POLITICAL HISTORY 



notwithstanding this involuntary aid from the Royalists, and on 7 May 

 1645 a remonstrance from Bedfordshire was presented to the Committee 

 of Both Kingdoms by the Earls of Bolingbroke and Elgin. The in- 

 habitants complained that in the last two years they had been ' damnified ' 

 by free quarters, taking of horses, and other charges not imposed by 

 Parliament, ;^5o,ooo at least. They desired allowance of quarter out 

 of the money advanced to Fairfax, as they could not both find free 

 quarter and pay the tax for his army. Unless they received compensation 

 for their losses and relief from these burdens they could not possibly pay 

 the taxes laid on them, amounting to at least ^'2,281 monthly, besides 

 j^4,ooo charged on them for the Scots' advance, ' which being all now rated 

 and accordingly demanded no other answer can be received from many but 

 that they have no money nor means of raising it.' ' Many troopers of 

 Dalbier's regiment are returned into the county to the intolerable burden of 

 the inhabitants, and Captain Ramsay's troop, which has been in the county 

 most of the winter, is still there.' There had been of late within three days 

 two hundred robberies by soldiers ; ' and this has much disheartened the 

 county in the Parliament's service.' The reply of the committee was that it 

 had no power to dispose of money, but that there was an ordinance of Par- 

 liament dealing with free quarter, taking of horses, &c. ; quarter ought to be 

 refused except on a quartermaster's warrant, and those who committed robbery 

 ought to be apprehended ; the complaint about a double charge for Fairfax's 

 army should be laid before the House, while Dalbier's troop had already been 

 ordered to leave the county, and Ramsay's should speedily remove.'" It did 

 so ten days later with a fortnight's pay.'^* 



On 3 1 May the Bedfordshire Committee was requested to supply 400 

 foot for the siege of Oxford,'^* and on i June the Committee of Both Kingdoms 

 wrote to Sir Samuel Luke and the committee at Newport Pagnell authorizing 

 them to call in assistance from the surrounding county for the defence of the 

 place, and to fetch in provisions for horse and foot. Application was made 

 to Bedfordshire to pay the arrears due for the garrison, as the capture of 

 Leicester by the Royalists on 3 1 May had made the committee solicitous for 

 the adjacent garrisons,'** and Luke complained that he had only 600 men 

 where 2,000 were required, and was very badly provisioned for a siege.'^^ 

 Men from the Newport garrison had distinguished themselves in the defence 

 of Leicester, but John Bunyan was not of the number, as has been frequently 

 asserted.''* The works at Bedford might however be ' slighted ' if the Bed- 

 fordshire Committee thought well, and in that case the men of the garrison 

 were to be sent to Cromwell at Ely,'" but this does not appear to have been 

 done."' On 6 June Bedford was recommended to Fairfax as a suitable place 

 at which to effect his junction with the forces of the Association. He was 

 then ' about ' Newport, and was at Stony Stratford on the 9th, while the 

 king's army lay about Daventry and Towcester."® On the nth Bedford- 

 shire was required to join Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire in 

 supplying Fairfax's army with provisions ; "" the Hertfordshire horse and 



'" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644-5, P- 463- '*' Ibid. 496-7. '" Ibid. 550. 



'" Ibid. 554. '" Diet. Nat. Biog. 



^ e.g. by Macaulay and Carlyle ; but see Brown, John Bunyait, 51, and note by Mrs. Lomas in Carlyle's 

 Cromwell (ed. 1904), i, 205. '" Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644-5, P- 557- 



^ See further order below. '' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1644-5, pp. 573-8°. "° Ibid. 587. 



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