The Royalist army under the Earl of Newcastle defeated the Parliamentarians under the command of Lord Ferdinando Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas.
He was born in Yorkshire the eldest son of Ellen Aske and Thomas Fairfax, whom Charles I in 1627 created Lord Fairfax of Cameron in the Peerage of Scotland and received a military education in the Netherlands.
Widdrington married Frances Fairfax, a daughter of Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron and had five daughters and a son.
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The poet Edward Fairfax lived at nearby New Hall, now submerged under the waters of Fewston Reservoir, as did the knight Ferdinando Fairfax.
At first the castle resisted, and finding their artillery—the largest of which was a demi-culverin—was insufficient to breach the castle wall, General Crawford sent a letter to Lord Fairfax for a demi-cannon (the Queen's pocket-pistoll) and a whole culverin.
Meanwhile the younger Hotham was taking an active part in the Civil War in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, but was soon at variance with other parliamentary leaders, especially with Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas Fairfax, and complaints about his conduct and that of his troops were made by Oliver Cromwell and by Colonel John Hutchinson.