Nevertheless Manchester might congratulate itself on a very considerable and well deserved success. The thanksgivings of October 2nd, and of October 6th, when there was a special service in the church for the soldiers, were amply justified; for it was the first trial of strength, and the royalists were thought to be the stronger. The effect of their failure was therefore very great. And it is surely not only local pride which sees in the siege of Manchester an event which had an importance quite out of proportion to that which is at first apparent. As a Parliamentarian writer says, "had not that town stood very firmly for the King and Parliament in all probability the whole county had been brought into subjection to the oppression and violence of the Cavaliers."[67] This is quite true. Manchester became the Parliamentarian headquarters, though even after their first success that party was for three months very largely on the defensive. Manchester was the key of the position, and had it fallen in October, 1642, and remained in royalist hands the King would have been supreme in the whole county. And to have been supreme in Lancashire would have enormously strengthened Charles' cause in all the north of England. FOOTNOTES: [44] The population is probably estimated from the list of Manchester signatures to the Protestation of 1641-2, which are given at length in the "Palatine Note Book," Vol. 1. This is supposed to be a complete list of the householders in Manchester at the time. The whole total, however, is 1,305, and as 120 or more are names of officers mostly outside the town, and there are many reduplications besides, the estimate of 5,000 seems nearer the mark. [45] "Fairfax Correspondence" (2 vols., 1848), Vol. 2, pp. 271-4. "Hist. MSS. Com.," Rep. 9, app. 2, pp. 431-2. Fairfax writes to his brother, Henry Fairfax, at Ashton-under-Lyne: a bill in Parliament would cost 100 marks, and would have very small chance of success. [46] The Reeve of Salford at this time was Henry Wrigley, a successful cloth merchant and banker. He gave £20 towards the £200 which was subscribed for the building of Salford Chapel, the remainder being paid by Humphrey Booth. Wrigley was Constable for Salford Hundred, and in that capacity issued the summons under the Commission of Array for the muster at Bury on July 14, 1642. He was a lukewarm royalist, however, and prevented two of his servants from joining the royalist army. Afterwards he closed his house and fled to London, where he appeared definitely on the Parliament's side. Attempts were afterwards made to convict him as a malignant, but without success. Wrigley, who was a very prosperous merchant, afterwards lived at Chamber Hall, near Oldham. He was one of Humphrey Chetham's executors and High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1651. ("Palatine Note Book," Vol. 3. pp. 103, 104.)