This Day in History: 1645-07-02

On 2nd July 1645, Nathan Drake, Royalist diarist, recorded: ‘ in the Afternoone our dutchman playd his Cannon from the Platforme by Treasurers Tower into the Markitt place, where we saw 2 or 3 kild dead..’ The unnamed ‘dutchman’ is first mentioned in the diaries on 10th June this year, most probably associated with his countrymen’s draining operations in the east of Yorkshire under the patronage of King Charles I.