ABSTRACT
Although civil war did not formally break out until the King raised his standard on 22 August 1642 at Nottingham, the summer had seen both sides flexing their muscles and striving for advantage on a localised level. The physical division between the King and his Parliament came in March, when Charles arrived in the city of York on the 18th of that month and established his court there. It was in Yorkshire that first overt royalist action took place when, on 3 May, Sir Francis Wortley reportedly drew his sword and swore to maintain the King against his Parliament, and began to raise 200 horse for the royal service. The Trained Band regiment of Robert Strickland was then brought into York to serve as a royal Lifeguard. In Lancashire on 25 May a gathering of local Catholic gentry near Lancaster was dispersed by the High Sheriff, a royalist, as being premature, but on 20 June agents of the Lord Strange seized magazines in Preston, Warrington and Liverpool. On 4 July Strange attacked the puritan town of Manchester in some force but was driven off after inconclusive fighting. From York, on 20 June, the earl of Newcastle, future royalist commander in the north, was sent to secure the port of Newcastle upon Tyne and Tynemouth and with them the Northumberland and Durham coalfield. This, despite a minor rising by colliers on 11/12 July, he succeeded in doing. The King, having been refused entry to Hull in April, advanced on the port from York on 3 July, and on the 10th the first fighting took place. Hull was besieged from the 15th, but on the 27th Sir John Meldrum, the garrison commander, raided Strickland’s regiment at Anlaby, outside Hull, and inflicted severe casualties. The King abandoned the profitless siege.
