Early Life
Thomas Fairfax was born at Denton Hall, near Ilkley, Yorkshire, on 17 January 1612, the eldest son of Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax. He studied at St John's College, Cambridge, and Gray's Inn (1626–28), then volunteered to join Sir Horace Vere's expedition to fight for the Protestant cause in the Netherlands. In 1639 he commanded a troop of Yorkshire dragoons which marched with King Charles I against the Scots in the First Bishops' War which ended with the Pacification of Berwick before any fighting took place. In the Second Bishops' War the following year the English army was routed at the battle of Newburn. Fairfax fled with the rest of the defeated army but was nevertheless knighted for his services in January 1641.
Read more about this topic: Anne Fairfax
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“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
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