserves to be remembered, and he was the kind of man who 

 was determined that no one should forget him if he could help it. He 

 was in his own estimation one of the moving forces of the age, and 

 Farnham Castle received new importance from the fact that he was 

 commander. His pamphlets Se Defendendo and Justiciarius Justificatus 



1 Hertford and the Earl of Bedford had a skirmish at ' Evill,' which the editor of the Calendar of 

 the St. P. Dam. Ch. I. 1642 seems to read as Ewell in Surrey. But it must have been some other place, 

 probably Yeovil. 



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