First English Civil War, 1644 First English Civil War, 1644 1644 was the third year of the First English Civil War. The King's position continued to decline and the Long Parliament sent the Propositions of Uxbridge, an attempt to end the war, to the king at Oxford Hopton had to retire from the area around Arundel, and on 6 January 1644, Waller recaptured the town. Byron's Cheshire army was in no better case. Newcastle's retreat from Hull and the loss of Gainsborough had completely changed the situation in the Midlands. Brereton was joined by the younger Fairfax from Lincolnshire, and the Royalists were severely defeated
Worcestershire in the English Civil War and neutral armed forces in June. Royalists started organising military forces at the Town Hall in mid July, but the city council then sided with Parliament, after the Worcestershire MPs Humphrey Salway and John Wylde returned to galvanise the city against Royalist control. A Grand Jury then declared the King's Commission of Array illegal, and gathered signatures in support of Parliament's Militia Ordinance. Royalist gentry from across Worcestershire continued to organise the Trained Bands for the King, however, and organised a support of a Grand Jury in early August that ordered the arrest of leading Parliamentarians and summoned the Trained