On the outbreak of the war he was appointed lieutenant-general of Shropshire, Cheshire and North Wales, where he rendered useful military services, and later was made one of the Prince of Wales's councillors, and a commissioner at the Treaty of Uxbridge in 1645. He attended the queen in her flight to France in 1646, but disapproved of the prince's journey thither, and retired to Jersey, subsequently aiding in the king's escape to the Isle of Wight.