by parliament, which body at once annulled the agreement (Fairfax Correspondence, ii. 415; Rushworth, iv. 686; Old Parliamentary History, xi. 443). Clarendon unfairly charges Fairfax with perfidy in acquiescing in this decision (Rebellion, vi. 260). Fairfax established his headquarters in the West Riding, and succeeded at first in blockading the royalists in York. The arrival of a fresh royalist army from the north under the Earl of Newcastle threw him on the defensive, and he was obliged to retreat behind the Ouse and establish his headquarters at Selby (7 Dec. 1642). Fairfax now became involved in a controversy with Newcastle arising from the proclamations published by the two parties. Parliament published a vindication of Fairfax in a declaration of 3 Feb. 1643, and he himself replied to the charges of his opponent in ‘The Answer of Ferdinando Lord Fairfax to a Declaration of William Earl of Newcastle’ (Rushworth, v. 131, 139). In March the desertion of Sir Hugh Cholmley [q. v.] and Sir John Hotham [q. v.] obliged Fairfax to retreat from Selby to Leeds. In Leeds he was unsuccessfully attacked by Newcastle in April (Green, Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, p. 189; Merc. Aulicus, 25 April), and finally defeated by him with great loss on Adwalton Moor, near Bradford, on 30 June 1643 (Rushworth, v. 279; Markham, p. 107). Fairfax with a few followers made his way to Hull, of which he was appointed governor on 22 July (Fairfax Correspondence, iii. 49–52). There he was besieged by Newcastle from 2 Sept. to 11 Oct. 1643. Fairfax's account of the sally which led to the raising of the siege was published in a pamphlet entitled ‘A Letter from Ferdinando Lord Fairfax to his Excellency Robert Earl of Essex,’ 4to, 1643. His next exploit was the defeat of Colonel John Bellasis at Selby on 11 April 1644, when Fairfax himself led one of the divisions which stormed the town (Rushworth, v. 618). He then joined his forces to the Scots (19 April), and commenced the siege of York. At Marston Moor Fairfax's army was stationed on the right of the parliamentary line, and he commanded its infantry in person. Carried away in the rout of his troops, he is said by Lilly to have fled as far as Cawood (Life and Times of William Lilly, ed. 1822, p. 176), but he appears by his letter to the mayor of Hull to have been present at the close of the battle (Sanford, Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, p. 612; Rushworth, v. 634, 636).
On the surrender of York (16 July 1644) Fairfax was appointed governor, and charged with the reduction of the remaining royalist garrisons in Yorkshire (Rushworth, v. 641). In December he captured the town of Pontefract, but was unable to take the castle or to prevent its relief by Sir Marmaduke Langdale in March (Surtees Society Miscellanea, 1861; Siege of Pontefract, pp. 3, 8, 16). The passing of the self-denying ordinance obliged him to resign his command, but he continued one of the chief members of the committee established at York for the government of the northern counties. On 24 July 1645 parliament also appointed him steward of the manor of Pontefract (Old Parliamentary History, xiv. 27). Fairfax died on 14 March 1648, in consequence of an accident, and was buried at Bolton Percy (Markham, p. 303). By his first wife, Mary, daughter of Lord Sheffield, he had issue Thomas, afterwards third lord Fairfax [q. v.], Charles, who became colonel of horse in the parliamentary army, and was killed at Marston Moor, and six daughters. In 1646 he married Rhoda, daughter of Thomas Chapman of Hertfordshire, and widow of Thomas Hussey of Lincolnshire, by whom he had one daughter (Fairfax Correspondence, i. preface p. lxxv, iii. 320).
The will of Fairfax, together with a poem on his death, is printed in the ‘Fairfax Correspondence’ (i. preface p. lxxxiv). A list of pictures, engravings, and medals representing him is given by Markham (Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, p. 428). Portraits are also given by Vicars (England's Worthies, 1647, p. 35), and Ricraft (Champions of England, 1647, p. 28).
[Fairfax Correspondence, vols. i. ii. 1848, ed. Johnson, iii. iv. 1849, ed. Bell; Markham's Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, 1870; Parl. Hist. of England, 1751–62, 8vo; Rushworth's Historical Collections.]
FAIRFAX, Sir GUY (d. 1495), judge, was of a Yorkshire family, and third son of Richard Fairfax of Walton, by his wife, Anastasia, daughter of John Carthorpe. He is mentioned (Rot. Parl. iv. 164) in 1421 as seised of the manor of Hameldene, being then very young. From his father he inherited the manor of Steeton in Yorkshire, where he built a castle. At first he seems to have been occupied with purely local business. He was in the commission of array for the West Riding in 1435, and in 1460 was commissioned to inquire what lands there were in that riding belonging to Richard, duke of York, who had been attainted in the previous parliament. One of his colleagues was Sir William Plumpton, whose counsel he afterwards was in 1469. He first appears in the year-books in Michaelmas 1463 as a serjeant
