POLITICAL HISTORY whom also served in the second Civil War ; =' Richard Bullingham of Ketton, who joined the Royalist garrison at Belvoir in 1643;^° Sir Wingfield Bodenham, who was brought as a prisoner to Cromwell at Burghley, Northamp- tonshire, in 1644 ; " and — for his courage entitles him to notice, in spite of his diminutive size — Jeffrey Hudson, the queen's dwarf page, who is said to have served during the war as a captain of horse, and who accompanied his royal mistress on her return to France.^* In December 1642 Parliament obtained fuller control over Rutland by constituting it part of the Midland Association ; the other counties com- prised in it were those of Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Northampton, Buckingham, Bedford, and Huntingdon, and Lord Grey of Groby was appointed commander-in-chief in January 1643. The members of the committee for Rutland were Thomas Salisbury, Sir Edward Harington, Robert Horseman and his son of the same name, Evers Armyn, John Osborne, Christopher Browne (of Tolethorpe), and Samuel Barker.^' In February 1643 another committee was appointed to raise 'money, plate and horse ' in the counties of Nottingham, Leicester, and Rutland.*" After the battle of Edgehill, on 23 October 1642, the nearest rallying-points for the king's partisans were Oxford and Newark, while the Parliamentary forces were concentrated at Leicester and Grantham. Though Belvoir Castle, the Earl of Rutland's seat, was captured by the royal troops in January 1643,*^ this was more than compensated for by the capture of Burley on the Hill about the same time. In September 1643 the committee of Rutland was ordered ' forthwith to put in execution the ordinances for sequestrations, of the twentieth part, and for the weekly assessments, and particularly to sequester the estate of Sir Guy Palmes,' who was specially marked out for severe treatment as a Royalist member of the House of Commons ; *^ and it is therefore evident that the position of such Royalists as remained in the county was from the beginning of the war one of great peril. One of the first and greatest sufferers for the royal cause was Henry Noel of North Luffenham, who, having lost his first wife in 1640, had married two years later a daughter of Sir Hugh Perry, and had only been settled in his house for a few weeks at the time of his misfortunes, which appear to have been almost entirely due to the fact that he was the younger ^^ Cal. of Com. fir Compounding, 1471. '* Ibid. 1497; Leics.and Rut.N.and 0.in,()l. " Cal. of Com. fir Compounding, 850. He was appointed sheriff of the county by the king in 1642 for the year 1643 (B.M. Pressmark 669. f. 6, no. 93), but it is not likely that he had any real authority. In Jan. 1643 he attempted to secure for the king Rutland's share of the subsidy of ^^400,000 imposed by Parliament ; Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), i, 91. '^ Jeffrey Hudson, described by Fuller as ' the least man of the least county in England,' and familiar to readers of Scott's Peveril of the Peak, was born at Oakham in l6ig, and was taken into the family of the Duke of Buckingham at Burley on the Hill when he was nine years old and only 1 8 in. in height, and was afterwards presented to the queen. During a journey to France to bring over the queen's midwife he was captured by a French pirate, and only liberated by the interference of the French court. During the queen's sojourn in France after the war he fought a duel with Lord Crofts, who had insulted him, fighting on horse- back with pistols and shooting his antagonist, for which he was expelled from the court. After this he was taken at sea by a Turkish pirate and carried to Barbary, where he remained a slave for some years. He was eventually redeemed, returned to England about 1658, and received a pension from the Buckingham family. Being a Roman Catholic, he fell under suspicion during the Popish Plot,' and was imprisoned for some time in the Gatehouse at Westminster, and he died soon after his release ; Wright, Hist. Rut. 105 ; Fuller, Worthies (ed. 181 1), ii, 243-4 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. ^^ Lords' J ourn.v, ^()'^ ; Rushworth, v, 1 19.
- ° Commons' J ourn. ii, 957. " Nichols, Hist. Leics. ii, 51.
" Commons' J ourn. iii, 257. 189
