A HISTORY OF SURREY a dash upon Farnham with a body of horse and occupied the place. But what Hopton could not manage in the far more prosperous state of the king's affairs a year before could not be managed by Goring now. An invasion of the south-east to any good purpose was impracticable. Unable to maintain himself so far from any support and with no money, Goring retired again the next day. He was gone before the belated order of the Committee of the Two Kingdoms, issued on January 13 to General Middleton, to take what horse and foot there were at Guildford to Farnham against him, could be acted upon. The only other war alarm in Surrey in the course of the year was from men impressed in Kent for the New Model Army, who were reported to be in revolt and to be marching into Surrey. However they never came. Troops were despatched from the county to the west, and men were raised for the New Model. In the course of 1 645 the Committee of the Two King- doms took precautions about the gunpowder mills at Chilworth. They forbade the manufacturer to keep more saltpetre than was necessary to make the powder which they required from time to time. They were apprehensive that the powder might be supplied to the king's friends. 1 Waller had already disabled the Royalist ironworks in the country. The Civil War, in its first phase, ended in 1646, and the task of restoring a peaceful government began a task destined soon to lead to further war among the conflicting interests which the first contest had left powerful. The original Royalist party had been beaten out of the field, but almost at once the quarrels began, or became acute we should rather say, between the really discordant parties who had opposed the king. Like other counties which had been wholly in the hands of the Parlia- ment in the earlier war, Surrey became the scene of disturbance and of actual fighting in the later contests. The first threatening of renewed war was in June, 1647, when the army seized the king's person and impeached eleven members of Parliament. The eleven members were allowed leave of absence, and Parliament began to treat with the army which was supposed to be their servant. The Speaker himself, Lenthall, who had been a justice of the peace for Surrey, with certain lords and commoners, fled to the army ; but the temper of London was uncertain and the troops closed upon it. The capital had been fortified against the king in 1642 and 1643. It was covered by forts connected by lines of earthworks extending over a circuit of twelve miles. On the Surrey side there was a fort at Vauxhall, another near St. George's Fields, a third by Kent Street. The gatehouse and drawbridge of London Bridge formed an interior defence to the passage into the City. The army was substantially in the same position which the king had occupied in the autumn of 1642, being at Colnbrook, Hounslow and Kingston, but was much stronger than he had been, and was opposed to a divided enemy. They were strong enough practically to invest the 1 See St. P. Dom. 1645, for this, and passim, with Letter Book of the Committee of both Kingdoms for Civil War above. 412
