THE CASTLE & THE CASTLE ROCK

In the reign of Edward III., state solemnities and royal festivities were celebrated at this castle; while an important parliament was held here in 1334, on in 1337, and another in 1357. According to CAMDEN, this was one of the state prisons occupied by David II., of Scotland, during the eleven years' bondage in which the English monarch held him after his capture in 1346 on the field of Neville's Cross. In describing the castle dungeon in which the king was confined, the old chronicler says that "in the first court we descend with lights, down many steps, into another subterraneous vault, and arched rooms cut in the rock itself, on the walls of which are carved Christ's passion, and other things by the hand (as they say) of David King of Scots, who was there imprisoned."

In 1376 the patriotic Peter de la MARC, speaker of the House of Commons, was by order of Edward III., confined in Nottingham Castle for having taken unwarrantable liberties with the name of Alice PERRERS, mistress of the king. The eloquent and plain-speaking knight was imprisoned here till the beginning of the next reign. The Earl of Murray was likewise a prisoner here during the reign of the same monarch, who allowed him £1 per week.

In 1387 the famous state council was held at this castle which was called by Richard II., and his favorites, who were fortunately foiled in their attempt to deprive parliament of its privileges and the people of their freedom. In 1392 the king held a state council here to humble the Londoners. In 1397 another council met here, and this is the last visit of the second Richard to Nottingham on record.

Henry IV., occasionally visited Nottingham Castle, and during one of his sojourns a single combat was arranged to be fought between an Englishman and a Frenchman, but the event did not come off, for what reason the ancient chroniclers fail to say. Here Owen GLENDOWER, son of the famous Welch chieftain, was imprisoned after his capture by Henry, Prince of Wales, in 1411.

In a collection of unpublished manuscripts in the British Museum, there are letters from the king, in the twelfth year of his reign, dated 21^st March, to Richard GREY, of Codnor, Constable of Nottingham Castle, com-manding him to deliver to the Constable of the Tower of London, Gryff ap Owein GLENDOWRDY, and Gryff OWAN ap Ricard, his prisoners; with another mandate to the constable of the Tower to receive the captives.

Retained by the crown as a palace, a citadel, and a prison, the castle witnessed no historical even of moment during the reigns of Henry V., and Henry VI. DEERING has preserved the following information from the accounts of Geoffrey KNYVETON, who was constable of the castle, and clerk of Sherwood Forest, during part of the reign of the last-mentioned sovereign: the extract is taken liberatim from a forest book, written for the use of the Mayor of Nottingham, Robert ALVEY, by his serjeant-at-mace, William MARSHALL, in the year 1588, John NODY and Nicholas SHERWIN being sheriffs:

"The accompte of Geffry KNYVETON from the feast of Saint Michaell tharchaungle in the xxvth., yeare of kinge Henry the sixth unto the same feaste next followinge by one whole yeare for the castle of Nottingham. 1^st. He gives accompte of xiil 8s. cominge of xxiiii acres of meadow, lying in a meadow belonging to the castle of Nottingham called the king's-meadow. The price 3s. 2d. so letten this yeare. And of xivs. the latter agistment of the same meadow betwixt Michallmus and Martlemas happeninge. And of liiis. iiiid. of the farme of the close called castle-appleton. And of xxxvis. 8d. for the farme of another close called the constable-home, so letten to the men of Nottingham. And of xxivs. of the farme of a pece of meadow called the milne-dame. And xiiis. of the farme of two peces of meadow lyeinge by the king's-bridge and the rocke-yard. And viiis. of the castle hills without the castle-walls. And xxs. of the farme of the pindage of the castle so letten to the men of Nottingham. And of xs. of the farme of the outward, within the castle walls. And of the profit of the dove-cott nothing this year, but it was wont to give 3s. 4d. And of ----- for the castle-miln. And of the 13s. 4d. of the farme of the coneygarth of the castle this year &c."

Here, in 1461, Edward IV., then Duke of York, rallied his forces, and this place was again his military rendezvous, nine years afterwards, when Warwick landed in England with the French auxiliaries, on behalf of Henry VI. Edward made "very great additions both of strength and beauty" to the building, and in 1470, while he was at Nottingham, the castle was being rebuilt. Richard HASTINGS, afterwards Lord WELLS, was deputy constable in the absence of Lord HASTINGS, when these improvements were effected. They have been described to be magnificent specimens of architectural genius. The portions of the structure erected by the Conqueror were called the old works, those by Edward and the later kings the new.

The crafty Richard III., frequently held his court at Nottingham Castle, and he completed the range of buildings begun by his brother Edward III., the principal tower of which always bore the name of "Richard's Tower." Hither he came while the murder of the young princes were being consummated; here he received the unwelcome news that RICHMOND was in the field; and it was through the portals of this castle, in 1485, that he marched to the fatal field of Bosworth. Richard was very much attached to Nottingham Castle, frequently resided there, and resorted often to "a turret on the eminence, where the present castle stands," which he dubbed "the Castle of Care." While he kept his court here he endeavoured to gain the friendship of the neighbouring gentry, and persuaded several to join him.

Henry VII., occasionally visited Nottingham, and in the castle he held a council of war previous to the battle of Stoke, fought in June, 1487. On Henry's accession Sir John BYRON was appointed warden of the castle and steward of Sherwood Forest.

During the reign of Henry VIII., LELAND, the topographer, visited the town and wrote this curious description of the castle: "There is a great likelihood that the castelle was builded of stones taken out of the rokke and great ditches of it. The Base Court is large and meetly strong, and a stately bridge is there with pillars, bearing bestes and Giants, over the ditch into the second warde; the frontier of the which warde in the entering is exceedinge stonge with toures and portecoleces. Much part of the west side of this inner warde, as the haul and other thinges be yn ruines. The est side is tronge and well toured; and so is the south side. But the moste beautifullest and gallant building for lodging is in the north side where Edward the 4^th, began a right sumptuous pece of stone work, of the which he clerely finished an excellent goodlie tour of 3 heights yn building, and brought up the other part likewise from the foundation with stone and marvelus fair compaced windows, to layyng of the first soyle for chambers and their lofte. Then king Richard his brother, as I hard there, forced up upon that worke another peece of one loft of tymbre, making round windows also of tymbre to the proportion of the aforesaid windows of Stone, a good foundation for the new tymbre windows. So that surely that north part is an exceeding piece of work. The dungeon or keepe of the castelle standeth by south and est, and is exceeding strong, et natura loci et opere. There is an old fair chapelle and a walle of a greate depthe. The kepers of the castelle say Edward the thirdes band came up through the rok and toke the erle MORTYMER prisoner. There is yet a fair stair to go down by the rok to the ripe of Lene. There be diverse buildings betwyxt the dungeon and the inner court of the castelle; and ther goith also doune a stair ynto the ground, wher Davy kinge of Scottes, as the castellanes say, was kept as a prisoner. I marked in all 3 chapelles yn the castille, and 3 welles."

In the second year of the reign of Edward VI., the Earl of Rutland was appointed constable of the castle and chief justice of Sherwood Forest.

During the reign of Elizabeth the building underwent some repairs which are detailed in one of the Harleian MSS., in the British Museum. CAMDEN, who flourished in the reign of the vestal queen, visited Nottingham, and in his "Brittania" he furnishes a description of the castle, from which we select a passage: "Nor did it in the several revolutions of Time undergo the common fate of great castles; having never been taken by storm. It was once in vain besieged by Henry of Anjou; at which time the garrison burnt down the adjoining houses. It was once also surprised in the barons' war, by Robert Earl FERRES, who stripped the citizens of their goods. The people of the Castle tell many stories of David, King of Scots, who was confined here, and of Roger MORTIMER, Earl of March, surprised here by a subterraneous passage, who for preferring Scotch money to his duty to his country and other crimes which his great spirit meditated, afterwards lost his life on the gallows. In the upper part of the Castle, which rises high on the rock, we came by many steps into a subterraneous cavern, called MORTIMER's Hole, from Roger MORTIMER's concealing himself in it when his conscience gave him the alarm."

James I., made a grant of the castle to Francis, Earl of Rutland, then justice of all the forests north of the Trent, and to his heirs. The royal gift was allowed to go to decay, and in the latter end of his grace's time many of the goodly buildings were pulled down and the iron and other materials sold. Indeed, its dilapidated state is best indicated by the circumstance that James, in his several progresses to or through the town, could not be entertained at the castle, like former monarchs, but was obliged to betake himself to a house in the borough.

Charles I., who twice as Prince of Wales and once after his accession to the throne had honored Nottingham with his presence, proceeded thither in July, 1642, nine days after the publication of a letter to the county members, signed by the principal gentry of the shire, and remarkable for the moderate and sensible tone with which it discussed the "unhappy differences betwixt his Majesty and his Parliament." The monarch, promising to act according to his protestation at York, proceeded to raise an army in defence of the prerogatives of the crown against the encroachments of parliament. He appointed Nottingham the rendezvous of the royal forces, and on the 22^nd of August, according to THOROTON - who states the circumstance from personal recollection - the royal banner of war was hoisted on the topmost turret of the tower. After the departure of the unfortunate and ill-fated king in September, the town and its castle came into the possession of parliament. On the 29^th of June, 1543, the custody of the station was entrusted to Colonel HUTCHINSON.

The subjoined picture of the castle as it was in those times is from the graphic pen of Mrs. HUTCHINSON, the heroic wife of the governor: "The caste was built upon a rock, and nature had made it capable of very strong fortification, but the buildings were very ruinous and unhabitable, neither affording room to lodge soldiers nor provisions. The castle stands at one end of the town, upon such an eminence as commands the chief streets of the town. There had been enlargements made to this castle after the first building of it. There was a strong tower which they called the old tower, built upon the top of all the rock, and this was that place where Queen Isabell, the mother of King Edward the Third was surprised with her paramour MORTIMER, who by secret windings and hollows in the rock came up into her chamber from the meadows lying low under it, through which there ran a little rivulet, called the Line, almost under the castle rock. At the entrance of this rock there was a spring which was called MORTIMER's Well, and the cavern MORTIMER's Hole: the ascent to the top is very high, and not without some wonder.

At the top of all the rock there is a spring of water; in the midway to the top of this tower there is a little piece of the rock on which a dove-cot had been built, but the governor took down the roof of it, and made it a platform for two or three pieces or ordnance, which commanded some streets and all the meadows better than the highest tower; under that tower, which was the old castle, there was a larger castle, where there had been several towers and many noble rooms, but the most of them were down; the yard of that was pretty large, and without the gate there was a very large yard that had been walled, but the walls were all down, only it was situated upon an ascent of the rock, and so stood a pretty height above the streets; and there were the ruins of an old pair of gates, with turrets on each side. Before the castle the town was on one side of a close which commanded the fields approaching the town; which close the governor afterwards made a platform; behind it was a place called the park that belonged to the castle, but then had neither deer nor trees in it, except one growing under the castle, which was almost a prodigy, for from the root to the top there was not one straight twig or branch of it; some said it was planted by King Richard the Third, and resembled him that set it.

On the other side the castle was the little river of Line, and beyond that large flat meadows bounded by the river of Trent. In the whole rock there were many large caverns, where a great magazine and many hundred soldiers might have been disposed, if they had been cleansed and prepared for it, and might have been kept secure from an danger of firing the magazines by any mortar-pieces shot against the castle. In one of these places, it is reported, that one David, a Scotch king, was kept in cruel durance, and with his nails had scratched on the walls the story of Christ and his twelve apostles. The castle was not flanked, and there were no works about it, when Mr. HUTCHINSON undertook it, but only a little breastwork before the outmost gate. It was as ill provided as fortified, there being but 10 barrels of powder, 1150 pounds of butter, and as much cheese, 11 quarters of bread corn, 7 beeves, 214 flitches of bacon, 560 fishes, and 15 hogsheads of beer." It was capable of receiving four hundred men, and divers well-affected citizens sought a refuge here, being invited by the governor to secure themselves or their goods in the castle.

The ancient stronghold was now the scene of many important events. The royalists knew full well the value of the station, but the republican officers repelled their bribes as bravely as the walls withstood their batteries. The fierce and oft-repeated attacks of the royalists were unavailing, and throughout the whole of those troublous times the roundheads remained in possession of the castle.

Colonel HUTCHINSON's engineer was Mr. HOOPER, a man of ability and honor, who prosecuted his labors with unceasing vigilance and great skill. He was afterwards under Sir Thomas FAIRFAX as engineer extraordinary, and greatly expedited all his enterprises. He came again to Nottingham during Colonel HUTCHINSON's governorship, and continued under Captain POULTON, when the latter succeeded his distinguished cousin in the command.

In July, 1643, Captain HOTHAM, son of Sir John HOTHAM, governor of Hull, was imprisoned in the castle by the parliament; but he soon escaped. He had brought some rude troops out of Yorkshire in the Whitsun holidays, and joined the forces which were at Nottingham under Lord GREY, amounting altogether to five or six thousand. Here he not only carried on a private communication with the queen, but plundered both friend and foe, harassing the district sadly. When HUTCHINSON desired the graceless youth from the banks of the Humber to restrain his unruly soldiers, HOTHAM insolently replied that "he fought for liberty and expected it in all things." HOTHAM, although he escaped at this time, was ultimately along with his father executed in London. In the same year, after the departure of Newcastle and his army from the neighbourhood, the governor constructed a work behind the castle, and another on the Leen-side; turned the dovecot into a platform; and made "a court of guard" of MORTIMER's Hole.

When Sir John MELDRUM came down to his charge at Nottingham, the queen's forces came and faced the town, whereupon the cannon discharged upon them, and the Duke of VENDOME's son and some few others were slain. "The parliament horse drew out of Nottingham to receive the queen's, but they came not on, after this execution of the cannon, for in the meantime the queen was passing by, and although the parliament horse pursued them, yet would not they engage, for it was not their business; so when they saw they had lost their design, the horse returned again to Nottingham, where the foot had stayed all the while they were out."

During 1644 a paltry system of skirmishing was carried on between the royal garrison of Newark and the parliamentary troops stationed at Nottingham. WHITLOCK related that Colonel HUTCHINSON met with a party of the Newark soldiers, slew their captain, and captured fifty prisoners, and moreover that on the following day the puritans took captive twenty gentlemen and officers together with sixty of their horse. Mrs. HUTCHINSON supplies some further particulars. From her statement it appears that in January the enemy from Newark under Sir Charles LUCUS forced their way into the town, possessed themselves of the church of St. Peter and of certain houses near the castle, whence they shot with considerable effect into the castle yard. The royalist commander prepared a letter to the governor, demanding the castle.

In the town there were at least a thousand cavaliers, and as many gathered at the outskirts to prevent the entrance of any parliamentary forces from Derby or Leicester. In all, the royalist forces in the borough and its neighbourhood amounted to about three thousand. "When Sir Charles LUCUS had written his letter, he could find none that would undertake to carry it to the castle, whereupon they took the mayor's wife, and, with threats, compelled her to undertake it; but just as she went out of the house from them, she heard an outcry, that 'the roundheads were sallying forth,' whereupon she flung down their letter and ran away; and the cavalier forces ran as fast from four hundred soldiers, who came furiously upon them out of the castle, and surprised them; while they were secure the castle would not have made so bold an attempt. But the governor's men chased them from street to street, till they had cleared the town of them, who ran away confusedly; the first that went out shot their pistols into the thatched houses to have fired them, but by the mercy of God neither that, nor any endeavours they showed to have fired the town, as they were commanded, took effect. Between thirty and forty of them were killed in the streets, four-score were taken prisoners, and abundance of arms were gathered up, which the men flung away in haste, as they ran; but they put some fire into a hay barn and hay mows, and all other combustible things they could discern in their haste, but by God's mercy the town notwithstanding was preserved from burning. Their horse faced the town in a valley where their reserve stood, while their foot marched away, till towards evening, and then they all drew off. Many of them died in their return, and were found dead in the woods and in the towns they passed through. Many of them, discouraged with the service, ran away, and many of their horses were quite spoiled: for two miles they left a great track of blood, which froze as it fell upon the snow, for it was such bitter weather that the foot had waded almost to the middle in snow as they came, and were so numbed with cold when they came into the town, that they were fain to be rubbed to get life in them."

Subsequently a detachment from Newark ventured too near Nottingham for the purpose of levying con-tributions and taking some prisoners; they were instantly pursued and routed by the roundheads, who killed several royalists; but the Nottingham men, heated by success, injudiciously proceeded too far, and were in turn assailed by fresh troops, who deprived them of their prisoners, two officers, and thirty horsemen. On the forenoon of Saturday, the 17^th of February, twelve soldiers from the royalists forces at Newark were apprehended on the Trent Bridge in the guise of market men and women, with pistols, daggers, and lethal weapons concealed about their persons. Some of the enemy's soldiers likewise came near the bridge; five of the prisoners jumped into the water, and were drowned; the remainder were all set free save one SLATER, an old soldier of the governor's, who was tried by court-martial and executed.

Towards the end of February, on the fast day on which the national covenant was taken with great solemnity both by soldiers and civilians, Sir Edward HARTUP entered the town with a thousand horse from Leicester and Derby on their way to the siege of Newark. The governor of Nottingham added between five and six hundred to the force. In the same year the governor floated the meadows on the Leen side, where there was no fortification; raised a fort in the midst of the meadows to preserve the float; and fortified by bridges more strongly; this being rendered especially necessary by the notice of Prince Rupert's intention to come and fire the town, as well as by the desponding and mutinous state of the garrison.

After the Newark cavaliers had been expelled from the town, certain people, instigated by the Newark gentlemen, fired the town on several occasions; but all these attempts were foiled. To prevent the con-summation of the inhallowed plot a band of fifty women were forced to constitute themselves a guard for the protection of the town. The committee wrote a letter of warning to Newark, threatening to burn every cavalier's house in and around Nottingham if they forbade not their instruments, and this decided measure fortunately produced the desired effect.

In the time of the civil war the townsmen, we are told by Mrs. HUTCHINSON, were "every night set upon the guard of the town, according to the wards of the aldermen; but the most of them being disaffected, the governor, fearing treachery, had determined to quarter the horse in those lands which were next to the castle, and to block up the lanes for the better securing them."

Just a night before these lanes should have been blocked up, Alderman TOPLADY, a great malignant, having the watch, the enemy was by treachery let into the town, and no alarum given to the castle; all the horse and about two parts of the castle soldiers, betrayed, surprised, and seized on in their beds, but there were not above fourscore of the castle foot taken; the rest hid themselves, and privately stole away, some into the country, some by night came up to the castle and got in, in disguises, by the river side. When, at the beating of reveille, some of the soldiers that had been on the watch all night, were going down into the town to refresh themselves; they were no sooner out of the castle-gates, but some of the enemy's musteteers discharged upon them, and they hastened back. The governor dispatched messengers by a private sally-port to Leicester and Derby to desire their assistance, to help the castle, in which there was but fourscore men.

There was an old church, called St. Nicholas Church, whose steeple so commanded the platform that the men could not play the ordnance without woolpacks before them. From this church the bullets played so thick into the outward castle yard, that they could not pass from one gate to the other, nor relieve the guards, but with very great hazzard, and on weak old man was shot the first day, who, for want of a surgeon, bled to death before they could carry him up to the governor's wife, who at that time supplied that want as well as she could; but at night the governor and his men dug a trench between the two gates, through which they afterwards better secured their passage. In the meantime the cavaliers that came from Newark, being about six hundred, fell to ransack and plunder all the honest men's houses in the town, and the cavaliers of the town, who had called them in, helped them in this work. Their prisoners they at first put into the sheep-pens in the market place. The cavaliers called in all the country as soon as they were in the town, and made a fort at the Trent bridges, and thither they carried down all their considerable plunder and prisoners.

The  next day after Sir Richard BYRON had surprised the town, Mr. HASTINGS, since made Lord of Loughborough, then governor of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, came with a body of about four hundred men but being displeased that the plunder was begun before he came, he returned again and left he Newark gentlemen to themselves. Five days the enemy staid in the town. Captain WHITE with his troop, who quartered at Leicester, brought about four hundred men. As soon as they come into the town Sir John GELL's men, seeing the cavaliers had a mind to be gone, interrupted them not, but being as dexterous at plunder as fight, they presently went to TOPLADY's house, who had betrayed the town, and plundered it and some others. GELL;s men were nimble youths at that work, yet there was not very much mischief done by them. TOPLADY's house fared the worst, but his neighbours saved much of his goods; he himself, with several other townsmen and countrymen, who had been very active against the well affected, at this time were brought up prisoners to the castle. There were not above five-and-twenty of the Newark soldiers taken."

The royalists tetook themselves to the fort at the Trent bridge, whereupon the governor brought down two pieces of ordnance to the market place and entreated the troops immediately to assault the enemy before they had put themselves in order; but Major MOLANUS, from Derby, an old dull-headed Dutchman, proclaimed the fort impregnable and refused to comply with the request. The Derby soldiers, when they had returned home, according to Mrs. HUTCHINSON, being asked why they left the cavaliers unassaulted, "made answer, they would have beaten them out, but the governor would not lend them a piece of ordnance out of his castle; which false report, when the governor heard, piqued him heartily. Watching an opportunity, he soon took it, at a time when intelligence was brought him, that all the forces Newark could send forth were gone upon a design into Lincolnshire. Then, on the Lord's day, under colour of hearing a sermon at the great church in the town, he went thither, and, after sermon, from the steeple took a view of the fort at the bridges. Then, after supper he called the committee together, and communicated his intentions to them, which they approved of. So all that night he spent in preparations against the next morning. About eleven o'clock on Monday morning he marched out, although he had but eight-score foot and a hundred horse." The pioneers having began to cast up a breast-work, Mr. HUTCHINSON dispatched a messenger to Derby for Sir John GELL and the Dutch major, and to the astonishment and shame of those gallant heroes he prosecuted the siege with unabated vigor till Thursday night; at an early hour on the following morning the royalists were found to have evacuated their quarters, breaking up tow arches of the bridge to hinder the pursuit of their opponents. Hereupon Mr. George HUTCHINSON was appointed to keep the fort.

Towards the end of 1644 Sir Roger COOPER, of Thurgaton, and forty of his men were taken prisoners and committed to Nottingham Castle. The knight of Thurgaton, who had previously done all he could to provoke HUTCHINSON in certain private matters, was quite overcome by the undeserved kindness which he received from the great-souled governor.

During the civil war a host of ministers were maintained in the castle; and a portrait of one of these worthies is given by the truth-loving and certainly unprejudiced Mrs. HUTCHINSON: "Some godly men offered themselves to bring in their horses, and from a troop for the defence of the country, and one Mr. PALMER, a minister, had a commission to be their captain. This man had a bold, ready, earnest way of preaching, and lived holily and regularly, as to outward conversation, whereby he got a great reputation among the godly, and this reputation swelled his spirit, which was very vain-glorious, covetous, contentious, and ambitious; he had insinuated himself so as to make these godly men desire him for their captain, which he had more vehement longing after than they, yet would have it believed that it was rather pressed upon him, than he pressed into it; and, therefore, being at that time in the castle with his family, and feeding at the governor's table, who gave him room in his own lodgings, and all imaginable respect, he came to the governor and his wife, telling them that these honest people pressed him very much to be their captain, and desiring their friendly and christian advice, having entered into a charge of another kind, they thought it not fit to engage in this, and that he might advance the public service and satisfy the men in marching with them in the nature of a chaplain, as in that of a captain. He that asked not counsel to take any contrary to his first resolve, went away confused when he found he was not advised as he would have been, and said he would endeavour to persuade them to be content; and after said they would not be otherwise satisfied, and so he was forced to accept the commission. The man being conscious of the avarice and ambition of his own heart, never after that looked upon the governor with a clear eye, but sought to blow up all factions against him, whenever he found opportunity, and in the meantime dissembled it as well as he could." Elsewhere, the same masterly limner adds a touch or two to the portrait of the clerical rogue: "There was a large room, which was the chapel, in the castle: this they had filled full of prisoners, besides a very bad prison, which was no better than a dungeon, called the Lion's Den; and the new Captain PALMER, and another minister, having nothing else to do, walked up and down the castle yard, insulting and beating the poor prisoners as they were brought up.

After our hurt men were dressed, as the governor's wife was standing at her chamber door, seeing three of the prisoners sorely cut, and carried down bleeding into the Lion's Den, she desired the marshal to bring them in to her, and bound up and dressed their wounds also: which while she was doing, Captain PALMER came in and told her his soul abhorred to see this favour to the enemies of God; she replied, she had done nothing but what she thought was her duty in humanity to them, as fellow-creatures, not as enemies: but he was very ill satisfied with here, and with the governor presently after, when he came into a large room where a very great supper was prepared, and more room and meat than guests, to fill with which, the governor had sent for one Mr. MASON, one of the prisoners, a man of good fashion, who had married a relation of his, and was brought up more in fury, than for any proof of guilt in him, and I know not whether two or three others the governor had called to meat with them; for which Captain PALMER bellowed loudly against him, as a favourer of malignants and cavaliers. Who could have thought this godly, zealous man, who could scarce eat his supper for grief to see the enemies of God thus favoured, should have after entered into a conspiracy against the governor, with those very same persons, who now so much provoked his zeal? But the governor took no notice of it, though he set the very soldiers a muttering against him and his wife, for these poor humanities.

There were false spirits among the laymen as well as in the clerical ranks; and one of them called Charles WHITE, a Derbyshire adventurer is sketched in no flattering colors by Mrs. HUTCHINSON. This person placed himself at the head of a body of his neighbours, who had turned out for the parliament; he came to Derby with his force, and with singular temerity published a declaration for the king; then ran away to Nottingham, "where he lost all his troops in the rout there, and hid himself till the king came in, when he was rewarded for his revolt with an office."

In 1646, after the king had been delivered at Newcastle into the hands of the parliamentary commissioners, he was brought to Nottingham on his way to Holmby, in Northamptonshire; at this time the governor lay sick in the castle. During his stay Charles was counselled to enter into negociations for a treaty with the parliament; but the attempts to accommodate matters proved utterly fruitless. In 1647, when the differences which divided the democratic camp had been arranged and the parliament restored to their seats by the general, "Colonel HUTCHINSON came downe to the garrison at Nottingham, which, the warre being ended, was reduced only to the castle, the workes at the town and the bridges slighted, the companies of the governor's regiment, all but two, disbanded, and he thinking, now in a time when there was no opposition, the command not worthy of himselfe or his brother, gave it over to his kinsmen, Capt. POULTON." The patriotic governor then retired to Owthorpe in bad health, and while there "Major-general IRETON sent him a letter, with a new commission it it, for the resuming him government of Nottingham Castle, which the principall officers of the armie, foreseeing an approaching storme, desired to have in the same hand, wherein it had before bene so prosperously and faithfully preser'd: but the collonell sent them word, that as he should not have put his kinsmen into the place, but that he was assur'd of his fidelity, so he would never ioyne with those who were so forgetfull of the merits of men, that had behav'd themselves well, as to discourage them without a cause. Hereupon they suffer'd Capt. POULTON to remain in his command; but while the house was highly busie in faction, they took no care of any of the garrisons." Colonel Gilbert BYRON, a brother of Lord BYRON, endeavoured to corrupt the new governor of the castle, but he did not succeed. In January, 1648, at a muster of the garrison it was found to contain one hundred foot, exclusive of drummers.

Colonel HUTCHINSON, perceiving with sorrow that "the poison of ambition had ulcerated CROMWELL's heart," procured an order for the removal of the garrison, commanded by his kinsman Major (formerly Colonel) POULTON, and for the demolishing of the castle, which order was speedily executed. The destruction of the castle is not therefore attributable to CROMWELL. "When Major POULTON, who had all allong been very faithful and active in the cause, brought his men to the armie, he was entertain'd with such affronts and neglects by the generall that he voluntarily quitted his command, and retir'd to the ruin'd place, where the castle was which he had bought with his arrears. When CROMWELL came back through the country and saw the castle pull'd down he was heartily vext at it, and told Coll. HUTCHINSON, that if he had bene there, when I was voted, he should not have suffer'd it. The collonell replied, that he had procur'd it to be done, and believ'd it to be his duty to ease the people of charge, when there was no more need of it."