155 of the towne, who had call'd them in, helpt them in this worke. Their prisoners they at first put into the sheep pens in the market place,' where an honest townsman seeing four or five commanders goe into his owne house, procur'd a cunning boy that came by him, while the enemie regarded more their plunder then the prisoners, to runne privately up to the castle and give them notice, who sent a . cannon bullet presently into the house. The cavalliers call'd in all the country assoone as they were in the towne, and made a fort at the Trent bridges, and thither they carried downe all their considerable plunder and prisoners. The next day after Sr. Richard Biron· had surpriz'd the townc, Mr. Hastings, since made lord of Loughborough, then governor of Ashby de la Zouch, came with a body of about four hundred men, but being displeased that the plunder was begun before he came, he returned againe and left the Newark gentlemen to themselves, who, as they made a fort at the bridges, threw downe the half moones and bulwarkes that had bene rays'd about the towne. They staycl five dayes, but very unquietly, for the c~nnon and muskets from the castle fail'd not of ex<kl:.:tion dayly upon many of them, and they durst not in all that time goe to bed. The third day Maior Cartwright sent a letter, desiring the governor or his brother to come and meete him in St. Nicholas Church, and promis'd them safe passage and retnrne; but the governor read the letter to his sou ldiers, and commanded a red flag to be sett upon the tower, to bid them defiance, and shott three pieces of cannon at the steeple, in answer to his desired parlee. Five dayes the enemie stay'd in the towne, and all that time the governor and his souldiers, none of them were off from the guard, but if they slept, which they never did in the night, it was by them that watcht. At length on Saturday, September the twenty-third , t It appears by Deering's account of Nottingham that these once occupied a conconsiderable portion of the market place.
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