A HISTORY OF SURREY 



a dash upon Farnham with a body of horse and occupied the place. 

 But what Hopton could not manage in the far more prosperous state of 

 the king's affairs a year before could not be managed by Goring now. 

 An invasion of the south-east to any good purpose was impracticable. 

 Unable to maintain himself so far from any support and with no money, 

 Goring retired again the next day. He was gone before the belated 

 order of the Committee of the Two Kingdoms, issued on January 13 to 

 General Middleton, to take what horse and foot there were at Guildford 

 to Farnham against him, could be acted upon. The only other war 

 alarm in Surrey in the course of the year was from men impressed in 

 Kent for the New Model Army, who were reported to be in revolt and 

 to be marching into Surrey. However they never came. Troops were 

 despatched from the county to the west, and men were raised for the 

 New Model. In the course of 1 645 the Committee of the Two King- 

 doms took precautions about the gunpowder mills at Chilworth. They 

 forbade the manufacturer to keep more saltpetre than was necessary to 

 make the powder which they required from time to time. They were 

 apprehensive that the powder might be supplied to the king's friends. 1 

 Waller had already disabled the Royalist ironworks in the country. 



The Civil War, in its first phase, ended in 1646, and the task of 

 restoring a peaceful government began a task destined soon to lead to 

 further war among the conflicting interests which the first contest had 

 left powerful. 



The original Royalist party had been beaten out of the field, but 

 almost at once the quarrels began, or became acute we should rather 

 say, between the really discordant parties who had opposed the king. 

 Like other counties which had been wholly in the hands of the Parlia- 

 ment in the earlier war, Surrey became the scene of disturbance and of 

 actual fighting in the later contests. The first threatening of renewed 

 war was in June, 1647, when the army seized the king's person and 

 impeached eleven members of Parliament. The eleven members were 

 allowed leave of absence, and Parliament began to treat with the army 

 which was supposed to be their servant. The Speaker himself, Lenthall, 

 who had been a justice of the peace for Surrey, with certain lords and 

 commoners, fled to the army ; but the temper of London was uncertain 

 and the troops closed upon it. The capital had been fortified against 

 the king in 1642 and 1643. It was covered by forts connected by 

 lines of earthworks extending over a circuit of twelve miles. On the 

 Surrey side there was a fort at Vauxhall, another near St. George's 

 Fields, a third by Kent Street. The gatehouse and drawbridge of 

 London Bridge formed an interior defence to the passage into the City. 

 The army was substantially in the same position which the king had 

 occupied in the autumn of 1642, being at Colnbrook, Hounslow and 

 Kingston, but was much stronger than he had been, and was opposed to 

 a divided enemy. They were strong enough practically to invest the 



1 See St. P. Dom. 1645, for this, and passim, with Letter Book of the Committee of both Kingdoms 

 for Civil War above. 



412 



