My lord, professing himself to him as rather desirous of peace, and fully resolved not to act on either side, made a serious imprecation* on himself in these words: “When,” said he, “I take arms with the king against the parliament, or with the parliament against the king, let a cannon-bullet divide me between them;” which God was pleased to bring to pass a few months after; for he, going to Gainsborough,* and there taking up arms for the king, was surprised by my Lord Willoughby,* and, after a handsome defence of himself, yielded, and was put prisoner into a pinnace, and sent down the river to Hull;* when my Lord Newcastle’s army* marching along the shore, shot at the pinnace, and being in danger, the Earl of Kingston went up on the deck to show himself and to prevail with them to forbear shooting; but as soon as he appeared, a cannon-bullet flew from the king’s army, and divided him in the middle, and thus, being then in the parliament’s pinnace, he perished according to his own unhappy imprecation.
* An imprecation is a spoken curse.
* Gainsborough is a town in Lincolnshire, east of Sheffield. The Parliamentarians defeated the Royalists there on July 28th, 1643, a few days after the Earl was taken during the first assault, which took place on July 16th.
* Francis Willoughby (?1613-1666), 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham. At this stage of his career he was fighting for Parliament, and commander-in-chief of Lincolnshire; but by 1644 he was growing disillusioned, and in 1647, under suspicion of treason, he fled to Holland. Charles II, as King in exile, appointed him governor of Barbados in 1650. He was ousted by the now republican English Government, but allowed to return home to England. After Charles was restored in 1660, Willoughby again served in the Caribbean, where he was lost at sea during a hurricane near Guadaloupe.
* A pinnace is a small boat, powered by sails or several oars, forming part of the equipment of a larger vessel. This took place on the River Trent, which flows north through Gainsborough to join the River Ouse and form the Humber Estuary near Hull.
* William Cavendish (?1593-1676), 1st Duke of Newcastle. A steadfast but somewhat under-appreciated servant of Charles I, he was Royalist Captain-General in Northern England. Prior to the Battle of Marston Moor in July 2nd, 1644, he warned the King’s lieutenant, Prince Rupert, that the enemy’s forces were too strong, but the Prince ignored him. The battle was a catastrophic defeat for the Royalists, the North was lost, and the Duke left for exile in Europe.