‘Seeing the rogues run,’ occurs more than once at subsequent dates in these Wars:[1] who first said it, or whether anybody ever said it, must remain uncertain.
York was now captured in a few days: Prince Rupert had fled across into Lancashire, and so ‘south to Shropshire, to recruit again’; Marquis Newcastle with ‘about eighty gentlemen,’ disgusted at the turn of affairs, had withdrawn beyond seas. The Scots moved northward to attend the Siege of Newcastle,—ended it by storm in October next. On the 24th of which same month, 24th October 1644, the Parliament promulgated its Rhadamanthine Ordinance, To ‘hang any Irish Papist taken in arms in this country’;[2] a very severe Ordinance, but not uncalled for by the nature of the ‘marauding apparatus’ in question there.
The next Two Letters represent the Army and Lieutenant-General got home to the Association again; and can be read with little commentary. ‘The Committee for the Isle of Ely,” we are to remark, consists of Honourable Members connected with that region, and has its sittings in London. Of ‘Major Ireton’ we shall hear farther; ‘Husband’ also is slightly met with elsewhere; and ‘Captain Castle’ grew, I think, to be Colonel Castle, and perished at the Storm of Tredah, some years afterwards.
FOR MY NOBLE FRIENDS THE COMMITTEE FOR THE ISLE OF ELY: PRESENT THESE
Gentlemen, —I understand that you have lately released some persons committed by Major Ireton and Captain Husband, and
