Following Charles I's failure in the Second Bishops' War in 1640, the defeated English army had not been paid and instead were forcibly billeted in parts of Yorkshire. One band of the Earl of Canaervon's soldiers was billeted at Hutton Bushell and West Ayton. An outrage occurred when in 1640, the only local landowning gentleman, Roger Wyvill, spotted four of Canaervon's soldiers attacking a traveller in Seamer, and tried to intervene. In return, he was chased down the street by the soldiers, only escaping by hiding in one of the fireplaces of the Seamer manor house. This matter was later brought before the authorities, where Wyvill described "The evil behaviour and grand abuses of the king's soldiers in his locality."