Rupert Prince Palatine Part 10

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Already Rupert was scouring the country in search of men, arms and money. On September 6th "that diabolical Cavalier,"[4] as a Puritan soldier called him, had surrounded Leicester and summoned the Mayor to confer with him. That worthy cautiously declined the interview, whereupon he received a peremptory letter, demanding 2,000 to be paid on the morrow "by ten of the clock in the forenoon." He was a.s.sured that the King's promise would prove a better pledge for repayment than the "Public Faith" of the Parliament; and the letter concluded with the characteristic a.s.surance that, in case of contumacy, the Prince would appear on the morrow, "in such a posture as shall make you to know it is wiser to obey than to resist His Majesty's command."[5] Five hundred pounds were forthwith paid, but a complaint was despatched to the King, who hastened to disavow his nephew's arbitrary proceedings.

An attack on Caldecot House proved more to the Prince's credit. This house belonged to a Warwickshire Puritan, a Mr Purefoy, then absent with the troops of the Parliament. Early on a Sunday morning Rupert appeared before the house, with five hundred men, and summoned it to surrender. The summons was defied, and he ordered an a.s.sault. The defenders consisted only of Mrs. Purefoy, her two daughters, her son-in-law, Mr. Abbot, three serving-men, and three maids; yet the fight was continued for some hours, and with serious loss to the Cavaliers. At last Rupert forced the outer gates, fired the barns, and advanced to the very doors. Then Mrs. Purefoy came out and threw herself at the victor's feet. Rupert asked her what she would have of him. She answered, the lives of her little garrison. Rupert then raised her to her feet, "saluted her kindly," and promised that not one of them should be hurt. But when he had entered the house and discovered how small was the garrison, his pity was changed to admiration. He {87} complimented Mr. Abbot on his skill and gallantry, and offered him a command in his own troop, which was, however, refused. Finally he drew off his forces, promising that nothing upon the place should suffer injury. "And the Prince faithfully kept his promise, and would not suffer one penny-worth of goods in the house to be taken."[6] Such is the testimony of a fanatical enemy; nor is it the only instance of Rupert's chivalry. "Sir Edward Terrell was a little fearful, Prince Rupert had been hunting at his Park," wrote the Puritan Lady Suss.e.x; "but he took him much, with his courtesy to him."[7]

On September 13th the King left Nottingham for Derby, and Rupert joined his march at Stafford. There it was that the Prince fired a remarkable shot, to prove his skill as a marksman. Standing in a garden about sixty yards distant from the church of St. Mary, he shot clean through the tail of the weatherc.o.c.k on the steeple, "with a screwed horseman's pistol, and a single bullet."[8] The King declared that the shot was but a lucky chance; whereupon Rupert fired a second time, with the same result.

From Stafford, Rupert proceeded by night to Bridgnorth, and from there he went, on September 21st, to secure Worcester. Finding Worcester quite indefensible, he resolved to go on to Shrewsbury, but, in the meantime, he led his small troop into a field near Powick Bridge to rest. The officers, among whom were Maurice, Digby, Wilmot, Charles Lucas, and the Lords Northampton and Crawford, threw themselves down on the gra.s.s, divested of all armour. In this position they were surprised by a troop of Ess.e.x's horse, under Sandys and Fiennes, which advanced, fully armed, down a narrow lane. In the confusion there was scarcely time to catch the horses, and none to consult as to methods of defence. Rupert shouted out the order to {88} charge, and vaulted on to his horse. Maurice threw himself next his brother; and the other officers, seeing that it would be useless to rejoin their men, followed the Princes. Thus, with the officers in the van and the men straggling behind as best they could, the Royalists charged. The Puritans, well-armed and well-commanded though they were, could not stand against that sudden fierce a.s.sault. Two of their officers fell, and in a very few moments the whole body, nearly a thousand in number, broke and fled, the "goodness of their horses" making it impossible to overtake them. The number of the slain was between forty and fifty; six or seven colours were captured, and a few Scottish officers taken prisoners. The loss on the King's side was small, and though all the officers, Rupert excepted, were wounded, none were killed. Maurice had received so dangerous a wound in the head that he was reported killed, but it was not long before he was again "abroad and merry."[9] The slight loss suffered by the Cavaliers was the more remarkable since they had had neither armour nor pistols, and had fought only with their swords.[10]

The moral advantage of this skirmish was very great. It gave increased courage to Rupert's troops and it "exceedingly appalled the adversary,"

to whom the Prince's name was henceforth "very terrible." To the Elector, and to some of the friends of his family, such a reputation was less gratifying than it was to Rupert himself. Dependent upon the English Parliament as the Palatines were,--for King Charles could no longer help them, and the Stadtholder was old and failing,--Rupert's zeal in his uncle's cause was a serious disadvantage to them. "I fear," wrote Roe to the Elector, "the freshness of his spirit and his zeal to his uncle may have drawn from him some words, if not deeds, that have begot a very ill odour; insomuch {89} that nothing is so much cried out against as his actions, which do reflect upon your whole family and cause, and there may be more need of a bridle to moderate him than of spurs. They will never forgive me the ill-fortune to have procured his liberty."[11] To this the Elector replied indignantly: "It is impossible either for the Queen--my mother, or myself to bridle my brother's youth and fieryness, at so great a distance, and in the employment he has. It were a great indiscretion in any to expect it, and an injustice to blame us for things beyond our help."[12] He did his best to appease the Parliament by exhibiting his own ingrat.i.tude towards his uncle. "The Prince Elector doth write kindly--others might say basely--to the Roundhead Parliament,"[13] reported Sir George Radcliffe. Further, Charles Louis published a manifesto in the names of himself and his mother, deprecating Rupert's actions, and disclaiming all sympathy with them. And in 1644 he came himself to London, and took the Covenant; in reward for which hypocrisy the Parliament lodged him in Whitehall, and granted him a large pension.[14] Elizabeth was less time-serving, and her intercepted letters to Rupert gave great offence to the Parliament. She tried to pacify the indignation she had roused, writing to the Speaker: "Albeit I cannot at present remember what I then particularly writ, yet if anything did perchance slip from my pen in the private relation between a mother and son, which might give them the least distaste, I entreat them to make no worse construction of it than was by me intended."[15]

But she could not disguise her real sentiments, and her pension was stopped by the Parliament. "Our gracious Mistress hath her part, as who hath not, in these public sufferings," {90} wrote one of her gentlemen in 1643. "It is upon a full year that her entertainments have been stopped, and I believe that she fareth the worse for the impetuousness of Prince Rupert her son, who is quite out of her government."[16]

Directly after the skirmish of Powick Bridge, Rupert fell back upon Ludlow, and it was while quartered there that he was supposed to have made his first expedition into Ess.e.x's camp. The stories of his disguises are told by Puritans, and are, as before said, very probably apocryphal; but they are given here for what they are worth. The Puritan army was encamped on Dunsmore Heath, and Rupert, riding as near to it as he dared, overtook a man driving a horse which was laden with apples. The man, on being interrogated, informed the Prince that he was going to sell the apples to the soldiers of the Parliament. "Why dost thou not go to the King's army?" asked the Prince; "I hear they are generous sparks and will pay double!" "Oh," said the man, "they are Cavaliers, and have a mad Prince amongst them. Devil a penny could I get in the whole army." Rupert thereupon purchased the whole load for ten shillings, changed coats and horses with the man, and himself sold the apples to the forces of Ess.e.x. On his return, he gave the man a second piece of gold, with the command to "go to the army, and ask the commanders how they liked the fruit which Prince Rupert did, in his own person, but this morning sell them."[17]

During this time the King had lain at Shrewsbury, whither he now summoned all his forces, and on October 12th he began his march towards London. This was in accordance with Rupert's scheme of concentrating all forces on the centre of disaffection. The three brigades of foot were commanded respectively by Sir Nicholas Byron, Colonel Wentworth, and Colonel Fielding. Lord Lindsey was {91} Commander-in-Chief, and Sir Jacob Astley was his Major-General; Ruthven, though a Field-Marshal, preferred to remain entirely with the cavalry. The dragoons were under Sir Arthur Aston, and most of the n.o.bles and richer gentry enlisted in Lord Bernard Stuart's regiment of gentlemen, nicknamed "The Show Troop." "Never," says Clarendon, "did less baggage attend a royal army, there being not one tent, and very few waggons, in the whole train."[18] This being the case, it is singular that the place where the King's tent was pitched is still pointed out at Edgehill.

The Royalists advanced slowly, by way of Birmingham, halting at several places on the march. On October 22nd the King reached Edgecot, and Ess.e.x arrived the same day at Kineton, ready to bar his way. Rupert advanced to Lord Spencer's house at Wormleighton, where his quarter-master had a skirmish with the quarter-master of Ess.e.x, who had also been sent to take possession of the house. Rupert's men captured twelve of Ess.e.x's soldiers, from whom they learnt the unexpected proximity of the enemy. Rupert thereupon made his men take the field, and sent the intelligence to the King. The King responded in a brief note: "I have given order as you have desyred; so I dout not but all the foot and cannon will bee at Edgehill betymes this morning, where you will also find your loving Oncle."[19]

Early in the morning of October 23rd, Rupert advanced his forces to the summit of Edgehill, where, as he had expected, he was joined by the King. A council of war was then held. But, alas, dissension was already beginning in the army, the mutual jealousy of the officers having grown on the march to "a perfect faction"[20] between the foot and horse. On this occasion Rupert's bold and rapid tactics were strenuously opposed by the cautious old Lindsey. But the King strongly supported his nephew, and thereupon {92} Lindsey resigned his generalship, preferring to fight as a mere colonel rather than to nominally command a battle over which he had no control. Then his son, Lord Willoughby,--deeply resenting the slight on his father,--refused to charge with Rupert, and elected to fight on foot at his father's side. Ruthven (afterwards Lord Brentford) was hastily appointed in Lindsey's place, and as he had fought under Gustavus, he readily gave his support to the Prince who followed the great Swede's tactics.

It was one o'clock before the King's foot could be brought up to the rest of the army; and though Ess.e.x was in order by eight in the morning, he was in no hurry to begin the battle. His numbers were already greater than those of the King, but he hoped still that three more regiments might join him. Not till three o'clock did the fight begin, and this was considered so late that some of the Royalists would have willingly postponed it till the morrow. But it was to the King's advantage to hasten the attack, since he had no provisions for his army, and he hoped also to antic.i.p.ate the arrival of Ess.e.x's reinforcements. The history of the battle is an oft-told tale. Rupert commanded the right wing, and he committed a serious error at the outset by permitting the "Show Troop" to charge in the van. This troop had been irritated by the scoffs of blunter soldiers, and it seemed but courtesy to accede to its request, yet it was most unwise to do so, for it left the King unguarded on the field. "Just before we began our march," says Bulstrode, "the Prince pa.s.sed from one wing to the other, giving positive orders to the horse to march as close as possible, keeping their ranks, sword in hand; to receive the enemy's shot without firing either carbine or pistol till we broke in among them, and then to make use of our firearms as need should require."[21] The charge thus made, swept Ess.e.x's horse from the field, and Rupert's {93} horse followed far in the pursuit. "Our horse pursued so eagerly that the commanders could not stop them in the chase," said the Royalists.[22]

The King's foot, left unsupported on the field, suffered great damage.

Then it was that Lord Lindsey fell, and his gallant son was captured in the attempt to save his father. Then Sir Edmund Verney died, and the standard was taken, but subsequently regained. Only the enemy's own want of skill and experience saved the King himself from capture. Thus the advantage won by the first charge was lost, and when Rupert returned he found the King with a very small retinue, and all chance of a complete victory gone. Nor could the cavalry be rallied for a second charge. Where the soldiers were collected together the officers were absent, and where the officers were ready the soldiers were scattered.

Consequently the result of the battle was indecisive, and both sides claimed the victory; the advantage really lay with the King, insomuch as he held the field, and had opened the way to London. But the Royalist losses had been very great. Besides Lindsey and Verney, had fallen Lord Aubigny, brother of the Duke of Richmond, and many other officers. Moreover, the Cavaliers were in a hostile country, unable to obtain either food or shelter, and the night was terribly cold.

Towards daybreak the King retired to his coach to rest; and the morning found the two armies still facing one another. Thus they remained throughout the day, but towards evening Ess.e.x drew off to Warwick. No sooner did Ess.e.x begin his retreat than Rupert started in pursuit. At Kineton he captured the rear guard of dragoons, with their convoy of money, plate and letters. The taking of the letters proved of no slight importance, for among them Rupert discovered a circ.u.mstantial report of his own proceedings, furnished to Ess.e.x by his own secretary.

There was found also the secretary's demand for an increase {94} of pay from the Parliament, which already paid him 50 a week. The man was of course tried, and hanged at Oxford.[23]

Rupert was now anxious to push on to London before the enemy could rally. "He proffered, if His Majesty would give him leave, to march with three thousand horse to Westminster, and there dissolve the Parliament."[24] Very likely this plan might have succeeded, for the panic in London was great, but the old Earl of Bristol declared that Rupert, once let loose on London, would plunder and burn the city.

This fear so worked on the King that he refused to countenance the design. It is only fair to add that Rupert indignantly repudiated the intentions attributed to him. "I think there is none that take me for a coward,--for sure I fear not the face of any man alive,--yet I shall repute it the greatest victory in the world to see His Majesty enter London in peace without shedding one drop of blood."[25] The tales spread abroad of his "barbarousness and inhumanity" caused him real annoyance, and he endeavoured to refute them in a published "Declaration." After retorting on the Parliament various instances of Puritan plundering and violence, he continued: "I must here profess, that I take that man to be no soldier or gentleman that will strike, much less kill, a woman or a child... And for myself, I appeal to the consciences of those lords and gentlemen who are my daily witnesses, and to those people wheresoever our army hath been, what they know, or have observed in my carriage which might not become the son of a king."[26] Doubtless the boast was made in all good faith, but doubtless also the views of Rupert and his enemies as to what was "becoming" differed widely, especially in regard to plunder. True the Puritans not {95} infrequently plundered Royalists, just as the Royalists plundered Puritans; but the Parliament had the less need to do it, seeing that all the King's revenue was in its hands. The hapless King could not, in consequence, pay his cavalry, and it was Rupert's task to raise supplies from the country. He was authorised to requisition daily provisions from the inhabitants of the places where the horse were quartered. For all such supplies a proper receipt was to be given, and the officers were not permitted, "upon pain of our high displeasure," to send for greater quant.i.ties of provision than would actually supply the men and horses.[27] To Rupert, used as he was to continental warfare, such a state of affairs seemed natural enough.

"Was I engaged to prohibit them making the best of their prisoners?" he retorted in answer to a later charge made against his men.[28] And, among the State Papers, there is to be found an engagement of a certain John van Haesdonck to bring over to Rupert, two hundred expert soldiers from Holland who were to be permitted to divide their booty, "according to the usual custom beyond seas."[29]

But if Rupert understood "the law of arms" as the peaceful English citizens did not, both he and his officers respected its limits, and fain would have checked the excesses of their men. Whitelocke, while lamenting the wreck of his own house, honourably acquitted the officers in command of any share in it. "Sir John Byron and his brothers commanded those horse, and gave orders that they should commit no insolence at my house, nor plunder my goods." But, in spite of the prohibition, hay and corn were recklessly consumed, horses were carried off, books wantonly destroyed, the park railings broken down, and the deer let out. "Only a tame young stag they led away and presented to Prince Rupert, and my hounds, which were {96} extraordinary good."[30]

What Rupert did with the tame young stag history relates not, but he certainly did not countenance such outrages. They were of course attributed to his influence, but he could, and did, retort similar instances--and worse--upon the soldiers of the Parliament: "I speak not how wilfully barbarous their soldiers were to the Countess Rivers, to the Lady Lucas in Ess.e.x, and likewise to many persons of quality in Kent, and other places."[31]

Owing to the fear of Rupert's "downright soldierism" such advantage as might have been gained from Edgehill was lost. Instead of pressing on for London, the King wasted valuable time in the siege of Banbury. It is to this period that the story of Rupert's visit to Warwick belongs.

To this town Ess.e.x had retreated after the battle, and about it his army was still quartered. "Within about eight miles of the said city, Prince Robert was forced by excess of raine to take into a little alehouse out of the way, where he met with a fellow that was riding to Warwick to sell cabbage nets, but stayed, by chance, to drink. He bought the fellow's nets, gave him double what he asked, borrowed his coat, and told him he would ride upon his horse some miles off, to put a trick upon some friends of his, and return at evening. He left his own nag and coat behind, and also a crown for them to drink, while waiting his return. When he came to Warwick he sold his nets at divers places, heard the news, and discovered many pa.s.sages in the town.

Having done this he returned again, and took his own horse. Then he sent them (_i.e._ the citizens of Warwick) word, by him he bought the nets of, that Prince Rupert had sold them cabbage nets, and it should not be long ere he would requite their kindness and send them cabbages."[32]

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On October 27th Banbury fell, and two days later the King entered Oxford, where he was enthusiastically received. Rupert advanced to Abingdon, overran the country, took Aylesbury, cut off Ess.e.x's communications with London, and seized arms and forage for the King.

Ess.e.x sent Balfour to intercept the Prince; Rupert and Sir Louis Dyves met him with a valiant charge across a swollen ford, but they were forced back, and proceeded through Maidenhead to Windsor, "with the most b.l.o.o.d.y and mischievous of all the Cavaliers."[33] The taking of Windsor Castle would have enabled Rupert to stop the barges on the Thames, and cut off the London traffic to the West. But his summons to surrender was refused, and his a.s.sault repulsed. His men declared that they would follow him anywhere against men, but not against stone walls; and though he cheered them on to a second attack, that also failed. Considering Windsor hopeless, he fell back to Kingston, intending to erect there a fort to command the river. But the trained bands of Berkshire and Surrey were ready to receive him. "About two of the clock," says Whitelocke, "on the seventh of November, the Cavaliers came on with undaunted courage, their forces in the form of a crescent.

Prince Rupert, to the right wing, came on with great fury. In they went pell-mell into the heart of our soldiers, but they were surrounded and with great difficulty cut their way through, and made their way across to Maidenhead, where they held their quarters."[34]

From his quarters at Maidenhead Rupert seized on Colebrook; an exploit reported in London under the exciting t.i.tle, "Horrible news from Colebrook." In the same pamphlets the already terrified citizens were cheered by the news: "The Prince hath deeply vowed that he will come to London; swearing he cares not a pin for all the Roundheads or their infant works; and saying that he will {98} lay their city and inhabitants on the ground."[35] On November 4th, the King reached Reading with the bulk of his army, and the Parliament, thoroughly frightened, requested a safe-conduct, in order to treat. The King's objection to one of their emissaries led to some delay, but danger pressed; the Parliament yielded and sent its representatives. At the same time it ordered Ess.e.x, who had also reached London, to take the field. The King on his part advanced to Colebrook before he sent his answer;--which was a proposal that Windsor should be given up to him as a place for treaty, and avoided all mention of a cessation of arms. On the same night, November 11th, he ordered Rupert to clear the way by an attack on Brentford. At the same time he wrote to the Houses that he intended to be in London next evening to hear what they had to say.

The Prince received the King's orders at Egham. There he had captured two London merchants, and he judged it wise to detain them, lest they should be spies. When they had recovered their liberty next day, they gave the following account of their adventures. They had been taken to the Prince, who was "in bed with all his clothes on," from which it was inferred that he had vowed never to undress "or shift himself until he had reseated King Charles at Whitehall." The Prince examined the prisoners himself, and, attracted by a bunch of ribbons in the hat of one of them, "he took the pains to look them over himself, and turned and tossed them up and down, and swore there was none of the King's favours there. The gentleman replying that they were the favours of his mistress, the Prince smiling, without any word at all, returned him his favours and his hat again." On the next morning they saw the King and Prince together on Hounslow Heath. "Prince Rupert took off his scarlet coat, which was very rich, and gave it to his man; and he buckled {99} on his arms and put a grey coat over it that he might not be discovered. He talked long with the King, and often in his communications with His Majesty, he scratched his head and tore his hair, as if in some grave discontent."[36]

The discontent was soon allayed by a successful dash upon Brentford.

The town was taken, though not without hard fighting, and there was captured also a good supply of guns and ammunition. The question as to whether this advance, pending negotiation, was or was not a breach of faith on the King's part has been much debated. No cessation of arms had been agreed on, but the Parliament, thinking it a mere oversight, had sent again in order to arrange it. At the same time Ess.e.x was warned to hold all his forces ready for battle, but to abstain from acts of hostility. Ess.e.x having advanced towards him, the King would have been completely surrounded, had he not seized upon Brentford.

Therefore, from the military point of view, the advance was altogether justifiable; from the political, it was unwise, for it lost Charles the hearts of the Londoners. "Charles's error," says Professor Gardiner, "lay in forgetting that he was more than a victorious General."[37]

The King's triumph was short-lived. The citizens and the Parliamentary troops rallied to the defence of the capital. An army, twice as large as that of Charles, barred his way on Turnham Green. Ess.e.x advancing on Brentford, forced Rupert to retire. This he did in excellent order, entrusting the conduct of the retreat to Sir Jacob Astley. The Prince himself stood his horse in the river beside the bridge that he might watch his men pa.s.s over. And there he remained for hours, exposed to a heavy fire, and all the while "cheering and encouraging the retiring ranks to keep order, and to fire steadily on the advancing foe."[38]

His troops pa.s.sed that night drawn up on Hounslow Heath; {100} thence Rupert conducted them to Abingdon, himself returning, November 22nd, to the King at Reading.

At Reading they were detained some days by the illness of the Prince of Wales, but on Tuesday, the 29th, the King took up his winter quarters in Oxford. Rupert continued to hover about Ess.e.x's army, and ordered Wilmot to take Marlborough. This duty Wilmot accomplished, but with evident reluctance. "Give me leave to tell your Highness that I think myself very unhappy to be employed upon this occasion," he wrote, "being a witness that at other times, in the like occasions, troops are sent out without any manner of forecast or design, or care to preserve or quarter them when they are abroad."[39] It is not remarkable that Rupert did not love an officer who addressed him in such a strain. Sir John Byron also wrote with ill-concealed impatience to demand his instant removal from Reading, where, he said, the want of accommodation was ruining his regiment. And Daniel O'Neil sent pathetic accounts of his struggles with the Prince's own troop, in the absence of their leader. "They say you have given them a power to take what they want, where they can find it. This is so extravagant that I am confident you never gave them any such. That the rest of the troop (not only of your own regiment, but that of the Lieutenant-General) may be satisfied, declare in what condition you will have your company, and how commanded. And let me, I beseech you, have in writing the orders I shall give to that party you sent into Buckinghamshire."[40] Already numberless such complaints were pouring in. Even then the Royalists, as Byron said, "abounded in nothing but the want of all things necessary;" and Rupert was well-nigh distracted by his efforts to supply their needs, quash their mutinies, and soothe their discontents.

So closed the year 1642.

[1] Clar. Hist. Bk. VI. p. 1.

[2] Ibid. VI. 21.

[3] Rupert Transcripts. Digby to Prince, Sept. 10, 1642.

[4] Dom. State Papers. Wharton to Willingham, 13 Sept. 1642.

[5] Rupert to Mayor of Leicester. Warburton, I. p. 393.

[6] Vicars' G.o.d in the Mount, pp. 155-157.

[7] Verney Memoirs, Vol. II. p. 160.

[8] Plot's Hist. of Staffordshire, Ch. 9, p. 336. Hudibras, ed. 1810.

I. p. 156, _note_.

[9] Warburton, I. p. 409. Falkland, 28 Sept. 1642.

[10] Clarendon. Hist. Bk. VI. 44-46. Dom. S. P. 13 Sept. 1642

[11] Webb Civil War in Herefordshire. Vol. I. p. 131. 20 Sept. 1642.

[12] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. Vol. 492. fol. 31. 6 Oct. 1642.

[13] Carte, Original Letters. Vol. I. p. 47. 8 Mar. 1643.

[14] Whitelocke. p. 101.

[15] Green. VI. 11.

[16] Warburton: II. p. 196.

[17] Pamphlet. Brit. Museum. Prince Rupert: his Disguises.

[18] Clarendon. Bk. VI. 75.

[19] King to Rupert. Warburton. II. p. 12.