besieged by the New Model Army. Its commander Sir Thomas Fairfax recorded "Sir Allen Apsley is willing to surrender the town but his desperate brother (James) swears he will cut him to pieces if he surrenders the castle". Notwithstanding, they capitulated on 13 April and Apsley went to stay with his sisters and brothers-in-law in Nottingham. Hutchinson used his influence with the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents to help Apsley regain his estates on extremely favourable terms. In return, he carried messages from the Army to Charles, then being held by the Scots in Newcastle and was knighted by him in October 1646. After the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, he avoided involvement in Royalist conspiracies in order not to compromise his brother-in-law, although in 1651 his brother James allegedly tried to assassinate Oliver St John, Commonwealth ambassador to the Dutch Republic. He remained on good terms with Clarendon and Charles II, while his cousin Allen Broderick provided them useful intelligence on political affairs in the late 1650s. The Restoration and after After the May 1660 Stuart Restoration, Apsley benefitted from his relationship with John Berkeley, now head of household for James, Duke of York. He was appointed Master of the Hawks, a position worth over £1,250 a year, Cofferer of the Household to James and elected MP for Thetford to the Cavalier Parliament in 1661. James' marriage to Clarendon's daughter Anne Hyde created a political alliance between the two men; Apsley and his cousin Allen acted as their political managers in the Commons, although diarist and naval administrator Samuel Pepys recorded they often arrived drunk. Another more pressing family issue was the arrest of John Hutchinson and other regicides by the Convention Parliament in May 1660. Apsley's distant relative John Carew was one of those hung, drawn and quartered in October but he helped ensure Hutchinson was released without charge. Given the vengeful nature of Parliament towards the regicides, this was a considerable achievement; his sister Lucy wrote it was his "interest and most fervent endeavours only which turn'd the scales". Hutchinson was re-arrested in 1663 and charged with involvement in a "Papist plot"; since he was well-known to be a devout Puritan, this was recognised as highly unlikely but Apsley was unable to have him freed and he died in prison in September 1664. When the Second Anglo-Dutch War began in 1665, James was appointed commander