1G39.] WINCHESTER — BERWICK. 149 



prohibited the horse match intended, and (as I gather) made 

 to the same pernicious end you conceived. I 

 have given the Lord Marshal notice hereof, and March, 

 dehvered my opinion, which is, that since we Charles i. 

 discover evidently the ill neighbours of that town ^^^^'^ ' 

 look with craft eye upon it, they being prevented in this, will 

 soon hatch some other trick." . . . 



Underwritten by Sir Jacob Astley : * " Hearing of their 

 intended horse-race at Berwick, I desired Lord Clifford to 

 write to the Mayor to forbid it, and they have done it. New- 

 castle, 1 2th March, 1638-9." 



William Fenwick, Mayor of Berwick, to Sir Jacob Astley : 

 " I received your letter and thank you for your respect for 

 this poor town. The Scots for any thing I can perceive are 

 still insolent in their ways, but they desisted from their horse- 

 race in our bounds." Berwick, 21st March, 1638-9. 



Robert, Earl of Essex, to Secretary Windebank : " Meeting 

 with ill horses all the way, I got no further the first night 

 than Granthan, where I found Sir William Howard ; he told 

 me the race was either the two or three and twentieth at 

 Berwick, and that the Covenanters had got between the 

 Marquis of Huntley and Aberdeen. Yesterday I met with 

 William Keith, a Scotch gentleman. . . . He told me no such 

 thing had been performed, only the Earl of Home's brother 

 had made a match for ten dollars, but it was not run, and that 

 no troops were as yet marched towards Aberdeen." York, 

 March 23, 1638-9. — State Papers, Domestic, Charles I., vol. 

 cccxiv., No. 91 ii. Ibid.,wo\. cccxv.. No. 11 i. Ibid., No. 16. 

 MS., P. R. O. 



^^'^ The family of Astley, one of the most ancient and 



* This Sir Jacob Astley was at this time Sergeant-General of the army 

 in the North. The Earl of Essex, a man of strict honour, and extremely 

 popular, especially among the soldiery, was appointed Lieutenant-General 

 of this expedition against the Scots. The king himself joined the army, 

 and he summoned all the peers of England to attend him. The whole 

 had the appearance of a splendid court rather than of a military arma- 

 ment ; and in this situation, carrying more show than real force with it, 

 the camp arrived at Berwick. 



