Another very material encouragement was experienced by the Royalists in the return of the Queen with a convoy of troops and ammunition. Burlington, where she landed, was bombarded, and the bullets fell into the room she occupied. She was forced to take flight into the open country, where she remained hidden under a bank. Lord Newcastle came to her rescue, and conducted her to York, where the Roman Catholics of the North rallied in great strength about her. She now sought to negotiate terms with several of the Parliamentarian leaders, who were already tiring of their cause; but the King’s final conditions, upon which he consented to an arrangement, gave such offence to Parliament, that the deputies were recalled by a message so peremptory that they had not time to wait for their coaches, and started back to London on horseback. In the meantime, the Earl of Derby had been successfully fighting for the Royal cause in the North. He took Lancaster and Preston from the Parliamentarians. There is little doubt that he would have followed up these triumphs by the subjection of Manchester, though it held out with great determination; but again he was thwarted by demands for his men to be drafted elsewhere. Despite the rudeness and insults of this course, the Earl strove to endure them in an unmurmuring spirit. He was forced to see, without contesting, an attack on the little town of Wigan, which he had garrisoned under the Scotch General Blair. The town was taken and pillaged. The sacramental vessels were even stolen from the church, and, in accordance with the fanatical spirit of the time, which was beginning to know no bounds, one of the Puritan bigots hung them round his neck as idolatrous trophies. When his people and soldiers vented their indignation at the treatment to which their beloved and honoured chief was subjected by the Court, and at the hands of the master whom he was striving with all his might, and at such sacrifices, to serve, he quoted the noble passage from Tacitus: “_Pravis dictio factisque ex posteritate et fama metus._”[11] Footnote 11: “It belongs to fame and posterity to strike bad actions and bad words with fear.” Nothing now remained for the Earl to do under such an enforced inactivity but to return to Lathom House, in order to superintend the work begun there of fortifying and victualling it, to ensure the safety of his wife and children, who resided in it during his long absences.