84 



The Wills/lire Compounders. 



suspicion that he was about to take prominent action against the 

 Parliament, he was captured in Oxfordshire as early as the summer 

 of 1642 and sent to the Tower. The first document, therefore, to be 

 cited in his case is the following' appeal to the House of Lords, dated 

 from the Tower, 5th September, 1642 : — 



" The humble petition of Thomas, Earl of Berkshire ;— That your lordships 

 will be pleased to admit him into your presence and give him leave to speak for 

 himself. Or, if by occasion of your important affairs, your lordships cannot be 

 at leisure to hear him, his humble desire is that your lordships will be pleased 

 to permit him for his health's sake to remain at his house near St. James', upon 

 promise of his honour or upon bail or any other security your lordships shall 

 think fit, to appear whensoever your lordships shall command. And he shall 

 ever pray, &c. 



" Bebkshibe." 



On the 14th he was brought to the House, where, kneeling at 

 bar, he reiterated his request. On being charged with having 

 entered Oxfordshire with intent to put in execution the King's 

 commission of array, he protested as in the sight of Heaven, that it 

 had all along been his fixed resolution to have nothing to do with 

 that commission, regarding it as injurious to the King ; and that 

 the meeting at Watlington with Lord Waineman, Mr. Whitelock, 

 and others, was only to concert measures for guarding their respective 

 habitations from plunder ; and he further declared that there were 

 no arms in his house. On which the Lords agreed to release him 

 from the Tower and allow him to remain at his Town house, if he 

 would undertake to appear whensoever summoned, at six hours' notice 

 —to which arrangement he assented, with expression of thanks. In 

 the spring of 1643 he obtained a pass to go into the country with 

 ten servants and his coach and horses, on passing his word of honour 

 to the Speaker of the House of Lords that he would not go to 

 Oxford, but only to his own house. And he appears to have duly 

 returned to London, for it is certain he was a prisoner there when, 

 in the following spring, his mansion at Charlton fell into the hands 

 of a party of Parliamentarians stationed at Malmesbury, who 

 plundered it, in March, 1644. Such, at least, was the affirmation 

 of his Countess, who was probably resident here at the time, for 

 she forwarded a petition, 27th March, praying the Lords to allow 



