From the opening page: At the start of the civil war Dorset lay deep within Parliamentarian controlled territory. The only royalists on the South coast were in Western Cornwall and the small pre war garrison of Portsmouth under Colonel Goring. Otherwise the machinery of government in the westcountry was under the control of men with Parliamentarian or neutralist tendencies. The earliest Royalist action requiring a pro parliamentarian response came from incursions from the Royalist headquarter in York. In August there was a major incursion into Somerset by the Marquis of Hertford who in July was instructed by the King to put into effect the commission of array in the counties of Southampton [Hampshire"] Wiltshire, Dorset, Cornwall, Devon and Somerset plus the independent cities of Bristol, Exeter and the Town of Poole. The commission of array was a legal device allowing Hertford to raise the trained bands [pre war militia] in the Royalist cause.

Hertford, accompanied by Sir Ralph Hopton and some other gentlemen with their servants, rode from Beverly in Yorkshire to Marlborough in Wiltshire. The citizens of this town, although tenants of Hertford, seized the local county magazine but took no direct action against the Royalists. Hertford's force was too weak to commandeer the magazine and continued to Bath. Meeting many local gentlemen here but finding the high sheriff to be Parliamentarian Hertford retired to Wells and began levying troops. The local trained band regiment of Sir Edward Rodney was summoned, Lt Col Henry Lundsford arrived with officers and a commission to raise a regiment of foot tor his brother Sir Thomas, and 3 troops of horse were raised by Lord Digby, Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir Francis Hawley. Lundsford's regiment was expected to form around a core of men who had served with him in the 1640 war against the Scots, and weapons were collected from Wincanton that had been deposited at the end of that campaign. Hertford also had the county magazine at Wells. Within a few days he had 3 troops of horse, other dragoons and volunteers, 100 men of Lundsford's regiment and Rodney's unenthusiastic trained bands. The Parliamentary forces in Somerset and the surrounding area prepared to counter this substantial threat.....

The condition of the booklet is generally very good. The covers have one or two very minor scuffs, but the staple spine is intact, and all pages are clean, intact, unblemished and tightly bound.