The Parliamentarian engineer was Colonel Morgan, who had also taken part in the first siege. No trenches were made close to the house, but under his direction a deep ditch was drawn round the wall at some distance, and the attacking force lay on the outer side of that. There would only be fighting when the garrison sallied out for stores. The siege made very slow progress. On March 25, 1645, Egerton writes very despondently to the Speaker concerning the state of the siege and the discipline of his troops. It was now nearly three months since he had first advanced, and in spite of promises his force was so small that he dared not approach nearer than four or five miles from the House. Most of the troops had been got together by his own efforts. He had at first advanced to within two miles, but finding that he could not stop the garrison plundering, he had retired again and spread out his men, who only numbered 100 foot and 400 horse. Even these were constantly deserting, and trying to take their colours with them.[170] Some months before this Meldrum had written that the Colonels of three regiments "told me plainly that if I should press the soldiers to an approach which would require them to lie in the trenches without shelter, where there was neither money nor victuals, they would all be gone do what we could to prevent it."[171] By the middle of July, however, the Parliamentarian troops had made a considerable advance, for they carried the Lodge by storm, forty of the defenders being killed and sixty taken prisoners; and soon afterwards the garrison at New Park also surrendered, after which the royalists were confined to Lathom itself. In August, two of the Earl of Derby's servants named Sharples and Moreau, came over from the Isle of Man, and were captured in trying to get through the besiegers' lines. Sharples was sent into the House that he might explain the hopelessness of resistance, but in vain. The garrison refused to be convinced, and Sharples was allowed to return to the Earl of Derby. For three months more the royalists held out. But it was an unnecessary display of courage, and was bound to have disastrous results for Lathom House. This second siege was very different from the first. The glamour of Lady Derby's presence was gone. Instead of a numerous garrison well armed and provisioned, making successful sorties at intervals, and hopeful of release from without, there were only a few irreconcilables being gradually starved into submission. And they had nothing to gain by prolonging the war, for after the Battle of Naseby the royalist cause was dead.