263 Newark. About the .same time Colt. Thornhagh was chosen burgesse f(n· the towne of Retforcl; but none of them went up to their places in parliament till the siege of Newark was finisht. Poynlz drew a line about the towne, and made a very regular entrenchment and approaches, in such a soulclier-like manner as none of them who attempted the place before had clone. Most of that winter they lay in the field, and the governor, carried on by the vigor and greatnesse of his mind, felt no distemper then by that service, \Yhich all his captaines and the souldiers themselves endur'd worse · than he. Besides dayly and howerly providences, by which they were prescrv'd fi-om the enemie's cannons a~d sallies, there were some remarkable ones, by which God kept the governor's life in this leaguer. Once as Poyntz and he, and another captaine, were riding to view some quarter of the towne, a cannon bulleit came whizzing by them, as they were riding all abrest, and the captaine, without any touch of it,' sayd he was kill'd; Poyntz bid him get of, but he was then sliding downe from his horse, slaine by the wind of the bullet: they held him up till they gott off from the place, but the man immediately turn'd black all over. Another time the governor was in his tent, and by chance call'd out; when he was scarce out of it, a cannon bullett came and tore up the~ whole tent, and ki ll'd the sentinel! at the doore. But the greate perill, wherein all of the English side were, was the treachery of the Scotts, which they had very good reason to apprehend might have bene the cutting of of all that force. Sr. Thomas Fairfax had now besieg'cl Oxford, and the king was stollen out of the towne and gone in disguize, no man knew whither, but at the length he came into the Scotts armie. They had before behav'd themselves very oclly to the English, and bene taking sundrie occasions to pick quarrells, when at the last certeine news was brought to the English quarters that the king was come to the Scotts, and by them receiv'd at Southwell. The English could then expect nothing but that the Scotts, ioyning with those that were in Newark, would fall upon them, whn 2 0
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