In July 1644, the King made a brief stop in Exeter. The previous month, Queen Henrietta Maria had fled to the relative calm of Exeter to give birth to their daughter, Henrietta Anne. After a very difficult birth – there was a strong belief that the Queen might not survive – the newborn baby had been left with Sir John Berkeley in Exeter, while the Queen escaped to France via Falmouth. In July 1644, the King stopped in Exeter to have his first glimpse of his new daughter.
While in Exeter, the King received petitions from many who claimed to have been illegally detained by Sir Richard Grenville; Sir William Courtenay and George Cutteford were amongst the petitioners. Sir William Courtenay, as a staunch Royalist, was probably released immediately, but George Cutteford’s petition, along with many others, was initially dismissed.
Cutteford was of no consequence to a King hell-bent on pursuit of the enemy. Only Sir William Courtenay was released, and he returned to the battlefield. His regiment was later sent to Oxford for the defence of the city against besieging Parliamentary forces, while his family’s Powderham estate, acting as a Royalist garrison during the war, was decimated by repeated attacks by Parliamentary soldiers. William and his family would not live there again during his lifetime.
In 1645, during the Battle of Bridgwater in Somerset, as Bridgwater Castle was stormed by Parliament’s army, Sir William, just seventeen, was wounded in both legs. The Civil War would destroy the fortunes of the Courtenays for many years to come.
Meanwhile, for the remaining months of 1644, George Cutteford remained in Rougemont Castle under guard, and, realising he would probably not survive much longer, he wrote his will.11 He bequeathed £200 to each of his daughters and the remainder to his eldest son, George Cutteford. They would never receive the money.
Hearing of the arrival of the King in Cornwall, Cornish men now flocked to join the Royalists, and Essex, overwhelmed, was forced to move his men south to Lostwithiel. The castle there provided them with some defence, and they still had the sea behind them, with the possibility of a retreat to Fowey on the coast, but the Royalists planned to starve them out, and effectively cut off their supplies. The sea behind them might have given Essex’s army some hope of escape, but a persistent westerly wind prevented Parliament’s ships from landing supplies at Fowey or transporting Essex’s soldiers safely away.
In desperation, Essex ordered his cavalry – 2,000 men under the command of Sir William Balfour – to make a break through the enemy lines at night. The Royalists failed to prevent their escape, and Balfour’s cavalry made it back to Plymouth. It is not known if Cutteford’s sons were among them, but a far worse situation confronted Essex’s foot soldiers left behind.
In driving rain, Essex took his infantry along the coast towards Fowey, under constant attack from Grenville’s forces. By nightfall, the Parliamentary forces could no longer hold their ground. Suddenly the road to Fowey was blocked, and thousands of men were caught on the coast with no hope of escape.
So Essex deserted them – with Lord Robartes and another officer, the Earl of Essex, so-called commander of the Parliamentary army – and escaped to Plymouth on a fishing boat, leaving his desperate men to face the Royalist forces alone.
Thousands of Essex’s men remained; trapped, defeated and compelled to surrender. They received what seemed at first to be generous terms from their attackers. They were set at liberty, providing they left their arms and munitions behind. Unfortunately for them, the local people were not so kind or forgiving – the locals well remembered how Essex’s army had stolen food and horses on its way into Cornwall, and now the Cornish people, many Royalist-supporters, wanted their belongings back.
As the unarmed Parliamentary soldiers retreated through Cornwall, they were mercilessly plundered by the Royalist forces and disgruntled civilians, taking their clothes, their boots, any money and food, leaving them with little to survive the long walk back to Devon. Many died of exposure along the way or were murdered simply for their boots. It is said that of the 6,000 men walking home from Cornwall, only 1,000 made it back, though this obviously takes no account of deserters, and, after the behaviour of Essex and Robartes, there were sure to be many running away.
The King was delighted with this victory at Lostwithiel, though he expressed concern at the treatment of the enemy forces. King Charles granted Sir Richard Grenville further lands in Devon, including Buckland Abbey, a large manor with extensive grounds, just north of Plymouth. Buckland Abbey had been built by Sir Richard’s grandfather and namesake, hero of the Revenge. Years before, the famous privateer Sir Francis Drake had put in a bid for the Buckland estate, but the elder Sir Richard Grenville was not on good terms with Drake, and had instead sold the manor to Sir Christopher Harris of Radford Park. But Drake had schemed with Sir Christopher over the deal, and, after paying Grenville senior, Sir Christopher subsequently handed Buckland Abbey over to Sir Francis Drake for a small fee. The Grenville family were still embittered by the subterfuge, but now, at last, in September 1644, the King returned the house to its ‘rightful owner’, Sir Richard Grenville.
But of course, Sir Francis Drake the privateer was long dead, and the house had come into the hands of the Courtenays by marriage.12 The young Sir William Courtenay must have been horrified to hear of the loss of even more of his property, particularly to a man who was supposedly an ally. Sir William was probably then in Oxford, and complained about the matter to the King’s Lord Chamberlain there, George Cutteford’s old friend, the Earl of Dorset.
Sir Richard Grenville was making enemies on both sides of the war, but was oblivious to any complaints. By the time he returned to reinstate the siege on Plymouth, Sir Richard owned Buckland Abbey, all the estates of his wife Mary Howard, and all the Devon properties of the Earl of Bedford. Also, during the Lostwithiel campaign, Sir Richard had taken the opportunity to seize Lord Robartes’ house, Lanhdyrock, north of Lostwithiel, and had removed £2,000 worth of valuables.
For the first time in his life, Sir Richard was truly a wealthy landowner. Only Walreddon was not in his possession, but if he could capture Cutteford’s sons and find the lease, Grenville was sure he would soon have the full set. Why Richard Grenville didn’t just kill George Cutteford, and take all his estates by force, is a puzzle left to history. Grenville seemed determined to have Walreddon back by legal means, and wanted Cutteford alive to witness his own defeat. However, George Cutteford hadn’t lost the battle yet, and, unknown to Grenville, his allies were marshalling some secret forces that would defeat Grenville and have Cutteford released.
On 5 September 1644, Grenville joined the King gathering an army in Tavistock to attempt another attack on Plymouth. The garrison was in a desperate state: 2,000 of their men had been lost at Lostwithiel, leaving only 800 to defend a line of over 4 miles, against a Royalist force of over 10,000. There was a serious shortage of arms and ammunition, but still the townspeople refused to accept the King’s call to surrender. Instead, the trumpeter who brought the request from the King was beaten, imprisoned and sent back to the Royalist camp with a warning that he would be hanged if he returned to Plymouth.
The King established his headquarters at Widey Court, overlooking Plymouth’s fortifications from the north. Around him, the lands of the Trelawneys, including their Ham House estates, had been obliterated by Parliament. Robert Trelawney, a relative of George Halse’s guardian, Francis Trelawney, had been captured by Parliament, and died in prison in London in 1644. The Trelawneys were another family whose fortunes were destroyed by Civil War. At nearby Widey Court, overlooking country cleared for battle and laid waste by war, the King formulated his plans of attack. He intended that Plymouth should fall.
In the end, the King’s attack on Plymouth did not last long. There were skirmishes between the opposing forces, and the King set up cannon along a ridge that the Plymouth people would derisively call ‘vapouring hill’ (now called Vapron) where the cannon let off a great deal of smoke, but the shots seemed to miss their targets. The Puritan populatio
n of Plymouth saw their successful defence of the town, against such insurmountable odds, as deliverance by God.
Instead of ordering a full attack, the King suddenly withdrew his forces and took his army to Exeter. Having travelled so far through Cornwall in terrible weather, his troops were probably crippled by disease and fatigue, unready for another major assault, and the King saw other battles in need of reinforcements in the east. He left Grenville in charge of the Plymouth blockade, Grenville boasting to his departing monarch how he would take the town by Christmas. But Plymouth would bring him tragedy, not triumph.
Notes
1 Miller, 1979, p. 65.
2 Miller, 1979, p. 66.
3 Miller, 1979, pp. 69 and 70.
4 Radford, 1890, p. 94 implies that Cutteford was sent straight to Exeter, though she and Miller, 1979, do not name the gaol where Cutteford was held.
5 Greeves, 2005.
6 Greeves, 2005, p. 10.
7 Mildren, 1987.
8 Greeves, 2005, p. 10.
9 The legendary privateer Sir Francis Drake had a leat built to draw fresh water from Dartmoor into Plymouth, for his own benefit as much as anyone else’s, the leat taking water to the mills. Sections of the old leat still survive between Yelverton and north Plymouth.
10 Miller, 1979, p. 84.
11 PROB 11/285, a ‘proved’ copy the will of George Cutteford the younger, dated 13 April 1645, mentions his father’s will of July 1644. Held at the National Archives.
12 After the death of his first wife, the elder Sir William Courtney married Elizabeth Sydenham, widow of Sir Francis Drake, who retained an interest in the Buckland Abbey estates.
Chapter Nine
A Fool and His Money
In September 1644, an officer called Joseph Grenville appeared in the Plymouth garrison, having, he claimed, deserted the Royalists to take up arms with Parliament. He was thought to be Sir Richard’s illegitimate son, born in 1628, and now sixteen. One Parliamentary paper called him a ‘whelp of Skellum Grenville’.1 It may seem strange that a boy so young was well received, but the garrison was desperate for all the fighters they could recruit, and reinforcements from London were getting younger all the time. Running out of men, London had recently sent them a shipload of apprentices, boys of twelve; their muskets like tree trunks propped beside them. If a boy survived to be fourteen, it was quite likely he would be made a captain, leading his young charges into battle. The attrition of war made children into seasoned warriors.
Southgate, Exeter, from Britton’s Beauties of England and Wales.
Joseph Grenville had an ulterior motive, however. The troops inside Plymouth garrison, he’d heard, were disgruntled and discontented and, with sufficient financial incentives, might be persuaded to betray their posts. Hearing one officer, a Colonel Searle, complaining bitterly of the long nights and drawn-out engagements, Joseph offered him £3,000 if he would give up the outworks to the Royalists. But Searle was still a loyal officer and Joseph Grenville was seized and questioned by Lord Robartes. To his honour, the young Joseph Grenville admitted and revealed nothing, even when threatened with execution.
His father sent a messenger to Robartes to offer terms for the boy’s life – but of course, Robartes was unmoved. Robartes own young family were prisoners of the Royalists, and his lands at Lanhydrock had been sequestered by Richard Grenville, so he was unlikely to feel any sympathy for the distraught man. Joseph Grenville was taken in chains to Mount Gould, a high ground on the edge of Plymouth, in full view of Sir Richard and his forces, and hanged as a traitor.
Sir Richard tried once more to destroy the town with subterfuge, paying some informers within the garrison to set fire to the town in three places. He hoped to distract Robartes’s soldiers so that he might make a successful attack from the north. The plan failed. Robartes, hearing of the strategy, held his men in check, permitting Grenville and his forces to come within pistol shot of the fortifications before they opened fire and killed many of Grenville’s men.
In October, Robartes made a successful sally across the mouth of the Tamar River, to capture the town of Saltash. From there, the men of the Plymouth garrison would have an excellent strategic position not only to counter future attacks by Grenville, but to make their way back into Cornwall. Grenville immediately assembled his forces, blockaded Saltash and after a fierce battle over three days, drove out the Plymouth soldiers, forcing their retreat down a steep slope into the darkness and into the Tamar River. For Robartes’ cavalry, in particular, the treacherous descent into the river must have been a terrifying ordeal, with men and horses losing their lives in the escape.
It was a notable victory for Grenville, and he was determined to show no mercy to the captured enemy. He set about hanging 300 of them. Of course, Grenville wanted revenge for the death of his son, Joseph, and he was sick of the continuing failure of his own attempts at taking Plymouth. The prisoners at Saltash provided him with the ready means of expressing his rage. The King, hearing of the intended massacre, sent orders for the prisoners’ lives to be spared, but Grenville disobeyed him. Many prisoners were hanged regardless.
This was a dangerous development in what was proving, much to the King’s disgust, to be a very ungentlemanly war. Of course, he had heard the rumours of Grenville’s behaviour at Lydford, and had requested that the hangings there be stopped, but until now he had not the time, nor the motive, to address the matter. Now he did. There were also rumours that Grenville, now Sheriff of Devon, was embezzling substantial sums from the war funds. Building materials intended for huts for soldiers were instead used to construct a fine riding stables at Buckland Abbey, for Grenville’s personal use. Contributions from landowners that were supposed to go to the King were suddenly in Grenville’s pockets. If he wasn’t paid, Grenville would issue a warrant for the debtor’s arrest. If the constables refused to issue the warrants, Grenville had them hanged.
The King’s officials in Oxford, including the Earl of Dorset, were expressing deep concerns about Grenville’s finances. Grenville’s solders were well disciplined and were renowned for not stealing from the local population – in contrast to many soldiers who, in desperation, were forced to take whatever they could get from the local population, and so were living on plunder. But Grenville himself was the ultimate thief. When Tavistock’s millers, who supported Parliament, refused to mill corn for his soldiers, Grenville had them all hanged; the King’s subjects were at the mercy of a madman.
The Earl of Dorset had possibly been warning King Charles of Grenville’s dangerous personality for some time, but it was only now that the King realised he needed to do something to curb the brutality of Grenville’s rule and bring his errant general back into line – without of course admitting that Grenville’s appointment had been a mistake.
As the King’s forces made their way towards Oxford, someone – just who will be revealed later – brought the petition of George Cutteford to the King’s attention. Here was a case that might just teach Grenville a lesson, without causing a major scandal, and punish him sufficiently to force him back into serving the King and not his own fortunes.
King Charles granted Cutteford a hearing, and requested that Sir John Berkeley, Governor of Exeter, review the case with some urgency. Berkeley was no friend of Grenville’s, jealous of Grenville’s success and wary of Grenville’s methods. He was more than happy to take up the petition, and to become part of a Commission that the King established to investigate Sir Richard Grenville’s actions in Devon.
It may seem that the significance of this development is exaggerated, but the timing is remarkable. The King had received petitions from many prisoners and their families over many months, many complaining of Sir Richard Grenville’s actions. Cutteford’s petition was just another in the pile. For a man of George Cutteford’s background, a Puritan with no allegiance to the Royalist cause, to be granted not only the possibility of release but an investigation into his circumstances, an
investigation that would at least embarrass if not undermine one of the most prominent and successful Royalist Generals of the English Civil War – Cutteford himself must have thought this was nothing short of a miracle.
For the first time in many months, George had a hope of release. However, in an act of sheer audacity, Cutteford wrote to thank the King for the hearing, and request that he be released immediately so he might gather his papers to support the case.2 This second petition is one of the rare surviving documents that describe George Cutteford’s situation, and it is an illuminating read. For a man in such desperate circumstances, probably made ill and wretched by his privations, the logic and daring of his arguments is remarkable. There is brilliance in his boldness.
For the petition is a beautifully worded series of lies.
His petition opens with a plea for his Majesty to protect George Cutteford’s son from attack by Richard Grenville. It seems that Grenville was actively searching for the young man, hoping to imprison him too, in his search for the lease. However, Cutteford makes no mention that his son is in fact fighting against the King, and with Parliament’s forces.
He continues with a requests for release from Rougemont, so he might fetch his papers for the hearing with the King’s Commissioners in Exeter, already there investigating Grenville’s financial misdealings. Cutteford explains that the papers were hidden while Essex’s forces were in Tavistock – though of course they had been hidden from Royalist Sir Richard well before that. Sir John Berkeley adds his own coda to the petition, requesting permission from King Charles to pass the petition and other documents to the King’s Commissioners. The King responded with notes on the reverse, advising Berkeley and the Commissioners to consider what Cutteford owed to Richard Grenville and what payments Cutteford may have made to Mary Howard and her family. King Charles had also received a petition from Mary Howard and her son, George Howard, with details of the money Cutteford had sent to them as their employee. The tragedy of the petition from George Cutteford is revealed in close study of the hand-writing. The added note from Berkeley and the petition itself are written in the same handwriting, both parts probably written by Sir John Berkeley himself. It seems that George Cutteford, this man of papers, was already too ill after his long imprisonment to write in his own defence.
The Devil Comes to Dartmoor Page 14