POLITICAL HISTORY 



The thanks of Parliament were immediately (6 October) voted to the 

 townsmen of Manchester for their defence ; and Lord Derby was summoned 

 by the king to bring up his Lancashire regiments to his aid. They took 

 part in the fight of Edge Hill, but the earl himself was ordered back to 

 Lancashire without his forces to raise fresh levies and to defend the county 

 as best he could. During November the earl sallying from Lathom attacked 

 Blackburn and Leigh,"' but in both cases unsuccessfully. In December 

 a meeting of Royalists was called at Preston to arrange for the financing of 

 the campaign. A rate was imposed on the county, and Lord Derby was 

 styled 'Lord General of Lancashire.'."' Thus ended the first year of the war 

 in Lancashire, with definite preparations on both sides for its continuance. 



The Parliament had sent down cannon to Colonel Assheton in Lanca- 

 shire, and early in 1643 Sir John Seaton, who had been hurried up from 

 London, had some successes in the northern part of the county whither he 

 had marched accompanied by some of the stout garrison of Manchester. 

 In February, 1643, ^^ stormed and took Preston,^^" and Colonel Birch, 

 another Parliamentary commander, temporarily occupied Lancaster Castle. ^^^ 

 The earl at once hastened thither, set fire to a portion of it,^^^ and retook 

 Preston."^ Flushed with this partial success Lord Derby hurried forward 

 to Manchester, with a real and fixed determination, as he said, to take it or 

 leave his bones before it. Here again, however, the king thwarted his 

 enthusiastic Lancashire general by ordering the withdrawal of Lord Molyneux 

 and his regiment to serve him in person. In vain Lord Derby besought him 

 to stay even for a few days to accomplish the reduction of the city, and 

 was thus again reluctantly obliged to give up the attempt and retire to the 

 Royalist head quarters at Wigan.^''* Continually thwarted in his designs 

 the earl after attacking Bolton without success,^" and after being repulsed 

 by Colonel Assheton at Whalley,^^* retreated to his house at Lathom, and 

 thence in May, 1643, proceeded to York to join the queen.^" In his 

 absence Liverpool surrendered to Colonel Assheton. 



The earl of Derby, being both disheartened by the jealousy with which 

 his operations had been regarded and discredited by their ill-success, was 

 superseded in his command in the county by the earl of Newcastle, 

 who took over the Lancashire campaign, and who imperiously, from his 

 camp at Bradford, summoned Manchester to surrender. The town's reply 

 was dignified and significant.^^' They based their refusal as before on their 

 endeavour to preserve the honour of the king in all legal rights and preroga- 

 tives, together with the privileges of the subject by law established. Nor, 

 by such a defence, did they esteem they had put themselves ' out of his 

 Majesty's protection.' This answer was sent on 7 July, 1643, and at the 

 same time the precaution was taken to guard the passes into Yorkshire which 

 might be attempted by the Royalist army. Newcastle's campaign against 

 Manchester went no further than a few skirmishes in the passes, after which 

 he gave up the attempt, as Lord Derby had done before him. Meanwhile 

 in the North Colonel Rigby had defeated Colonel Tyldesley and others in 



"» CwilWar Tracts, No. xv, 123, 65. "» Ibid. 67, 68. "» Ibid. 72, 127, 224, 9 Feb. 1643. 



•" Ibid. 84, 130. "' Ibid. 85-8, 131. 



"' Ibid. 85, 132. '" Seacombe, op. cit. 84. 



'" Cwil War tracts, 133. '" Ibid. 96, 135. 



'" Ibid. 99, 160, 280. "' Ibid. 144, quoted supra, note 105. 



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