36 Facts About Thomas Fairfax

Sir Thomas Fairfax was an English soldier from Yorkshire who led Parliament's New Model Army from 1645 to 1650 during the Civil War against King Charles I Because of his dark visage, he was known as "Black Tom" to his loyal troops.

Thomas Fairfax was the eldest son and heir of Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, and succeeded to that title as 3rd Lord Fairfax in 1648 on the death of his father, although he was generally known as "Sir Thomas Fairfax" to distinguish them.

Thomas Fairfax adopted the profession of arms as a young man, when he served under Horace Vere in the Netherlands.

Sir Thomas Fairfax later moved to join Parliament's stronger Eastern Association army, with which he achieved several significant victories, notably the decisive Battle of Marston Moor.

Thomas Fairfax was born to a Yorkshire family that could trace its descent to the 13th century.

Thomas Fairfax was educated at St John's College Cambridge, matriculating at age 14 in 1626.

The Fairfaxes, father and son, though serving at first under King Charles I, were opposed to the arbitrary prerogative of the Crown, and Sir Thomas declared that "his judgment was for the Parliament as the king and kingdom's great and safest council".

Thomas Fairfax was employed to present a petition to his sovereign, entreating him to listen to the voice of his parliament, and to discontinue the raising of troops.

Charles attempted to ignore the petition, pressing his horse forward, but Thomas Fairfax followed him and placed the petition on the pommel of the king's saddle.

In 1643, a minor battle between Royalists for Charles I and a small group of Roundheads under Thomas Fairfax, who were en route from Tadcaster to Leeds, took place at Seacroft.

Thomas Fairfax was obliged to retreat across Bramham moor, and summed up the Battle of Seacroft Moor as 'the greatest loss we ever received'.

The younger Thomas Fairfax bore himself with the greatest gallantry in the battle and, though severely wounded, managed to join Oliver Cromwell and the victorious cavalry on the other wing.

One of his brothers, Colonel Charles Thomas Fairfax, was killed in action.

Sir Thomas Fairfax was selected as the new Lord General, with Cromwell as his Lieutenant-General and cavalry commander.

Thomas Fairfax besieged Leicester, and was successful at Taunton, Bridgwater and Bristol.

Thomas Fairfax met the king beyond Nottingham, accompanying him during the journey to Holdenby, treating him with the utmost consideration in every way.

Thomas Fairfax was more at home in the field than at the head of a political committee, and, finding events too strong for him and that his officers were rallying around the more radical and politically shrewd Cromwell, he sought to resign his commission as commander-in-chief.

Thomas Fairfax thus remained the titular chief of the army party, and with the greater part of its objects he was in complete, sometimes most active, sympathy.

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second Civil War, Thomas Fairfax succeeded his father in the barony and in the office of governor of Hull.

Thomas Fairfax was in agreement with Cromwell and the army leaders in demanding the punishment of Charles, and he was still the effective head of the army.

Thomas Fairfax approved, if he did not take an active part in, Pride's Purge, but on the last and gravest of the questions at issue he set himself in deliberate and open opposition to the policy of the officers.

Thomas Fairfax was placed at the head of the judges who were to try the King, and attended the preliminary sitting of the court, but absented himself after this.

In calling over the court, when the crier pronounced the name of Thomas Fairfax, it is said that his wife, Anne Thomas Fairfax, shouted from the gallery that "he had more wit than to be there".

Thomas Fairfax had given his adhesion to the new order of things, and had been reappointed Lord General, but he merely administered the affairs of the army; when in 1650 Scots Covenanter Kirk Party eventually declared for Charles II, and the Council of State resolved to send an army to Scotland in order to prevent an invasion of England, Fairfax resigned his commission.

Thomas Fairfax was put at the head of the commission appointed by the House of Commons to wait upon Charles II at The Hague and urge his speedy return.

Thomas Fairfax provided the horse which Charles rode at his coronation.

The remaining eleven years of the life of Lord Thomas Fairfax were spent in retirement at his seat in Yorkshire.

Thomas Fairfax's wife died in 1665 and Fairfax died at Nun Appleton Priory in 1671.

Thomas Fairfax was buried at St James' Church, Bilbrough, near York.

Thomas Fairfax translated some of the Psalms, and wrote poems on solitude, the Christian warfare, the shortness of life, etc.

Mary Thomas Fairfax, who married George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.

Thomas Fairfax, played by actor Dougray Scott, is a pivotal character in the 2003 film To Kill a King, as well as in Rosemary Sutcliff's 1953 historical fiction Simon, being portrayed as inspiring and fair.

Thomas Fairfax appears as a central character in Sutcliff's 1959 novel The Rider of the White Horse, which gives an account of the early stage of the Civil War from the point of view of his wife, and in Howard Brenton's 2012 play 55 Days.

Thomas Fairfax was played by Jerome Willis in the 1975 historical film Winstanley.

Thomas Fairfax appears in Michael Arnold's novel Marston Moor, which includes an account of Fairfax's adventures in the eponymous battle.

Thomas Fairfax was a central character, played by Nigel Anthony, in the 1988 BBC Radio production of Don Taylor's play God's Revolution.