[160] "Discourse," pp. 57, 58; "C.W.T.," p. 204; "Denbigh MSS.," Vol. 1, p. 275. It seems evident that if Meldrum had been better informed of the fords across the Ribble below Preston, he might have caught the royalists a day before he did. In the Parliamentarian newspapers the number of prisoners taken was placed as high as 1,000 men. On July 15, Sir George Booth at Dunham was informed that Prince Rupert was still at Preston with 6,000 horse and some foot. CHAPTER VIII. The End of the First Civil War. There was now no longer a royalist army in Lancashire; the only places which still held out were Liverpool, Lathom House and Greenhalgh Castle. Clitheroe Castle had been deserted by its garrison a few weeks after the battle of Marston Moor; but Skipton, over the Yorkshire border, was for some time longer a source of apprehension to the Parliamentarians in Blackburn Hundred. After the defeat of the royalists at Ormskirk, Meldrum at once laid siege to Liverpool; but the fortifications were strong, and the town resisted for ten weeks, being at last surrendered on Friday, November 1st. Colonel Rosworm directed the ordnance at the siege, and Colonel Moore commanded some ships from the river. But Meldrum was called away for service in North Wales, and during his absence the siege was not conducted with any vigour. "I have had much ado," he wrote to the Committee of Both Kingdoms from Liverpool on October 2nd, "to bring back the Lancashire foot to their quarters before Liverpool, in regard to their want of obedience even to their own officers, the unseasonableness of the weather, and the time of harvest. They have had no pay for 18 weeks, and have been much pinched for want of victuals ever since they have been under my charge, the country being so wasted and spoiled by Prince Rupert's two journeys through Lancashire.... During my being abroad the enemy has taken divers of our men while sleeping upon their guard, and by what is intercepted I find them reduced to great extremities by inviting the garrison of Lathom House, consisting of 200 horse and 300 foot under Colonel Vere, who since the rout at Ormskirk hath been there, to fall upon some of our quarters upon Thursday next and in the meantime those within the town resolved to fall desperately upon some of our quarters and to make their retreat to Lathom House."[161] The Earl of Derby was also reported to be gathering troops in Cheshire for the relief of the town; but he was defeated by Sir William Brereton, and the intended attack from Lathom House never took place. But no breach could be made in the walls of Liverpool, and in the end it was starved into surrender. The circumstances were peculiar. In the last days of October 60 English soldiers of the garrison escaped, driving away with them some of the cattle, and surrendered to the besiegers, many of them taking service under the Parliament. The officers in the town realising that resistance