Captain John Hotham, son of Sir John Hotham, the knight who in April denied King Charles entrance to the port of Hull and its considerable store of munitions and power, two days ago seized Cawood Castle in Yorkshire for Parliament, effectively letting loose the dogs of war in the North of England.

Captain Hotham led a force of 500 foot and horse to the Castle, the former seat of the Archbishops of York that sits on a bend in the Ouse some ten miles south of the cathedral city. The keeper of the Castle handed Captain Hotham the keys, and by all accounts retired immediately to the Ferry Inn for a taste of the establishment’s well-known ale.

Hotham’s bold action resolves a vexing problem for Parliament: the matter of a pact of neutrality executed in September between Ferdinando Lord Fairfax, Parliament’s leader in the North, and the royalists, led by the Earl of Cumberland. Parliament condemned the treaty on October 4, stating “no such Neutrality be observed,” it being the case that “none of one of the Parties to That Agreement had any Authority, by any Act of theirs, to bind that County to any such Neutrality.

“It is very prejudicial and dangerous to the whole Kingdom, that One County should withdraw themselves from the Assistance of the rest, to which they are bound by Law, and by several Orders and Declarations of Parliament,” the House of Commons declared in its Declaration to Yorkshire of October 4.

With neutrality null and void, battle is likely to follow. The Fairfaxes have a considerable following among the clothing towns of the West Riding, while the Hothams claim the allegience of Beverly and Hull. For the King’s side, the Marquis of Newcastle is raising an army among his tenants. He has clothed them in white sheepskins, earning them the nickname “Newcastle’s Lambs” or the Whitecoats.

It’s to be hoped the supporters of Parliament can unite against the common foe. The Hothams are bitter rivals to Lord Ferdinando and his son Sir Thomas, who has served against the Spaniards in the Low Countries, for leadership of the forces of Parliament in the North. They were from the beginning furiously opposed to the neutrality pact championed by the Fairfaxes, Sir John going to far as to denounce it in a tract widely-circulated through the North.

The drama in the north comes as Lord Essex’s army, with 20,000 men, occupies Worcester and while the 3,000 of Lord Brooke hold Oxford. The King’s army, having occupied Chester, remains near Shrewsbury. The King’s horse, led by his son-in-law Prince Rupert, inflicted a sharp defeat on Parliament’s horse on September 23.