1645 Siege of Newark Klippe 9 Pence S-3145 NGC F 15 English Civil Wars VERY RARE

Description

The English Civil Wars as they are called, began in 1642 and were caused by King Charles I refusal to accept compromise. Charles would cause the kingdoms of England & Scotland to rebel against him for 2 entirely different reasons, the Scottish would rebel over Charles attempt to impose a new book of prayer on them, & the English would rebel against Charles because of his decade long personal rule, ridiculous taxation loopholes, attempt to arrest members of Parliament, & the Reformation of the Church to be more ceremonially Catholic. All of this happened while a Catholic rebellion began in Ireland (Parliament would belive wrongly that Charles was behind this).
During the English Civil Wars Newark was besieged 3 times. It is during the 3rd time that coins were struck out of silver plate to pay the garrison.
On November 26th 1645, troops from Scotland started to besiege Newark from the north while Parliamentarian forces did the same from the south. The Royalist garrison aggressively defended the town and during a harsh winter the Scots built up siege works manned by 16,000 men. They also dammed the River Deven so that the grain mills in the town didn't work and there was no drinking water. Regardless of this, Newark held out. The townspeople who survived later wrote that food was so scarce that they had to eat horses and dogs. Plague was also a major day-to-day problem in the town killing dozens each day.
While the siege was happening in April of 1646 Charles capital of Oxford was besieged by Parliament. On the 27th Charles slipped out of Oxford in disguise. Charles soon appeared in the Scotish Army camp that was besieging Newark to negotiate and try to play the Scotish & Parliament off each other. The Scotish forced Charles to unconditional surrender & on May 8th he ordered Newark to surrender as well. Charles would eventually form the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scotish starting the 2nd English Civil War but Parliament defeated him and were essentially forced by Charles actions to execute him.