Beginnings of the Civil War-The king marches to Shrewsbury-Skirmish at Worcester-Battle of Edgehill-The night and day after the battle-Richard Baxter visits the battle-field--The king marches upon London-The fight at Brentford-The royalists retire-The Londoners march to Turnham Green-The war spreading through England-The queen lands with an army-The court at Oxford-Administration of justice-Reading surrendered to Essex. Fortified THE flame of war is bursting forth in many places at once. towns are changing their military occupants. Portsmouth had capitulated to the parliament's army a fortnight before the king raised his standard at Nottingham. Lord Northampton, a royalist, had seized the stores at Banbury, and marched to the attack of Warwick castle. That ancient seat of feudal grandeur was successfully defended by the commander who had been left in charge, whilst lord Brook marched with some forces to the parliament's quarters. Every manor-house was put by its occupiers into a posture of defence. The heroic attitude of the English ladies who, in the absence of their husbands, held out against attacks whether of Cavaliers or Roundheads, was first exhibited at Caldecot manor-house, in the north of Warwickshire. Mrs. Purefoy, the wife of William Purefoy, a member of the House of Commons, defended her house against prince Rupert and four hundred Cavaliers. The little garrison consisted of the brave lady and her two daughters, her son-in-law, eight male servants, and a few female. They had twelve muskets, which the women loaded as the men discharged them from VOL. IV. B 2 CHARLES MARCHES TO SHREWSBURY. [1642. the windows. The out-buildings were set on fire, and the house would have been burnt, had not the lady gone forth, and claimed the protection of the Cavaliers. Rupert respected her courage, and would not suffer her property to be plundered. This young man, who occupies so prominent a part in the military operations of the Civil War, was only twenty-three when Charles made him his general of horse. He had served in the wars for the recovery of the Palatinate, and had exhibited the bravery for which he was ever afterwards distinguished. But in his early warfare he had seen life unsparingly sacrificed, women and children put to the sword, villages and towns burnt, the means of subsistence for a peaceful population recklessly destroyed. His career in England did much to make the king's cause unpopular, though his predatory havoc has probably been exaggerated. The confidence which the king placed in him as a commander was not justified by his possession of the high qualities of a general. The queen who, dangerous as she was as a counsellor of the king, had remarkable abilities, thus described the nephew of Charles when he was about to sail for England. "He should have some one to advise him, for, believe me, he is yet very young and self-willed. I have had experience of him. This is why I thought it fitting to warn you of it. He is a person that is capable of doing anything that he is ordered, but he is not to be trusted to take a single step out of his own head."* About the middle of September, Charles marched with his small army from Nottingham to Derby. Essex, with the forces of the parliament, was at Northampton. The king's plans were very vague; but he at last determined to occupy Shrewsbury. He halted his army on the 19th at Wellington, where he published a "Protestation," in which, amongst other assurances, he said, "I do solemnly and faithfully promise, in the sight of God, to maintain the just privileges and freedom of parliament, and to govern by the known laws of the land to my utmost power; and, particularly, to observe inviolably the laws consented to by me this parliament." There is a remarkable letter of the queen to the king, dated the 3rd of November, in which she expresses her indignant surprise that he should have made any such engagement. "You promise to keep all that you have passed this parliament, which, I confess, had I been with you I should not have suffered it." She intimates that there are persons about him, "who, at the bottom of their hearts, are not well disposed for royalty. * * * As to believing that they wish you to be absolute, their counsels plainly show the contrary. They must be made use of, notwithstanding." The only notion that the queen had of "royalty" was that it was to be "absolute." Who can believe that Charles ever resigned that fatal idea? Clarendon says the king's protestation "gave not more life and encouragement to the little army than it did to the gentry and inhabitants of these parts, into whom the parliament had infused, that if his majesty prevailed by force, he would, with the same power, abolish all those good laws which had been made this parliament."‡ Their comfort and satisfaction might have been less, if the queen's letter, now amongst the Harleian Manuscripts, and another of the same import, had been as public as the king's protestation. The discovery and publication of + Ibid., p. 144. Green's "Letters of Henrietta Maria," p. 97. 1642.] SKIRMISH AT WORCESTER. other such letters produced unbounded evil to the royal cause, whilst the issue of the contest was doubtful. Time has revealed many more secrets of the same nature, which may somewhat qualify the enthusiasm of those who, after the lapse of two centuries, read the history of the Civil War in a spirit more cavalier than that of the Cavaliers. On the 22nd of October, Essex moved his army to Worcester. Here the first rencounter took place between the cavalry of Rupert and the parliamentary cuirassiers. The royalists had a decided advantage. Ludlow, who was in the skirmish, gives a ludicrous account of the inexperience, and something worse, of the parliament's raw troops. The lieutenant "commanded us to wheel about; but our gentlemen, not yet well understanding the difference between wheeling about and shifting for themselves, their backs being now towards the enemy whom they thought to be close in the rear, retired to the army in a very dishonourable manner; and the next morning rallied at head-quarters, where we received but cold welcome from our general, as we well deserved."* After remaining at Shrewsbury about twenty days, Charles resolved to march towards London. He expected that, as the armies approached each other, many soldiers would come over to the royal standard. He was almost without money, except a sum of six thousand pounds which he received by "making merchandise of honour," to use Clarendon's expression-being the price for which he created Sir Richard Newport a baron. His foot-soldiers were mostly armed with muskets; but three or four hundred had for their only weapon a cudgel. Few of the musketeers had swords, and the pikemen were without corslets. The royal army moved from Shrewsbury on the 12th of October, on to Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Kenilworth. Two days after, the earl of Essex marched from Worcester in the direction which Charles had taken. They were only separated by twenty miles when the king first moved from Shrewsbury, but it was ten days before they came near each other. "Neither army," says Clarendon, "knew where the other was." On the night of the 22nd of October, the king was at Edgcot, a village near Banbury. The council broke up late. There was disunion in the camp. The earl of Lindsey by his commission was general of the whole army; but when Charles appointed prince Rupert his general of horse, he exempted him from receiving orders from any one but the king himself-to such extent did this king carry his over-weening pride of blood. Rupert insolently refused to take the royal directions through lord Falkland, the secretary of state. "Memoirs," p. 46. Cuirassier. From a specimen at Goodrich Court. In the same spirit, when a battle was expected, Charles took the advice of his nephew, rejecting the opinion of the veteran Lindsey. At twelve o'clock on the night of the 22nd Rupert sent the king word "that the body of the rebel army was within seven or eight miles, and that the head-quarters was at a village called Keinton, on the edge of Warwickshire." On Sunday morning, the 23rd, the banner of Charles was waving on the top of Edgehill, which commanded a prospect of the valley in which a part of the army of Essex was moving. The greater portion of the parliament's artillery, with two regiments of foot and one of horse, was a day's march behind. The king, having the advantage of numbers, determined to engage. He appeared amongst his ranks, with a black velvet mantle over his armour, and wearing his star and garter. He addressed his troops, declaring his love to his whole kingdom, but asserting his royal authority" derived from God, whose substitute, and supreme governor under Christ, I am." * At two o'clock the royal army descended the hill. Clarendon, in noticing the dissensions created by Rupert's exclusive appointment, says, it" separated all the horse from any dependence upon the general." Lindsey went into the battle, pike in hand, at the head of the foot guards, in the centre of the first line. "Sir Jacob Astley," writes Warwick," was major-general of the army under the earl of Lindsey; who, before the charge of the battle at Edgehill, made a most excellent, pious, short, and soldierly prayer: for he lifted up his eyes and hands to Heaven, saying, ' O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not Thou forget me.' And with that rose up, crying 'March on, boys.'"+ Between the town of Keinton and Edgehill was "a fair campaign, save that near the town it was narrower, and on the right hand some hedges and inclosures." Ludlow, who was in the battle, confirms this description of the ground, given by Clarendon "The great shot was exchanged on both sides, for the space of an hour or thereabouts. By this time the foot began to engage; and a party of the enemy being sent to line some hedges on our right wing, thereby to beat us from our ground, were repulsed by our dragoons." The foot soldiers on each Pikeman. From a specimen at Goodrich : Colonel Weston's letter, quoted in Lord Nugent's "Hampden," vol. ii. p. 239. + Warwick is the sole authority for this. It has been questioned, from the construction of the sentence, whether the "who" applies to Lindsey or Astley. See Warburton's "Rupert and the Cavaliers," vol. ii. p. 21. 1642.] THE NIGHT AND DAY AFTER THE BATTLE. 5 side engaged with little result. But Rupert, at the head of his horse, threw the parliament's left wing into complete disorder. The disaster was mainly attributable to the desertion of Sir Faithful Fortescue, who went over with his troop to the royalists, when he was ordered to charge. The fiery prince pursued the flying squadrons for three miles; and in the town of Keinton he was engaged in plundering the parliamentary baggagewaggons, whilst the main body of the king's forces was sorely pressed by the foot and horse of Essex. The king's standard was taken. Sir Edmund Verney, the standard-bearer, was killed. The standard was afterwards recovered by a stratagem of two royalist officers, who put on the orange-scarf of Essex, and demanded the great prize from his secretary, to whom it had been entrusted. It was yielded by the unfortunate penman to those who bore the badge of his master. Brave old Lindsey was mortally wounded, and taken prisoner. Other royalists of distinction were killed. "When Prince Rupert returned from the charge," writes Clarendon," he found this great alteration in the field, and his majesty himself with few noblemen and a small retinue about him, and the hope of so glorious a day quite banished." Many around the king counselled a retreat; but Charles, with equal courage and sagacity, resolved to keep his ground. "He spent the night in the field, by such a fire as could be made of the little wood and bushes which grew thereabouts." When the day appeared, the parliamentary army still lay beneath Edgehill. "The night after the battle," says Ludlow, "our army quartered upon the same ground that the enemy fought on the day before. No man nor horse got any meat that night, and I had touched none since the Saturday before, neither could I find my servant who had my cloak, so that having nothing to keep me warm but a suit of iron, I was obliged to walk about all night, which proved very cold by reason of a sharp frost. Towards morning, our army having received a reinforcement of Colonel Hampden's and several other regiments, to the number of about four thousand men, who had not been able to join us sooner, was drawn up; and about day-light we saw the enemy upon the top of the hill: so that we had time to bury our dead, and theirs too if we thought fit. That day was spent in sending trumpeters to inquire whether such as were missing on both sides were killed, or prisoners." * It was, in most respects, a drawn battle. Gradually each army moved off, one to attack London, the other to defend it. There is a little incident of this Edgehill fight which has been told by the "When gossiping chronicler, Aubrey, of the famous Harvey, the physician. king Charles I., by reason of the tumults left London, he attended him, and * "Memoirs," p. 50. |