46 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book VII. 



of March this year, and probably sojourned there until 

 about the 13th, as, on the 14th, this authority states the 

 royal party had reached Huntingdon on that day. 



Almost simultaneously with the king's arrival, a 

 committee of both Houses reached Newmarket with 

 the declaration of Parliament, which they immediately 

 presented to his Majesty at the palace, on March 7, 

 1641-2. It is printed in Lord Clarendon's " History 

 of the Rebellion," Book iv. The committee comprised 

 the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery the Earl of 

 Holland, Lord Dunsmore,^^^ Lord Seymour,^""^ and eight 

 of the members of the House of Commons.'" 



Mr. Clements R. Markham, F.S.A., in his 

 excellent " Life of the Great Lord Fairfax," says : — 



" The civil war became inevitable when Charles obstinately 

 refused to allow the Parliament to have a voice in the nomina- 

 tion of the lord-lieutenants of counties. After his lawless 

 attempt to seize the five members, the safety, and indeed the 

 very existence, of the two Houses clearly depended on their 

 having some control over the militia. This appears to have 

 been more or less evident to both sides from the first. The 

 mission of the Queen to Holland with the crown jewels 

 had for its main object the collection of arms, to enable 

 Charles to levy war against the representatives of the people, 

 and his final departure from London was a virtual avowal of 

 his hostile intentions. But the King himself was quite unequal 

 to the great and wicked enterprise which he meditated ; and 

 Strafford, the only very able man on his side, was dead. 

 Charles evidently felt this. His conduct was vacillating 

 and uncertain, and his temper more than usually irritable. 

 Both sides saw the mighty responsibility of an appeal to 

 arms, and the volumes of State papers which flew backwards 



* MS. Bodleian Lib., Oxon. 



