[1] Newman was appointed High Steward of Westminster[2] and joined the Royalist forces during the English Civil War with the rank of Colonel.
According to contemporary sources, the king escaped through the gate of the city of Worcester solely through the heroic efforts of Colonel Newman.
[3] At the Restoration in 1660, Charles II rewarded Newman with an augmentation to his coat of arms, in the form of an escutcheon gules (red shield) and a crowned portcullis or (gold coloured portcullis surmounted by a crown), and a large sum of money, which is likely to have been a reimbursement of funds loaned to Charles I.
He married Anne, the daughter of Sir Charles Harbord, Surveyor General to Charles I, and Maria née van Aelst, and had four sons, the eldest of whom, Richard Newman, who succeeded him at Fifehead Magdalen, and three daughters including Elizabeth who married Sir William Honeywood.
[5] He retained the family's home in Fifehead, where in 1693 he was responsible for building the Newman chapel on the north side of the church to cover the vault containing the graves of his ancestors, where he was buried on 16 October 1695.