A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



lands which had been forfeited for recusancy, and to compound with them 

 for sums of money due by reason of the same offence."* This leniency gave 

 great offence to the Puritans, but was nobly rewarded in the approaching 

 Civil War by the Roman Catholics. 



The same year the king visited Tutbury, and a proclamation was issued 

 postponing Tutbury fair, the minstrels' court, and the bull-running from 

 15 August to 22 August, as the king would be there on the ifth, intending 

 to spend five nights. The reason given for this was that a great confluence 

 of people being attracted to such scenes there was in these times, when the 

 plague was an ever-threatening enemy, great danger of infection. 8 " 



In the second Bishops' War in 1640 Charles called on Staffordshire 

 among other counties for its quota of men, who were furnished him in the 

 case of the infantry by the train-bands and by impressment ; the cost of 

 their equipment and maintenance until they had crossed the borders of 

 the county * w was paid by the shire under the name of coat and conduct 

 money, but many of the country gentlemen refused to pay it, and the crown, 

 knowing its unpopularity, dared not prosecute them. The men were promised 

 8</. a day, 367 but owing to the chronic emptiness of the royal exchequer 

 often went unpaid. The cavalry contingent from Staffordshire numbered 

 sixty-nine cuirassiers and thirty-one light horsemen. The infantry, who in 

 the previous year had been drawn chiefly from the northern counties, were 

 now drawn from the southern, which had no traditional feuds with the Scots. 

 Insubordination was rife, the men supplemented arrears of pay by plunder, 

 and in Staffordshire, among other offences, they pulled down fences and burnt 

 them. 268 An amusing letter from the deputy-lieutenants of the county men- 

 tions that it was necessary to put constables in charge of these defenders of 

 their country, and even this precaution did not keep them within bounds. 

 It is hardly necessary to say that these men on meeting the Scots ran like 

 sheep. 



In 1641 the king visited the county, and in the same year the Commons 

 expressed their opinion that the recusants in it should be disarmed of all war- 

 like weapons, but without violence. 269 No doubt this was directed against 

 them as a body of men who were known to be loyal to the king. 

 But though there were many recusants the great body of the people of 

 the county viewed the king's policy with alarm ; in May, 1641, more than 

 2,000 of the knights, esquires, gentlemen, ministers, freeholders, and other 

 inhabitants prayed the House of Lords to present to the king their loyal and 

 humble desires that he would settle the militia question, and ' that he would 

 lean upon the hand and follow the counsels of Parliament, and would send 

 speedy succour to their brethren in Ireland.' 270 



On 10 January, 1642, Charles fled from Whitehall, and for the next 

 eight months both sides with difficulty prepared for war a nation which 



164 Rymer, FotJera (orig. cd.), six, 740. ** Ibid, xx, 46. 



** Fortescue, Hist, of the Army, i, 1 96. The train-bands were now composed exclusively of musketeers 



and pikemen, bows and bills having been abolished in 1596, and calivers a generation later (Firth, 



Army, 8). They were only drilled once a month, and treated their drills as ' matters of disport and things of 



no moment." 



867 The ordinary pay of the infantry of the day, a labourer receiving from tenpence to a shilling. As 

 money then went three times as far as it does now his pay was fair, but out of it he had to provide money for 

 food and clothing ; Firth, Cromwell's Army, 189. ** Cal. S.P. Dam. 1640, pp. 477-8. 



169 Ibid. 1641-3, p. 100. m Hut. A/SS. Com. Rep. v, 23. 



2 5 6 



