POLITICAL HISTORY to do what Northampton had failed in, and on 3 April seized Birmingham, and on the loth laid siege to the close and cathedral at Lichfield, which surrendered after eleven days' resistance. It was during this siege that Charles delivered his final terms, which asked too much for the Parliament to grant. Soon after the battle of Hopton Heath, Stafford was captured by a very small force of Parliamentarians ; but the castle, under old Lady Stafford, refused to yield. The successor to Lord Brooke in command of the associated counties was the Earl of Denbigh, 295 who was appointed by Essex in June, 1643, and this command he laid down in April, 1645, in obedience to the Self-Denying Ordinance. He joined the Parliamentary cause against the wishes of many of his family, probably because he was convinced the cause was just. He seems to have done his best to alleviate the miseries of war, and inspired the feeling that his justice could be relied on for the redress of injuries. On the occasion of some differences between Denbigh and ' some of the country,' which caused his absence for a time, 4,000 Staffordshire men presented a petition to the House of Commons that the dispute should be ended and the earl sent down again amongst them, and letters of the time show that his return to his command was eagerly looked for. 296 There is a letter written by Essex in the summer of 1643, throwing light on the feeling of the county at a time when all seemed going in favour of the king, in which he says that then a formidable army could be raised from the associated counties of Stafford, Warwick, &c., as the people were then willing to rise, both because they feared the landing of the Irish in Wales, and many Papists were flocking to that district ; but expedition was necessary, or the people would return to their former coldness. 897 After Rupert had retaken Lichfield he left a garrison at Burton before returning to Oxford, which garrison was almost immediately captured by the troops of the Parliament, and they in their turn were driven out by the queen in July, 1643. Altogether, Burton changed hands six times during the war. About this time the Duke of Newcastle ' came into our country,' 298 where he had considerable estates, miserably plundered it, raised great sums of money, and made many recruits. 299 Wootton Lodge, the house of Sir R. Fleetwood, one of the strongest places in the county, ' manned with such a company of obstinate papists and resolute thieves as the like were hardly to be found in the whole kingdom,' was captured by the Parliamen- tarians. 800 In September, 1643, Sir William Brereton laid siege to Eccleshall Castle, then garrisoned by ' the great cowstealers the lord Capell his forces,' who sent to Hastings at Tutbury for relief. Hastings at once came to their aid, but Brereton laid an ambush for him into which he was decoyed by an assumed flight, suddenly attacked, and driven back to Tutbury. Hastings was himself besieged in Tutbury Castle, 301 and the place would have fallen but for the dissensions which were rife in the Roundhead army at that time, each 195 This was Basil Feilding, second Earl of Denbigh. His father was mortally wounded in Rupert's attack on Birmingham ; his brother, also fighting for the king, was killed at the second battle of Newbury. 196 Hist. AfSS. Com. Ref. iv, 255. * Ibid. 262. 198 Firth, Duke of Newcastle, 144. *" Shaw, op. cit. i, 57. 300 Shaw, Hist, of Staffs, i, 57. 301 The town appears to have been under the power of the Parliament, although the castle was held for the king. Mosley, Hist, of Tutbury, 224. An excellent example of the divisions of the time. 261
