during 1642–3 he was able to continue his researches into the national history and to acquire that familiarity with ‘Record evidence’ which is so observable in all his works. In December 1642 he was called upon to bear a part in the huge loan (of the nature of a monthly subsidy) advanced by the city to parliament for the maintenance of the army, he being assessed to pay 400l., or a twentieth, as ‘due under the ordinance and by consent of the city.’
It was in vain that he pleaded that as a casual inhabitant and non-resident of London he was not liable to the tax; on his proving obstinate his valuables were distrained, and the success of the bailiffs in securing a twentieth was so complete, wrote the victim, that ‘they left nothing worth aught behind.’ In the early part of 1643 some overtures were made to him by Sir Christopher Neville and others to induce him to join the king; but, apart from the danger to his estate, he considered that ‘he should bee ashamed to live in Oxford and not bee in the army,’ of which his years and his health would not admit. In May, therefore, he sent his eldest son, William (b. 1635), abroad, under Dr. Hamnet Ward, and had the intention of following them as speedily as possible. He set out in disguise on 9 June 1643 in the company of some French and Portuguese traders. Unhappily he was recognised when he had got no further than Bromley by Sir Anthony Weldon and other members of the Kentish committee. At first he denied his identity, but his old passport was found upon him, whereupon Weldon remarked that he was ‘either Sir Roger Twysden or a rogue who ought to be whipped.’ He was forthwith sent back to London by the committee and committed to the Southwark counter (10 June). One charge brought against him was that he was conveying important intelligence abroad concealed in nutshells, an accusation which derived a certain plausibility, as he himself admits, from the fact that he was taking with him some disinfectants done up in this form. Shortly after his imprisonment his estates were sequestrated, and a quantity of his ancestral timber, on which he greatly prided himself, was felled; the usual allowance was, however, made to Lady Twysden, who remained in residence at Roydon Hall. The royalist successes of this summer (especially in July 1643) enhanced the value of Twysden and other leading cavaliers as hostages, and for a short period a number of them were transferred to the shipping riding in the Thames. On 15 Aug., however, Twysden was released from the Prosperous Sarah, George Hawes, master, and remanded to the Counter. Thence, after several petitions, through the interest of his brother-in-law, Sir Christopher Yelverton, he was in a few months' time transferred to Lambeth. The keeper of the prison (late palace) there was Alexander Leighton [q. v.], the former victim of Laud and the Star-chamber, of whom Sir Roger gives a very interesting account. There he seems to have pursued even more effectively the manuscript studies which he had formerly carried on at the Tower, and to have done much of the collative work and research subsequently embodied in his well-known ‘Decem Scriptores.’ Early in 1645, being weary of his prison, he sent in his submission to the committee for compounding; on 6 March 1645 he was fined 3,000l., his estate being 2,000l. a year, and on 9 Dec. following the house ordered that he should be bailed. He now removed to a lodging in St. Anne's Street, Westminster; but the sequestration remained in force owing to his declared inability to pay his fine. On 31 May 1649 this was reduced to 1,500l., and eventually, in January 1650, he compounded for 1,340l. (Cal. Comm. for Compounding, p. 864). He ultimately returned to Kent on 19 Jan. 1650, and he now spent ten years quietly at home, occupied in literary pursuits, nursing the estate, which had so severely suffered, and cautiously abstaining from any interference with public events. He managed to get his assessment for the twentieth reduced from 600l. to 390l. (see Cal. Comm. for Advance of Money, 1394), but he still remained an object of suspicion to the government. On 26 April 1651 soldiers came and searched his house and carried him prisoner to Leeds Castle, but he was released in about a week's time. Upon the Restoration he was replaced upon the commissions of the peace and of oyer and terminer, became a deputy-lieutenant of his county, and was made a commissioner under the ‘Act for confirming and restoring of ministers.’ Yet he was never reconciled to the court (Arlington Corresp.) One of his last acts was to throw up his commission as a deputy-lieutenant sooner than abet the lord-lieutenant of the county in what he believed to be an illegal imposition—the providing of uniforms as well as arms for the militia. But he was spared any outward sign of the disapproval of the Cabal ministry, for on 27 June 1672, while riding through the Malling woods on his way to petty sessions, he was suddenly attacked with apoplexy, and died the same day. He was buried at East Peckham.
