Aston, Sir Arthur

, an officer of note in king Charles I-.‘s army, was son of sir Arthur Aston of Fulham in Middlesex, who was the second son of sir Thomas Aston, of Aston, of Bucklow-hundred in Cheshire; “an ancient and knightly family of that county.” He was a great traveller, and made several campaigns in foreign countries. Being returned into England about the beginning of the grand rebellion, with as many soldiers of note as he could bring with him, he took part with the king against the parliament. He commanded the dragoons in the battle of Edge- hill, and with them did his majesty considerable service. The king, having a great opinion of his valour and conduct, made him governor of the garrison of Reading in Berkshire, and commissary-general of the horse in which post he three times repulsed the earl of Essex, who, at the head of the parliament army, laid siege to that place. But sir Arthur being dangerously wounded, the command was devolved on colonel Richard Fielding, the eldest colonel in the garrison. Sir Arthur was suspected of taking this opportunity to get rid of a dangerous command. Some time after, he was appointed governor of the garrison of Oxford, in the room of sir William Pennyman deceased. In September following, he had the misfortune to break his leg by a fall from his horse, and was obliged to have it cut off, and on the twenty-fifth of December, he was discharged from his command, which was conferred on colonel Gage. After the king’s death, sir Arthur was employed in the service of king Charles IL and went with the flower of the English veterans into Ireland, where he was appointed, governor of Drogheda, commonly called Tredagk; “at which time (Mr. Wood tells us) he laid an excellent plot to tire and break the English army.” But at length Cromwell having taken the | town, about the tenth of August 1649, and put the inhabitants to the sword, sir Arthur the governor was cut to pieces, and his brains beaten out with his wooden-leg. Wood says, that he was created doctor of physic, May 1,

1641, and that he left behind him a daughter, Elizabeth Thompon, alias Aston. According to Clarendon’s account, sir Arthur’s conduct was not upon the whole favourable to the royal cause, and as a commander he seems never to have been popular. ¹