The English Civil War: A People’s History (Text Only)

by Diane Purkiss

  On 29 October 1643, one of Sir Robert’s servants received a letter asking him to warn his master that Brilliana was seriously ill; she had the stone, then a cough, a fit, apoplexy, lethargy and convulsions. It was probably flu, complicated by stress. Her own servant Samuel More knew that she was dying, and advised that Ned should come to take over. Brilliana died two days later, managing to impress observers with her calm, courage and piety.

  This story – of a brave woman alone in enemy territory, making the best of it, but terrified – was Brilliana’s story, as she told it. But there was another way of seeing it; to try to keep the besiegers at bay, Brilliana could sometimes perform the role of the helpless woman, loyal subject of the king, ignorant of politics (which she certainly was not), stuck with defending her home on behalf of her husband as a good woman should. Before her death, in an effort to free her dependants she wrote to Viscount Scudamore for help; he was a Royalist commissioner, but she had some reason to hope that he might not be especially zealous. She expressed bewilderment about her ill-treatment, stressing the country loyalties that bound the gentry together. But by the time her letter reached him, Scudamore felt that those bonds had been severed. He wrote angrily to Robert Harley, saying he believed his wife was being held hostage against Brilliana’s safety and he knew that Parliamentarian forces had plundered his estate at Llanthony, threatening to cut down the trees of Brampton if his trees were destroyed. Friendships and sociabilities of many years’ standing could not withstand the outbreak of a shooting war.

  Brilliana’s house, Brampton Bryan, was damaged during two sieges, before the Parliamentarian garrison surrendered in March 1644. It was then ‘slighted’; that is, razed to the ground so that it could never again be held as a stronghold against the government. But it was supposed to rise again. Brampton Bryan was given £2000 from the estates of Royalists in Montgomeryshire; the church of St Barnabas was rebuilt in 1656, largely funded by Sir Robert Harley, who was living in rented accommodation in Ludlow because he had no money to rebuild the castle. However, Brilliana’s home was never rebuilt. The castle is a nub under thick turf today, with only a few broken and roofless walls to show where Brilliana struggled and suffered.

  Brilliana Harley saw the Western wars from the point of view of a warm supporter of Parliament, and a civilian. They looked very different to Richard Atkyns, a soldier and a Royalist, who kept a diary to record his experiences and later transformed it into a memoir after the war.

  Ironically, Richard, like Brilliana, felt isolated in hostile territory at the beginning of the conflict: ‘As no cities nor counties were free from preparation for war as their affection inclined them, so the parts about Gloucester happened to be most unanimous for the Parliament, which was contrary to my judgement: for I am persuaded that none that heard the Lord Strafford’s trial, and weighed the concessions of the King in Parliament, could conscientiously be against him.’

  Also like Brilliana, Richard felt that he and his side were open to hostility as neighbourhoods broke into factions: he wrote that ‘a man could hardly travel through any market town, but he should be asked whether he was for the King, or Parliament’. Having decided on the Royalist cause, Atkyns’s next task was to organize himself to join the king. Like Brilliana’s choice of sides, his had implications for his household:

  My servant Erwing … hearing of the war in England came over [from France] and proffered his services to me again, which I received as before, and being well known to his fidelity, I sent him to London to his brethren the Scots, to give me the best intelligence he could; who did it most truly, and prophetically, and as an argument of his affection to me, refused a lieutenant’s place of horse on the Parliament’s side, to continue my servant. Him I employed to train up my horse, and make them bold; under one Forbes his countryman, who was then governor of Gloucester.

  His diary shows what a long and tedious affair it could be to summon men and get permissions and make presentations. Atkyns was still sorting himself out after Edgehill:

  And soon after the battle of Edgehill, I waited upon the Lord Chandos to Oxon [Oxford], not intending at that time, to stay any longer than to present myself to the King, and to assure him of my duty and affections, but while I stayed there I received intelligence that my being at Oxon was publicly known in Gloucester, so that I could not return in safety, but sent for the men and horses I left behind to come hither after me, and when the Lord Chandos had accepted of a commission to raise a regiment of horse, and mustered his own troop, he gave me a commission for a troop under him, which I raised with such success, that within one month, I mustered 60 men besides officers, and almost all of them well armed.

  Edgehill made it all seem cut and dried, but Atkyns records cases of people changing their minds:

  One Powell a cornet of the Parliament, with two troopers, all very well horsed and armed, came into my troop at Oxford; I carried him to the King, and begged his pardon, which the King graciously granted; and in token thereof gave him his hand to kiss; but asked him for his commission, which when he saw, he said, he never saw any of them before, desired to keep it, and put it up in his pocket, and gave him good counsel, with very great expressions of his grace and favour to me.

  Meanwhile Atkyns had to finance his own men. But he was jaunty. He ended up serving under Prince Maurice, Rupert’s brother, and recalled with delight the active role this gave him:

  My troop I paid twice out of mine own purse, and about a fortnight after, at the siege of Bristol, I mustered 80 men besides officers; whereof 20 of them gentlemen that bore arms: (here the swearing captains put the name of the praying Captain upon me, having seen me sometimes upon my knees). The Lord Chandos afterward though I had the honour to be allied to him used my troop with that hardship that the gentlemen unanimously desired me to go into another regiment; which his Lordship understanding, I was thought to affix me to his by a council of war; but failing therein, I was admitted into Prince Maurice’s regiment, which was accounted the most active regiment in the army, and most commonly placed in the out quarters, which gave me more proficiency as a soldier, in half a year’s time, than generally in the Low Countries in 4 or 5 years; for there did hardly one week pass in the summer half year, in which there was not a battle or a skirmish fought, or beating up of quarters; which indeed lasted the whole year, insomuch as for three weeks at most, I commanded the forlorn hope thrice.

  Honour motivated Richard Atkyns to try to get into the best regiments, the best parts of the army. But honour could also be menaced by the accidents of army life. In recalling skirmishes and battles, Atkyns remembered a series of struggles to stay alive and to preserve his reputation:

  [11 April 1643] My charging horse fell a trembling and quaking so he could not be kept upon his legs, so that I must lose my honour by an excuse, or borrow another horse presently; which with much ado I did of the Lord Chandos his gentleman of the horse, leaving twice as much as he was worth with him. The charge was seemingly as desperate as any I was ever in; it being to beat the enemy from a wall which was a strong breastwork, with a gate in the middle; possessed by above 200 musketeers, besides horse; we were to charge down a steep plain hill, of above 12 score yards in length: as good a mark as they could wish: our party consisting of between two and three hundred horse, not a man of them would follow us, so the officers, about ten or 12 of us, agreed to gallop down in as good order as we could, and make a desperate charge upon them. The enemy, seeing our resolutions, never fired at us at all, but run away; and we (like young soldiers) after them, doing execution upon them, but one Captain Hanmer being better horsed than myself, in pursuit, fell upon their ambuscade and was killed horse and man; I had only time enough to turn my horse and run for my life. This party of ours, that would not be drawn on at first, by this time, seeing our success, came into the town after us, and stopped our retreat; and finding that we were pursued by the enemy, the horse in the front, fell back upon the rear, and they were so wedged together, that they routed themselve
s, so there was no passage for a long time: all this while the enemy were upon me, cutting my coat upon my armour in several places, and discharging pistols as they got up to me, being the outer-most man; which Major Sheldon declared to my very great advantage. But when they pursued to the town, Major Leighton had made good a stone house, and so prepared for them with musketeers, that one volley of shot made them retreat: they were so near me, that a musket ball from one of our own men took off one of the bars of my cap I charged with, and went through my hair and did me no hurt: but this was only a forlorn party of their army to face us while the rest of their army marched to Gloucester.

  The king’s decisions to try to control Gloucestershire from February 1643, and besiege Gloucester in August 1643 made sense, though military historians have never liked it much. If Gloucester had fallen, then the Royalists would have ruled the West. Atkyns’s role was not to join the siege, however, but to mop up pockets of activity in the West. This led to the kind of vicious skirmishing that characterized the war. Atkyns could be critical of the way troops were wasted:

  Caversham Fight, 25 April 1643. The King always adventured gold against silver at the best, so now he adventured as gallant men as ever drew sword against mud walls; for the barn was as good a bulwark as art could invent. ‘Twould grieve one’s heart, to see men drop like ripe fruit in a strong wind, and never see their enemy; for they had made loopholes through the walls, that they had the full bodies of their assailants for their mark, as they came down a plain field; but the assailants saw nothing to shoot at but mud walls, and must hit them in the eye or lose their shot.

  Historians today suggest the early modern musketeer was unlikely to hit his target at sixty metres or more, so this presented a challenge. In these conditions, and with more troopers lining the hedges, Atkyns had trouble rallying his men. He and his forces then left with Prince Maurice to join Ralph Hopton’s army in the West and oppose Waller. Atkyns encountered Hopton’s Cornish foot with some natural xenophobia, mixed with admiration:

  The Cornish foot could not well brook our horse … but they would many times let fly at us: these were the very best foot I ever saw, for marching and fighting; but so mutinous withal, that nothing but an alarm could keep them from falling foul of their officers … observing a hole in an elder hedge, I put in my hand and took out a bag of money; which if our foot had espied (who were also upon the search) they had certainly taken me for the enemy, and deprived me of both it and life.

  Atkyns is brilliant at noticing what a mess the whole conflict is, as in his description of Chewton fight, which took place on 10 June 1643:

  When we came within 20 score of the enemy, we found about 2030 dragoons half a musket shot before a regiment of horse of theirs in two divisions, both in order to receive us. At this punctilio of time, from as clear a sunshine day as could be seen, there fell a sudden mist, that we could not see ten yards off, but we still marched on; the dragoons amazed us with the mist, and hearing our horse come on, gave us a volley of shot out of distance, and disordered not one man of us, and before we came up to them, they took horse and away they run, and the mist immediately vanished. We had then the less work to do, but still we had enough; for there were six troops of horse in 2 divisions, and about three or four hundred dragoons more, lined the hedges on both sides of their horse; when we came within six score of them, we mended our pace, and fell into their left division, routing and killing several of them.

  The chaotic engagement went on:

  [I] followed the chase of those that ran, within half a mile of their army; that when I came to rally, I found I had not thirty men; we had then three fresh troops to charge, which were in our rear; but by reason of their marching through a wainshard [wagon yard] before they could be put in order; I told those of my party, that if we did not put a good face upon it, and charge them presently, before they were in order, that we were all dead men or prisoners; which they apprehending, we charged them; and they made as it were a lane for us, being as willing to be gone as we ourselves.

  By now not only the troops, but Atkyns were spent.

  When I came to Wells, the headquarters, I was so weary that I did not my duty to the Prince that night, but laid me down where I could get quarters; I was much unsatisfied for the loss of my lieutenant and colours, of which I had then no account. And laid all the guards to give me news of them, if they escaped. Early in the morning Mr Holmes my cornet brought my colours to me, which pleased me very well, but with this allay, that my lieutenant Mr Thomas Sandys my near kinsman was taken prisoner, and one more gentleman of my troop with him; and that he with some few troopers took such leaps that the enemy could not follow them, else they had been taken also. The next morning I waited upon Prince Maurice, and presented him with a case of pistols, which my uncle Sandys brought newly out of France; the neatest that I ever saw, which he then wanted [having lost his own when taken prisoner].

  Atkyns identified the man who had rescued Maurice, and Maurice, unwisely, gave him many gold coins. The man promptly deserted, and Atkyns remarks that he saw him again about fifteen years later, ‘begging in the streets of London with a muffler before his face, and spake inwardly, as if he had been eaten up by the foul disease [syphilis?]’. The incident shows how retrospective Atkyns’s memoirs are, but his memory was vivid, if disorderly. He remembered the never-ending search for food. Once he found a house, ‘a handsome case’, he thought, ‘but totally plundered, and neither beer nor bread in it’, he wrote, putting first things first. He did find part of a Cheddar cheese, which he stole; this meant he was later in trouble for plundering. However, the cheese was misappropriated: ‘I found my foot-boy giving it to my greyhounds, and reproving him for it; he cried, saying there was nothing else to give them.’

  And he tried to recall anecdotes, cheerful and funny ones, writing of what he called A Mad Merry Saying. Atkyns had asked Dr John Cole, Prince Maurice’s chaplain, ‘to give me and my troop the sacrament, which he was willing to do’. The same morning, he was invited to dine with Maurice, who had evidently been given a whole buck-deer, and was hoping to feast his officers. Atkyns told the major who issued the invitation that he was about to go and receive the sacrament: ‘“Hang’t, Hang’t, bully,” said he merrily, “thou mayst receive the sacrament anytime, but thou canst not eat venison at any time.’” Atkyns, however, attributed to his own devotion and his men’s their success in rescuing Prince Maurice and preventing the foot from being surprised.

  This story contains a critique of Prince Maurice that is subtle but very noticeable. It is Atkyns, the praying captain, who saves the day by not eating venison, the result of hunting, but sharing in communion instead of in social success and ambition. By 1669, when he wrote the story down, Atkyns may have thought he knew why the Royalists lost the war.

  But in fact the deer-fed men were winning in the far West. Ralph Hopton was now in command of a Royalist Cornish army which fought its way up and down Devon and Cornwall in the early months of 1643, then laid siege to Plymouth. It included Bevil Grenville, who wrote to his wife on 24 May 1643, making light of his injuries: ‘You are doubtful lest my bruise stick by me. I thank you, but I hope it is prettily over, though I am something sore, & did spit blood two days, & bled at nose much … Our army is at Okehampton and what further will become of us I know not, we are sure of your good prayers as you are of mine.’

  At the time Bevil Grenville wrote this letter, it would have been difficult for him or anyone else to summarize the situation in the West accurately; his uncertainty is entirely understandable. The Royalists had just been checked at Sourton Down, having been ambushed by the Parliament-men, but Hopton had then triumphed at Stratton, and the army was waiting for Prince Maurice and reinforcements from Oxford to arrive and assist. The ultimate goal was to leave the West secure so that Hopton’s new army was free to join the king’s forces further to the east, those trying to control Gloucester and the Severn Valley.

  Bevil Grenville had always exemplified Royalist values:
physical courage, honour, and leadership without calculation. They were expensive virtues. At Braddock Down in Cornwall, just outside Lostwithiel, on 19 January 1643, he led his men in a charge so wild that it ‘struck a terror’ in the enemy. At Stratton, near Bude, in May 1643, he led his men in an uphill charge with only swords and pikes. They were victorious, but the same reckless courage was to cost him his life at Lansdown on 5 July 1643. This engagement, fought a few miles north of Bath, was inconclusive. Atkyns gave an account of the whole battle:

  After we had refreshed ourselves about a week in quarters, we began to seek out the enemy, who were not far off; for four or five days, we skirmished by parties every day, and kept our body close together expecting battle daily. Each army consisting of about six thousand horse and foot, but theirs thought to be most; our headquarters were Marshfield, theirs Bath, within five miles of each other: very early in the morning, we sent out a party of horse, about 300, commanded by a Major, who did it so ill, that encouraged the enemy’s forlorn hope to advance so far, as to give a strong alarm to our whole army, and we were forced to draw out in haste: the ground we stood in was like a straight horn … on both sides enclosed with a hedge, and woods without that. They stood upon a high hill which commanded us, that opened to a large down, from whence they could discover our motions, but we could not theirs; both bodies within two miles of each other. For four or five hours, we sent parties out of each body to skirmish, where I think we had the better, but about three of the clock they (seeing their advantage) sent down a strong party of horse … And this was the boldest thing I ever saw the enemy do, for a party of less than 1000 to charge an army of 6000 horse, foot and cannon, in their own ground, at least a mile and a half from their body.