Description: On January 4th 1642, King Charles came in person to the Parliament chamber at the head of a body of soldiers. His intention was to arrest the five MPs considered to be his leading opponents. Forewarned, they had already gone into hiding. In the ensuing outcry, the King was forced to flee from his own capital. A few weeks later, Queen Henrietta Maria left for the continent to seek foreign support for her husband's cause. During March, while the King set up his court at York, the Westminster Parliament granted itself powers to raise its own troops. The following month, the King was refused entry into Hull, the site of the country's northern magazine and arsenal. After months of uncompromising and fruitless negotiation between King and Parliament, armed conflict looked inevitable. By July, skirmishes between Royalists and Parliamentarians were being reported from many parts of the country. The King was in Yorkshire, and having given his decision for Nottingham, where he purposed gathering his forces around him, he set out for his destination, passing Lincoln, Newark, and Southwell, reaching Nottingham on August 19. Next day he reviewed his cavalry, 800 strong, and, hearing that the Earl of Essex was marching upon Coventry, he hurried to obtain possession of it; but upon his arrival, the gates of Coventry were closed against him, and all he could do was to return to Nottingham. On August 22nd, King Charles officially declared war on his Parliament by raising the royal standard at Nottingham Castle. Doubts have been entertained as to where the standard was unfurled, whether on the castle or on the adjoining hill. Some local historians, suggests that there were two standards raised: one for the military men at the castle and the other a popular streamer, for the inhabitants to rally round on what has always been known since as Standard Hill. This spot on the hill outside the Castle grounds is now marked by an inscribed stone in the centre of the roadway. Clarendon gives the date as the 25th; but some local writers affirm that it was Monday, the 22nd. Probably the usual flag was hoisted when the King arrived on the 22nd, and the historic incident, more generally known as the 'raising of the standard,' took place, according to arrangement, on the 25th. The day after the 'raising of the standard' intelligence was received that the army of the rebels was at Northampton, and after a short interval active hostilities commenced. Nottingham cast in its lot with the cause of the Parliament, and the custody of the castle was entrusted to Colonel Hutchinson. There followed many encounters between the two rival garrisons of Nottingham on the side of the Parliament and Newark 'for God 'and for the King.' Eventually, Charles surrendered to the Scots' army that was besieging Newark, in May, 1646, and in the following February he passed through Nottingham in custody of the army of the Parliament. The Nottingham garrison was reduced; Colonel Hutchinson retired to the village of Owthorpe, and the castle was dismantled, at which Cromwell, when he came this way from the North, was 'heartily vexed,' remonstrating with Colonel Hutchinson for having been the cause of its abandonment. It remained in ruins till the Restoration, when it was claimed by the Duke of Buckingham in right of his mother, heiress of the Earl of Rutland. His Grace disposed of it to the Duke of Newcastle, and thereafter to his descendants. The picture is looking to the east and shows St Mary's Church in the Lacemarket. It is a later depiction of this historic event and was drawn c 1790 and engraved by W J Walker and published by J Throsby.