(23 Sept. 1642), and, according to Vicars, distinguished himself by his personal courage in that defeat (Jehovah-jireh, p. 164). Fiennes also served at Edgehill in the regiment of Sir William Balfour. He wrote accounts of these two battles, viz. ‘True and Exact Relation of both the Battles fought by his Ex. Robert, E. of Essex, and his Forces against the Bloody Cavaliers. The one of the 23rd of Oct. last near Keynton … the other at Worcester,’ 4to, 1642. ‘A Narrative of the Late Battle before Worcester taken by a Gentleman of the Inns of Court from the Mouth of Master Fiennes,’ 4to, 1642. In February 1643 the condition of Bristol and the misconduct of the governor, Colonel Essex, demanded immediate action, and Fiennes was ordered to Bristol to prevent his evil designs. Immediately after his arrival he arrested Essex, and disarmed the disaffected among the citizens. On 7 March a rising was to have taken place in the city, and the gates were to have been opened to Prince Rupert, but Fiennes arrested the conspirators two or three hours before the time fixed. The heads of the plot, Robert Yeomans and George Bourchier, were executed by sentence of a court-martial, in spite of the efforts of Rupert to save them (May, Long Parliament, ed. 1854, pp. 281–3; Meyer, Memoirs of Bristol, pp. 322–400). Fiennes received a commission as governor of Bristol from the Earl of Essex on 1 May 1643. His letters to Essex and to Lord Saye during the spring of 1643 are full of complaints of the necessities of the garrison. He had neither sufficient men to man the walls, nor sufficient money to pay those he had; he wanted officers of experience, and the fortifications of the city were incomplete. When Prince Rupert appeared before Bristol (22 July) the garrison consisted of between two and three thousand men, many of whom were hastily raised volunteers. On 26 July the city was assaulted, a weak point in the fortifications was entered, and Fiennes decided to capitulate rather than expose the city to the risks of street-fighting. He might, no doubt, have held out a few days longer, but the town was entered, the castle was untenable, and relief was hopeless. By the terms of the capitulation the garrison were allowed to march out with the partial loss of their arms. On 5 Aug. 1643 Fiennes delivered to parliament a narrative of the siege and surrender, ‘A Relation made in the House of Commons by Col. N. Fiennes concerning the Surrender of the City and Castle of Bristol … together with the Transcripts and Extracts of certain Letters wherein his care for the Preservation of the City doth appear,’ 4to, 1643. This was at once answered by William Prynne and Clement Walker, who charged Fiennes with treachery and cowardice. Fiennes published an angry reply: ‘Col. Fiennes his Reply to a Pamphlet entitled an Answer to Col. Nat. Fiennes' Relation concerning his Surrender of the City of Bristol, by Clement Walker,’ and begged the House of Commons that the matter might be remitted to the judgment of the general and council of war. The trial took place at St. Albans (14–23 Dec. 1643), and concluded with the condemnation of Fiennes (29 Dec.), who was sentenced to death (State Trials, iv. 105; Prynne, True and Full Narrative of the Prosecution, &c., of Col. Fiennes by William Prynne and Clement Walker, Esquires, 4to, 1644). He was, however, condemned simply on the ground of improper surrender, and thus tacitly exonerated from the charges of treachery and cowardice. Fiennes was pardoned, but his military career came to an end, and he seems for a time to have left England. The ease with which the new model captured Bristol produced a change of feeling in his favour. Cromwell, Fairfax, and other chief officers, ‘upon a view of the place, comparing the present strength of it with what it was when he delivered it, and other circumstances, freely expressed themselves as men abundantly satisfied concerning the hard misfortune that befell that noble gentleman’ (Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, p. 129). They proceeded to sign a certificate exonerating him from all blame (The Scots' Design discovered, pp. 61–3).
Fiennes did not reappear in public life till the autumn of 1647. On 23 Sept. 1647 he was added to the committee of the army in place of Glynne, and on 3 Jan. 1648 became a member of the committee of safety, which succeeded the defunct committee of both kingdoms (Rushworth, vii. 819, 953). According to Ludlow, the declaration of the House of Commons showing the grounds of that resolution to make no further addresses to the king (11 Feb. 1648) was drawn up by Fiennes (Memoirs, ed. 1751, p. 91). This seems hardly probable, for Fiennes was prominent, in the debates of December following, among those who argued that the king's concessions in the treaty of Newport were sufficient ground for a peace (Old Parliamentary History, xviii. 286; Mercurius Pragmaticus, 5–12 Dec. 1648). In consequence of this he was one of the members excluded from the house by Pride's Purge, and did not again play any part in politics till after the foundation of the protectorate. On 26 April 1654 he was admitted a member of Cromwell's council of state, and in June
