Civil War and change

At the start of the Civil War, in 1642, Whitby was a Royalist port which served the Royalist general, the Earl of Newcastle, until his departure from Scarborough, and Whitby's capture by Lord Fairfax and Sir William Constable. Of the period between 1641 and 1650, with its brief glimpse of the development of factoring by the masters of colliers, there is little information from the systematic record of community or port. As in so many parishes, the parish register is deficient until the election of a Civil ‘Register’, William Jones, in 1653. The Port Books are once again scrappy, as in most ports at this difficult time.

Town and people

Although there is little local information for the 1640s, Whitby was caught up quite seriously in the events of the Civil War. Sir Hugh Cholmley, the lord of the manor, was governor of Scarborough castle, first for Parliament, then after a meeting with the Queen, for Charles I. His deputy was his younger cousin, Browne Bushell, erstwhile master of John. Cholmley enabled the Earl of Newcastle to escape from Scarborough in 1644, and in 1645 finally yielded up the castle and went into exile, having previously made Bushell master of a King's ship.

Gaskin gives an account, culled largely from John Vicars's Parliamentary Chronicle, of the fall of Whitby. Vicars described Whitby as a haven-port in the farthest part of Yorkshire, with a very strong garrison of the earl of Newcastle, but he also told of the willing surrender of the town. Most important to this study is the presence of forty vessels in the harbour, greater and lesser. Some may have been of the Royalist navy, and others from other outports, but they are still indicative of a busy harbour, despite the war.

Lady Cholmley was permitted to live in Abbey House during her husband's exile, although the Cholmleys were not re-united as a family until 1652, when Sir Hugh returned from exile on payment of punitive Royalist compositions or fines.

It is from accounts of these events that some scant evidence of the town's fate during this period may be gleaned, and augmented by similarly scant probate evidence. The plague of the mid-1640s arrived in Whitby.