expect! Pontefract did not surrender till the end of March next.[1]
Meanwhile, the Royal Treaty in Newport comes to no good issue, and the Forty Days are now done; the Parliament by small and smaller instalments prolongs it, still hoping beyond hope for a good issue. The Army, sternly watchful of it from St. Albans, is presenting a Remonstrance, That a good issue lies not in it; that a good issue must be sought elsewhere than in it. By bringing Delinquents to justice; and the Chief Delinquent, who has again involved this Nation in blood! To which doctrine, various petitioning Counties and Parties, and a definite minority in Parliament and England generally, testify their stern adherence, at all risks and hazards whatsoever.
Jenner Member for Cricklade, and Ashe Member for Westbury; these two, sitting I think in the Delinquents’ Committee at Goldsmiths’ Hall,—seem inclined for a milder course. Wherein the Lieutenant-General does by no means agree with the said Jenner and Ashe; having had a somewhat closer experience of the matter than they!
‘Colonel Owen’ is a Welsh Delinquent; I find he is a Sir John Owen,—the same Sir John who seized my Lord Archbishop’s Castle of Conway, in that violent manner long since.[2] A violent man, now got into trouble enough; of whom there arises life-and-death question by and by. ‘The Governor of Nottingham’ is Colonel Hutchinson, whom we know. Sir Marmaduke Langdale we also know,—and ‘presume you have heard what is become of him?’ Sir Marmaduke, it was rigorously voted on the 6th of this month, is one of the ‘Seven that shall be excepted from pardon’; whom the King himself, if he bargain with us, shall never forgive.[3] He escaped afterwards from Nottingham Castle, by industry of his own.
