Note 94 — Chapter V · The Crisis. January to June, 1643.

There are two accounts of the capture of Preston in the "Mercurius Aulicus," 1643, pp. 150 and 159 respectively. The former is given in "C.W.T.," p. 84. The fullest Parliamentarian account is in the "Discourse," p. 29. Cf. also "Valley of Achor" ("C.W.T.," p. 132) and Seaton's Letter "Chetham Miscellanies," Vol. 3 (No. 57). Seaton says that though he was suffering from a fall from his horse he would have at once pursued the royalists at Preston, but his men refused to follow him. On the next morning, when news came of Derby's occupation of Preston, none of them would remain in Lancaster; and Colonel Stanley's three companies flatly disobeyed his orders. Evidently the men had got quite out of hand, and Seaton was very unpopular. He gives as the reason that he had restrained the soldiers from plundering at Preston. The dates of the capture of Lancaster are given by the Earl of Derby in his Diary "Stanley Papers," C.S. 70, ed. Raines, Pt. 3, Vol. 3, p. 3).