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

by Diane Purkiss

  In John Gwynne’s account, the Battle of Newbury looked far less coherent. He remembered the preliminaries more vividly than the battle itself:

  it proved to be a most miserable, tempestuous, rainy weather, that few or none could take little or no rest on the hills where they were; and the unceasing winds next morning soon dried up our through-wet clothes we lay pickled in all night (as a convenient washing of us at our coming from the trenches) and we made such haste in pursuit of Essex’s army, that there was an account given of fifteen hundred foot quite tired and spent, not possible to come up to their colours before we engaged the enemy; and a night or two before [15 September] we lost two regiments of horse (Kentish men) and new raised regiments, which were surprised and taken prisoner in their quarters.

  Of the battle he recalled only fragments, incidents, and one stark image:

  [I saw] a wing of Essex’s horse moving gently towards us, made leave our execution upon the enemy and retreat gently into the next field, where were several gaps to get to it but not direct in my way; yet, with the colours in my hand, I jumped over hedge and ditch, or I had died by multitude of hands. We kept this field till midnight and until some intelligence came that Essex was marching away with a great part of his army; and that he had buried a great many of his great guns by two of the clock in the afternoon. Near unto this field, upon the heath, lay a whole file of men, six deep, with their heads struck off with one cannon shot of ours.

  Sergeant Henry Foster’s account of the battle is perhaps the best-known. Foster was a member of that crucial fighting-force, the Red Regiment of the London trained bands, the ones who had rallied to turn back the king at Turnham Green. His account, based on his own diaries, was probably sent as a letter originally, like Nehemiah Wharton’s accounts. As always, letters were a good source of news. They were not always and altogether private; people handed them around. This still took place in the Second World War, despite the advent of censorship, which did not exist for Foster. The London press was quick to exploit letters and to rush them into print, often with changes and deletions for propaganda purposes, but also often preserving wording and personal style. In this way news could circulate in a familiar form, but more widely. Foster’s letters were printed, and probably edited by the printer into a single document, because they were so newsworthy.

  To understand Foster’s battle, he thinks, we have to go back several weeks earlier. Foster’s battle has a context; it is part of a continuum of events. For Foster, the battle had begun in glory and adulation. But already the glory was shadowed by hunger: ‘1 Sept. Great shouting and triumph as he [Essex] passed by to take a view of our Regiments … It was a goodly and a glorious sight to see the whole army of horse and foot together [estimates 15,000] my lord general and the rest of the army were quartered about a little mile from us, at a market-town called Aynho, we were very much scanted of victuals in that place.’

  On 2 September, there was a small skirmish at Hook Norton, and on 3 September, Foster reported that ‘our Red Regiment of the Trained Band was constrained to march half a mile further to get quarter [food], we were now in the Van of the whole army, having not so much as one troop of horse quartered near us, but we were no sooner in our quarters and set down our arms, intending a little to refresh our selves, but presently there was an alarm beat up, and we being the frontier regiment nearest the enemy were presently all drawn up into a body, and stood upon our guard all the night, we were in a great distraction, having not had any horse to send out as scouts, to give away any intelligence … Our regiment stood in the open field all night, having neither bread nor water to refresh ourselves, having also marched the day before without any sustenance, neither durst we kindle any fire though it was a very cold night.’

  As the Little Ice Age held the autumnal countryside in its iron fist, it was Essex’s men who suffered most. However, they secured food next day by foraging, and they needed it, for soon the enemy attacked the end of the village where they were bivouacked. Keeping their heads, as ever, the Reds sent off a messenger to Essex at top speed, and drew themselves into a body, marching to the top of a nearby hill at the end of the town. The Royalist horse manoeuvred to surround them. But ‘we had lined the hedges with musketeers, which they perceiving did not move towards our body, but only stood and faced us’. The Cavaliers came up, firing their drakes, and ‘I hope’, said Foster, ‘the mercy of that day will not be forgotten … we lost but one man, who was slain by our own cannon through his own negligence, and another sore burnt and hurt by the same piece.’ It was the kind of rough, sharp little skirmish of which many men’s war was made.

  The Red Band were still being made to suffer in God’s just cause: ‘We lay out in the open field upon the ploughed land, without straw, having neither bread nor water, yet God enabled our soldiers to undergo it cheerfully.’ 5 September found the Red Band isolated, without its supply-wagons, for they proved unable to tackle the steep slopes of Presbury Hill, ‘we having neither hedge nor tree for shelter, nor any sustenance of food or fire’, and ‘it being a most terrible and tempestuous night of wind and rain, as ever men lay out in’. Deprivation on this scale led to trouble on the march. ‘Our soldiers in their marching this day would run half a mile or a mile before, where they heard any water was.’ There wasn’t much to be had, or much of anything, Foster thought. A true Londoner, he was properly scornful of the ‘poor little villages’ through which they marched.

  By now they were encamped on a hill outside Cheltenham. ‘In the midst of all the storm and rain, which together with the darkness of the night made it so much the more dreadful, which also created a great distraction among our soldiers, every one standing on his guard, and fearing his fellow-soldier to be his enemy.’ One man, who had just been summoned home, was shot by accident in the deluge and the dark.

  On 6 September, the Red Band tried a little foraging in a nearby village. Soaked ‘to the very skin’, they found too many others ahead of them, and could get little. The Royalists were in Cheltenham, and Foster resented their more comfortable circumstances. Some men began to complain that they had had nothing to eat or drink for two days. They finally found provisions at Norton, three miles from Gloucester and four from Tewkesbury.

  The following day they were ordered to march back five miles, ‘but it being a very dark night, and our men worn out and spent with their former marchings, they refused to go’. This illustrates the difficulty often faced by commanders; discipline in the army was poor, and even trained men like Foster’s would sometimes refuse to fight if they felt like it. But it illustrates, too, that even Foster’s trained men fought without the disciplines considered so crucial to a modern army; they charged into fierce encounters naked, with their everyday selves alone to buoy them up, with no carapace of army identity to support their quaking humanity. At the siege of Gloucester, ‘they shot many grandoes of great weight’, Foster thought, ‘which when they fell in the city were red as fire, yet blessed be God, killed not one man therewith, only tore up the ground’, said Foster in wonder, ‘as if a bear had been rooting up the earth’.

  Foster’s men then embarked on more long marches; on 15 September, they were in Cirencester, where they took 225 prisoners. Tying them together with match, a long woven cord used as a fuse to fire muskets and cannon, having no other rope, having to improvise, they marched the prisoners along in twos. They also captured substantial provisions at last, though this meant they were now encumbered with many wagons, ‘27’, said Foster exultantly. By 16 September they were in Wiltshire, where they disturbed a group of wounded Cavaliers, ‘ten cart-loads’, ‘who when they heard we were marching to this place, they then found their legs and ran away’, said Foster, amused. The next day they were in Swindon when they heard that the Cavaliers had retaken Cirencester, ‘and had taken and killed many of our men, who stayed behind drinking and neglecting to march with their colours, who are not much to be pitied’. Foster’s tough scepticism contrasts with the hysterical reports of Rupert’s
atrocities in the London press.

  In the meantime, the Red Band was tired of going hungry. Plainly, its men had worked off their feelings on the usual suspects, and the result was an interesting attempt at self-sufficiency. ‘This day we drove along with our army about 1000 sheep and 60 head of cattle, which were taken from malignants and papists in the country for the maintenance of our army.’ The Red Band had 87 sheep. ‘But we afterwards lost them all, when we came to fight, it being every man’s care then to secure himself and see to the safety of the army.’ They were Londoners; perhaps they didn’t know much about caring for sheep. There was another long march in the rain. ‘We were much distressed for want of sleep, as also all other sustenance.’

  On 19 September they reached a village on the outskirts of Newbury: ‘the Lord General had intent to have quartered at Newbury that night, but the King got into the town that day before, and so we were prevented. This morning a trumpeter came from the king to the Lord General, to devise that Chirugeons and doctors might have free access from them to the Marquess that we had taken.’ It was like Charles to worry so conscientiously about a noble prisoner, while consigning hundreds of men to mud, rain and hunger. ‘But the messenger came too late; the Marquess [de la Veel] was past their care. That night our whole army quartered in the open field; we had no provision but what little everyone had in his knapsack; we had now marched many days with little food or any sustenance and little sleep. This night the King sent a challenge to the Lord General, to give him battle the next day; which accordingly was performed; and in the night our enemies gained the hills where they intended to give us battle, they planted their ordinance, got all advantages they could desire, before our Army marched up to them. Yet now we see there is neither wisdom, nor policy, nor strength against the Lord; yea, had not the Lord himself been on our side, they had swallowed us up quite, so great was their rage and fury stirred up against us, they being confident of the victory before we came to fight.’ The almost endless propaganda and morale value of the godly world-view is especially apparent here. Anything terrifying done by the enemy can be transformed into proof of the godliness of Parliament’s cause.

  Foster’s account of the battle, blurred by smoke and by his own individual perspective, is still useful. Some of it is anecdote, stories that would be good retold later, over a pint (and this may be where Foster heard them).

  When we were come up into the field, our two regiments of the trained bands were placed in open campania upon the right wing of the whole army. The enemy had there planted 8 pieces of ordinance, and stood in a great body of Horse and Foot, we being placed right opposite against them, and for less than twice musket-shot’s distance from them. They began their battery against us with their great guns, about half an hour before we could get any of our guns up to us; our gunner dealt very ill with us, delaying to come up to us; our noble Colonel Tucker fired one piece of ordinance against the enemy, and aiming to give fire a second time was shot in the head with a cannon bullet from the enemy. The blue regiment of the trained bands stood on our right wing, and behaved themselves most gallantly. Two regiments of the king’s horse, which stood upon the right flank a far off, came fiercely upon them and charged them two or three times, but were beaten back with their musketeers, who gave them a most desperate charge and made them fly. This day our whole Army wore green boughs in their hats, to distinguish us from our enemies; which they perceiving, one regiment of their horse had got green boughs, and rode up to our regiment crying, ‘friends, friends’, but we let fly at them, and made many of them and their horses tumble, making them fly with a vengeance.

  The note of glee is unmistakable. But Foster also recalls the horror of war:

  The enemy’s cannon did play most against the red regiment of trained bands, they did some execution amongst us at the first, and were somewhat dreadful when men’s bowels and brains flew in our faces: But blessed be God that gave us courage, so that we kept our ground, and after a while feared them not; our ordinance did very good execution upon them: for we stood at so near a distance upon a plain field, that we could not lightly miss one another. We were not much above half our regiment in this place, for we had 60 files of musketeers drawn off for the forlorn hope, who were engaged against the enemy in the field upon our left flank. Where most of the regiments of the army were in sight, they had some small shelter of the hedges and banks, yet had a very hot fight with the enemy, and did good execution, and stood to it as bravely as ever men did. When our two regiments of the trained bands had thus played against the enemy for the space of three hours or thereabouts, our red regiments joined to the blue which stood a little distance from us upon our left flank, where we gained the advantage of a little hill, which we maintained against the enemy half an hour; two regiments of the enemy’s foot fought against us all this while to gain the hill, but could not. Then two regiments of the enemy’s horse, which stood upon our right flank, came fiercely upon us, and so surrounded us, that we were forced to charge upon them in the front and rear, and both flanks, which was performed by us with a great deal of courage and undauntedness of spirit, insomuch as we made a great slaughter among them, and forced them to retreat; but presently the two regiments of the enemy’s foot in this time gained the hill, and came upon us before we could well recover ourselves, that we were glad to retreat a little way into the field, till we had rallied up our men, and put them into their former posture, and then came on again. If I should speak any thing in the praise and high commendations of these two regiments of the trained bands, I should rather obscure and darken the glory of that courage and valour God gave unto them this day; they stood like so many stakes against the shot of the cannon, quitting themselves like men of undaunted spirits, even our enemies themselves being judges. It might be expected that something should be spoken of the noble and valiant service performed by the rest of the regiments in the army both horse and foot, but their courage and valour itself speaks, which was performed by them that day, our men fighting like lions in every place, the great slaughter made among the enemies testifies. My noble and valiant Captain George Massie, who was with the forlorn hope, received a shot in the back from the enemy, of which wound he is since dead.

  ‘This 26 of September – hinc Mae lachrimae’, adds the well-grammared Foster: ‘whence those tears’ – ‘we lost about sixty or seventy men in our red regiment of the trained bands, besides wounded men’. The Red Band was suffering disproportionately, he thought: ‘we having the hottest charge from the enemy’s cannon of any regiment in the army’. Dispassionately, he noted the aftermath: ‘The next day I viewed the dead bodies: there lay about one hundred stripped naked in that field where our two regiments stood in battalia. This night the enemy conveyed away about thirty cart-loads of maimed and dead men, as the town-people credibly reported to us, and I think they might have carried away twenty cart load more of their dead men the next morning; they buried thirty in one pit.’ In a newsgiving vein, he reported the deaths of officers: ‘Also that worthy gentleman Captain Hunt was slain in the battle, whose death is much lamented.’ Foster also tried to reckon up who ended with the advantage: ‘It is conjectured by most that the enemy lost four for one. 70 chief commanders were slain on their side.’

  He also reported what was said about the king, showing that for him Charles was still an object of interest: ‘It is credibly informed by those that were this day in the King’s army, that the King himself brought up a regiment of foot and another of horse, gave fire to two pieces of ordinance, riding up and down all that day in a soldier’s grey coat.’ He also commented on what a long fight it had been: ‘this battle continued long, it began about six a clock in the morning and continued till past 12 a clock at night: in the night the enemy retreated to the town of Newbury and drew away all their ordinance’.

  He was conscious, as ever, of the sufferings of the army: ‘We were in great distress for water, or any accommodation to refresh our poor soldiers, yet the Lord himself sustained us, that we did not
faint under it; we were right glad to drink in the same water where our horses did drink, wandering up and down to seek for it.’ He noted, too, that they survived because ‘God fed us with the bread of our enemies, which we took at Cirencester.’ His account breaks into incident, scattered recollections – responses to questions, or promptings from others. He jots down a few details, noting the armies’ battle cries: ‘Our word [battle cry] this day was religion; theirs was Queen Mary in the field.’

  After the battle, Foster noted a further incident as the armies drew away. ‘September 21 further skirmish in a lane near Aldermaston … Some that we took prisoners our men were so enraged at them that they knocked out their brains with the butt end of their muskets; in this great distraction and rout a wagon of powder lying in the way overthrown, some spark of fire or match fell among it, which did much hurt; seven men burnt and two killed: this enemy had got two of our drakes in the rear, had not our foot played the man and recovered them again: this was about four or five a clock in the afternoon, many of our men lost horses, and other things which they threw away in haste.’

  This atrocity occurred after Foster’s troop had been very much frightened by a sudden Royalist attack which routed their horse, leaving them exposed to the enemy. The retreating cavalry implored the infantry to join them, crying ‘Away, away, let every man shift for his life, you are all dead men’, which says Foster ‘caused a most strange confusion amongst us’.

  ‘Many men were killed on both sides’, says the ardently Parliamentarian newsbook account of Newbury, ‘but god be praised we won the field of them … The fight was long and terrible, some talke of thousands slain on the king’s side; I viewed the field, and cannot guess above 500, but this the townsmen informed us, that they carried 60 cart loads of dead and wounded men into the Town before I came to view the place, and much crying there was for Surgeons as never was the like heard.’ As never was the like heard: the pamphlet lamely tries to record the misery and dread.