Note 81 — Chapter IV · First Operations of the Manchester Garrison. Capture of Preston.

"C.W.T.," pp. 63 and 125. "Discourse," p. 20. The details of this engagement are very confused, but the above seems the most probable course of events. There is no doubt about the large number of prisoners. There is a story told by one Parliamentarian writer of the conduct of the royalist troop which may be set against that of the Manchester soldiers at Bury. "The carriage of the cavaliers about Wigan was most insolent, yea blasphemous, for after they had pulled down the pulpit in Hendon Chapel, and played at cards in the pews and upon the desk, they surprised the Holy Bible, took it away, and afterwards tore it in pieces, and then stucke up the leaves of it upon the posts in severall places in Wigan, saying, 'This is the Roundheads' Bible.'"

Venables was of the ancient Cheshire family of that name at Antrobus. He was afterward Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentarian troops in Ulster, and later, with the rank of General, led the expedition to the West Indies which took possession of Jamaica. He acquiesced in the Restoration, and died in 1687, aged 75 ("Discourse" note, p. 99).