Sir Marmaduke Langdale, a great friend of young Hotham’s,[66] was the mover between him and the Earl; and this was sooner laid hold on, in that the Lord Fairfax was now made a General for the Parliament of the forces of Yorkshire, and some adjacent counties; which discontented old Hotham, and though the son had as much as in reason he could expect (and more than fell to his share), being made Lieutenant General to Fairfax, yet he was not well pleased.
[Footnote 66: But see Hotham’s letter of 22 March, to Newcastle, p. 89.]
“The Queen’s army coming to Bridlington had brought such a magazine of arms and ammunition, my Lord of Newcastle’s army began to be very formidable and young Hotham having retired himself (and those forces which belonged to him and his father) from the Lord Fairfax, and being then at Beverley, began to have fresh notions of treating; and thereupon makes a journey for one night to the Earl at Bridlington, upon colour and pretences of a change of prisoners; there he demanded his father to be made a Viscount, and himself a Baron, that they might have £20,000 in money, and a Patent to the father to be Governor of Hull during his life”;—this was, indeed, the very converse of the system of purchasing peerages mentioned in an early chapter—“all which, as it would have been granted, so probably accepted, but that in this nick of time, Sir John received some assurance of the Scots coming into England, and that young Hotham (by his alliance and friendship with the Wrays) was chosen General of Lincolnshire; yet both parties made this advantage by the treaty, that as the Lord Newcastle forebore to come near Hull and Beverley, so young Hotham, though he had above 1,000 horse and dragoons, did not interrupt the Lord Newcastle’s march from Bridlington; which might easily have been done, his army being over-charged with baggage, and the season so tempestuous that his forces were very much dispersed.
“Immediately after this young Hotham goes to be General for the Parliament in Lincolnshire, so that the treaty was off the hinge, till such time as he was laid hold of at Nottingham by Cromwell, which the father did so much resent as he did not only write to the close committee in a menacing style for his son’s enlargement, but was otherwise so passionate in words and deportment that it gave the Parliament a great suspicion of him.... In the interim young Hotham breaks loose from Cromwell, and comes to Hull where the father and son think it very opportune to renew the treaty with my Lord of Newcastle; and thereupon Sir John writes that letter, which was after (at the battle of York) taken in my Lord’s cabinet,” i.e. Newcastle’s, “and cost both the Hothams their heads.”...