Yet the very next day Captain Hotham wrote with others to Lenthall about joining his forces to those of Cromwell. This, however, may have been with the object of throwing dust in the eyes of the Parliament; and it is the more likely because the Parliament itself seems to have thought that something of this sort was his object. Whitelock says:—[64]
“Captain Hotham, being suspected by the Parliament, was imprisoned at Nottingham, from whence escaping, he under-hand treated with the Earl of Newcastle.”
We may as well dispose of the Hothams once for all; albeit to do so will make it necessary to anticipate considerably beyond the period of Newcastle’s campaign with which we are now dealing. Although long, the following statement of the whole affair of the Hothams by Sir Hugh Cholmley is worth reading, especially as the writer had been on intimate terms both with the Hothams and with Newcastle. Yet it may be that the statement should be taken _cum grano salis_; as Cholmley probably felt considerable resentment towards the Hothams for regarding him as a base renegade from the Parliamentary cause in which he had at one time shown so much zeal.
“AN ORIGINAL, ENDORSED BY CLARENDON ‘SIR HUGH CHOLMLEY’S MEMORIALS’.[65]
“If Sir John Hotham could have been assured of what he had done or said in Parliament, and received into grace and favour,”—Cholmley seems to mean: If he could have been assured that what he had said in Parliament in the past would have been forgiven him and that he would be received into grace and favour by the King—“he might have been made a faithful and serviceable person; the denying of which (or at least answering it coldly) was a great motive to his undertaking that employment at Hull....
[Footnote 65: Clarendon State Papers, 181.]
“Sir John Hotham, when he departed from London, gave assurance to some of his nearest friends, that he would not deny the King entrance into Hull, and surely had not done it, but that he was informed by some person near the King, in case he permitted his Majesty entrance, he would lose his head; and it is conceived the same person did most prompt the King to go to Hull....
“The Earl of Newcastle had not been long with his forces in Yorkshire, when there began a treaty between him and young Hotham; whom together with his father they sought to draw to the King’s party.