Colchester surrenders to Parliament

Historical Context Note

Andrew Hopper (The University of Leicester)

Ed. by Jacqueline Eales, Canterbury Christ Church University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Domains

Battle

Dates

Date of occurrence 1648-08-27

Places

England (Location)

The surrender of Colchester during the second civil war marked a new vindictiveness in the treatment of defeated English royalists and has blotted the reputation for lenience of the parliamentarian commander-in-chief, Lord Fairfax. Both besiegers and besieged had suffered appalling conditions in a sodden and hungry siege lasting 75 days. On 27 August 1648, with no hope of relief and fearful of mutiny, the royalist commissioners negotiated a surrender. Afraid of being set upon by Fairfax’s vengeful soldiery, the commissioners submitted to harsh terms. Common soldiers and officers under the rank of captain were promised their lives, but officers over the rank of captain, lords and “gentlemen of distinction” (Jones, 129), were to …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

378 words

Citation: Hopper, Andrew. "Colchester surrenders to Parliament". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 May 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=2350, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Colchester surrenders to Parliament

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback