A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



The committee of Bedfordshire was urged to use all possible diligence to 

 recruit his regiment, and he was thanked for his services by the House of 

 Commons, 5 July.'" In the early part of July Rupert was about Buck- 

 ingham, and Essex at Aylesbury and at Brickhill on the western border 

 of Bedfordshire. During August both armies were busy with the siege and 

 relief of Gloucester ; and on 20 September the first battle of Newbury was 

 fought. Rupert and Urry "' sallied out from Oxford on 1 5 October to plunder 

 Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, while Sir Lewis Dyve established him- 

 self at Newport Pagnell, where he began to throw up fortifications.'" Dyve 

 had made a raid into Bedfordshire, and at Ampthill, 4 October, captured a 

 committee of ' well-afFected gentry and freeholders,' who had been appointed 

 by Parliament to sequestrate the estates of the Royalists, and carried them off 

 to Oxford,^^^ his presence encouraging the Royalists to hold a commission of 

 array at ShefFord.'*' Rupert's force attacked the town of Bedford, ' occupied 

 as a strong quarter by the enemy ' "" under Sir John Norris. ' Such was the 

 cowardice of the trained-bands, or rather malignancy, that not a man of 

 them would stir,''" so that Norris was compelled to surrender the town, 

 though he himself escaped, while about the same time the Michaelmas fair 

 at Dunstable furnished much booty,"' and Luke's house was pillaged."^ 



The occupation of Newport Pagnell was regarded as even more serious 

 than that of Reading, for not only did it cut communication between London 

 and the north — that had already been cut by the Royalist occupation of 

 Towcester, some ten miles north of Stony Stratford — but it directly threatened 

 the district of the Eastern Association, of which Bedfordshire seems always 

 to have been regarded as an outpost. It was particularly important that no 

 trouble should be given in that direction, as Manchester had now taken Lynn, 

 and Cromwell was getting into touch with the Fairfaxes at Hull from his 

 base in the Eastern Associated counties. The advance upon Reading was 

 promptly abandoned, and the London regiments followed Essex along Watling 

 Street through Dunstable and Little Brickhill for Newport. On 28 October 

 Dyve abandoned his rising fortifications, which were at once occupied by a 

 detachment of Essex's army, while another detachment fortified St. Albans. 

 ' Whatever happened elsewhere the line of communication with the north 

 must be firmly held.' "* The money urgently needed for the completion of 

 Sir Lewis Dyve's works at Newport Pagnell was opportunely provided by 

 the heavy fines inflicted upon two of the judges who had given judgement 

 for the legality of ship-money.'" Skippon was there towards the end of 

 November,"' and when Essex's army drew off in December, Sir Samuel Luke 

 was left in command. Newport was constituted a garrison by an ordinance 

 dated 18 December 1643,'" and was of great importance as a frontier post. 

 Bedfordshire was required to send into it a month later 225 'able and armed 



^-' Commons' Journ. iii, 1 563. 



'^ The name also appears as Hurry, but Urry is the form adopted in the Diet. Nat. Biog. 

 *" Gardiner, op. cit. i, 285. '" Perfect Diurnal, no. 12. 



*" Gent. Mag. xciii, pt. 2, p. 30, quoting Certain Informations, 30 Oct. 

 ^™ Clarendon, op. cit. vii, 288. "' Perfect Diurnal, no. 14. 



*" A. Kingston, Herts, during Civil War, 40. "' Mercurius Civicus, no. 22. 



^'* Gardiner, op. cit. i, 286. 



'""' Ibid. One of the judges was Chief Justice Trevor, a near relative of the Trevor who, sixty year* 

 later, was to buy Bromham Hall from Sir Lewis Dyve's descendants. 



*'" Gardiner, op. cit. i, 293. *" Lords' Journ. vi, 344-5. 



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