64 



The Wiltshire Compounders. 



is ornamented with a map of the route adopted by his troop on that 

 occasion. The armour which the Earl wore is also preserved at 

 Apethorpe. Notwithstanding this early demonstration, the Earl 

 appears, from some cause not distinctly recorded, to have speedily 

 become disgusted with the Royal party. As early as June, 1643, 

 he had either been taken prisoner or had voluntarily come within 

 the personal influence of that portion of the House of Peers who 

 still sat at Westminster, for during that month a vote of the 

 Commons urges the Lords to impose the restraint of prison on the 

 Earls of Westmoreland, Berkshire, and three others ; and a few 

 months later the Journals of the upper House furnish the following 

 unexpected statement : — " The Lords have received a petition from 

 the Earl of Westmoreland so full of expressions of good affection to 

 the Commonwealth that they are all satisfied and do incline that 

 his sequestration be taken off." 13th February. His business was 

 thereupon referred to the committee sitting at Goldsmiths' Hall, 

 who decreed his fine at £1000, in addition to £2000 already paid; 

 ratified by the Commons in September, 1644, a very early period to 

 compound, for the contest was still undecided. The majority of the 

 Royalists' fines were not declared till two or three years later, for 

 the simple reason that they were not yet reduced to a petitioning 

 mood. Lord Westmoreland's Wiltshire estates were the manor of 

 Seend and Bowden Park, and Woodrew, near Bremhill. The Earl 

 was a patron of arts and literature. In 1645 (this was during the 

 war) he presented his poems, English and Latin, entitled Otia 

 Sacra, a quarto volume, adorned with plates, to Emmanuel College, 

 Cambridge. See a panegyric to him by the poet Cleveland. 



Sir Francis Fane, of Aston, in Yorkshire, third son of Francis, 

 first Earl of Westmoreland. Little if anything is to be gathered 

 from the general histories respecting the action taken by this 

 knight at the breaking out of hostilities. All we know distinctly 

 is that, like his brother, he found early reason to be dissatisfied with 

 the way in which the King's cause was upheld. Writing to Sir 

 Edward Hungerford, of Farley Castle, in October, 1645, he says :— 

 " I have not meddled in the King's affairs these seventeen months, 

 nor truly will I again fight in this quarrel." At the moment of 



