t he followed the Earl of Bedford. In
September, 1642, Sir Hugh Pollard wrote to the Earl of Bath: 'The Earl
of Bedford is now at Taunton, in want of men and money; he hath sent to
his friends Chudleigh, Bampfield, and Northcote, for a supply of both,
whose oratory cannot get one trained man to move, nor above eight
volunteers.'

The letter receives a curious comment from the succeeding ones. At that
very time the Earl of Bedford was issuing orders for the arrest of Sir
Hugh Pollard, and four days afterwards Sir George Chudleigh and Sir John
Northcote wrote to Major Carey, expressing their approval of Captain
Dewett's conduct in capturing the Earl of Bath. Sir John was now at the
head of a regiment of twelve hundred men, and seems to have held the
command during the first two years of the Civil War. He took an active
part in the defence of Plymouth, and in 1643 at Modbury a victory was
won by the forces under Lieutenant-General Ruthen, Sir J. Bampfield, and
Sir John Northcote, over Lord Hopton's troops. Many of the
Parliamentarian gentlemen were anxious for peace, and just after this
skirmish tried to arrange an 'association' or neutrality between Devon
and Cornwall; but the idea was quashed by Commissioners from London. A
few months later Clarendon mentions that Sir John was sent by the Earl
of Bedford, the Parliamentary General of Horse, to negotiate a treaty
with the Marquis of Hertford.

Sir John was elected to the Parliament of 1656, and showed himself a
constant lover of liberty. He inveighed against the powers granted to
Cromwell's House of Peers. 'It was minded you ... that no law was
rightly made but by King, Lords, and Commons. I am sure this law was not
made so.' He lays stress on the point that the old House of Lords
ventured all that they had, and protests against their being superseded
by new-comers. 'That they should be excluded and these advanced is not
just nor reasonable.' A little later he spoke again on the same subject:
'We thought in the long Parliament we might restrain the inordinate
power of the Chief Magistrate. That was the ground of our quarrel in the
late war; but ... it seems we cannot bound these Lords' exorbitant
powers.... I did fight against an exorbitant power in the King's hands,
and _I will fight against it again to the last drop of blood_, if his
Highness command me, whenever such power shall be set up, if it be
to-morrow, and in whatever hands it be.'

John Northcote was one of