Parliamentary Reports 1643
Reports to Parliament of the various Commotions
and Battles in the County of Nottinghamshire
in the Year of Our Lord 1643.
By Bruce Dawson

In the first week of March,after weeks of rumour and suspicions concerning the designs and injurious intentions of the Lordships and gentry of the Royalist and Papist den of Newark, our honourable Colonel John Hutchinson did bestir the loyal men of Nottingham and Southwell. Nor was the bestirment a day too soon for, behold! the very first patrol on the Southwell to Newark road was set upon by a strong band of Royalist cavalry. Though mainly foot, the brave lads held their ground,and no Royalist has yet seen the reformed spire of Southwell Minster nor gainsayed the strength of her defenders.

Our main forces being of the City of Nottingham, twas thence a gathering greatly blessed by the Lord in it’s multitude, that several regiments of foot and horse and Rector Palmer’s cannon did gather under Colonel Thornhaugh .

This force at once dispatched Captain White’s cavalry up the Southwell road to secure the village of Gunthorpe and thus the northern end of the Gunthorpe Bridge across the Trent, a mission happily concluded to the joy of the villagers without intercourse with the enemy whatsoever. Our main army meanwhile crossed the Trent South of the city at West Bridgford which was also garrisoned with no small happiness amongst it’s inhabitants. The same cannot be said of the village of Sneinton however where the sullen silence of the populace upon our army’s entry bore ill for the future work of the garrison stationed thereupon.

Thus are the most important crossings of the Southern Trent safe in Parliament’s good hands and the City of Nottingham secured from attack . Our army must now secure the Fiveways and Fourways junctions to the southeast before any enemy from the royalist den at Wiverton Hall can intervene. Only in the North are we apprehensive, as we are certain that Royalist knowledge of the weakness of the Southwell garrison would involke their immediate attack upon that place. Nevertheless the Southwell lads must hold out alone until we secure the villages of the south, without whose sustinance the City of Nottingham would surely starve.

Here endeth the first report of The Parliamentary Commissioners of Nottinghamshire dated this Sventh day of the month of March in the Year of our Lord 1643