[2] A few days before the battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644) Cromwell and other parliamentary leaders held a conference at Fairfax's house at Menston around a table now at Farnley Hall, Yorkshire.
While his nephew, Sir Thomas, afterwards the third Lord Fairfax, did much to preserve the minster and archives at York, Charles was engaged with another antiquary, Roger Dodsworth, in the search for and rescue of books and documents.
In 1646 he was appointed by his brother, Ferdinando, the second Lord Fairfax, as steward of the courts at Ripon, and during the later years of the Commonwealth was induced to take service as a Colonel of Foot, a position which he held in George Monck's army in Scotland at the time of the Restoration of 1660.
This office he held only about a year and then retired to Menston with a pension, granted him by Charles II out of the customs at Hull.
Among his children were twin brothers, John, a captain in the army, and Henry, a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and dean of Norwich, who were so alike as to be indistinguishable by their own mother.