Rebels and traitors

by Lindsey Davis

  This brutal theatre of war in which Prince Rupert had been schooled was recently condemned by Lord Brooke of Warwick:

  In Germany they fought only for spoil, rapine and destruction. We must employ men who will fight merely for the cause's sake… I had rather have a thousand or two thousand honest citizens that can only handle their arms, whose hearts go with their hands, than two thousand of mercenary soldiers that boast of their foreign experience.

  An associate of Lord Saye and Sele, Brooke was one of Parliament's fervent supporters, an opponent of peace moves, an energetic raiser of regiments and finance. Commander of the Midlands Association, where he was highly popular, Lord Brooke was now charged with establishing a secure Parliamentarian base in the Midlands counties. In February he drove Royalists out of Stratford-upon-Avon, then set about besieging the cathedral town of Lichfield. Prince Rupert's main task that spring was to raise the siege. So the rigours of 'foreign experience' were about to be visited upon Lord Brooke's home territory.

  The prince left Oxford and advanced through Chipping Norton, Shipston on Stour, Stratford-upon-Avon and Henley-in-Arden. It was Easter. The cavaliers stayed around Henley for four days, celebrating Holy Week by pillaging the countryside. Word of their presence, and their energetic plundering, quickly ran north.

  Ten miles away, the inhabitants of Birmingham tried to believe the Royalists would pass them by. Henley was so near, they could almost hear the protests of outraged farmers being robbed of horses, poultry and beef. By Saturday, most people accepted that Prince Rupert would attack their town. They had time to send messages, begging for reinforcements, to the three main Parliamentary garrisons at Warwick, Kenilworth and Coventry. Only their desperate pleas to Coventry produced results, but Coventry was also threatened by Rupert's presence and could only spare one troop of light horse, dragoons under Captain Castledowne. In the end, the Coventry men withdrew from what was obviously a losing situation, three days before the prince arrived.

  In Birmingham, a worried discussion took place. First Francis Roberts, the puritan minister, pleaded with the militia captains and the chief men of the town to take the sensible course: with the odds so great against them, he said, they should march away, saving their arms and themselves even if it meant leaving behind their goods. That might avert Prince Rupert's wrath. It was like throwing raw meat to distract a vicious dog. The captains and chief men were eager, and Royalist sympathisers, of whom there were some among the wealthier townsmen, also spoke for appeasement. However, the crusty middle and lower classes, which included men who could afford their own arms, refused to abandon their town. This forced the captains and civil leaders to stay with them, rather than departing among curses and accusations of cowardice.

  Preparations began. They created crude barricades to block streets. Arms were handed out to all who were capable and willing to bear them. At Deritend, they dug a trench to block the road from Henley and Stratford. On Easter Monday, scouts raced into town and reported that Prince Rupert was coming. By now it was known that he was bringing two thousand men, and cannon. Undeterred, into Birmingham's defensive trench climbed all the soldiers they had: a hundred musketeers.

  It was a morning's march from Henley. The Royalist soldiers had been slow to move, many with hangovers, all encumbered with personal booty, besides the stolen cattle which they now drove up the muddy roads along with them as their general food supply. Hung about with dead ducks, household pots and cheeses, the foot soldiers cursed as they bestirred themselves at the drumbeat, dragging their pikes at a lacklustre angle, shouldering their muskets with a bad grace, and stumbling with curses down ill-maintained country roads through slurry churned up by the cavalry that had already gone ahead.

  Henley-in-Arden was a hamlet. Few had found quarters under cover, so most had spent the last four nights sleeping out of doors on the hard ground. At the end of March the fields and coppices were cold, still bleak after winter, with thawing drips from trees and hedges making everywhere damp. Those who had bread or biscuit soon found it mouldy. Their campfires smoked and spluttered. The soldiers all stank of the smoke, along with a perpetual odour of unwashed clothes on unwashed bodies. Men rose in the mornings stiffly, their coats and britches clammy, their powder and match at risk.

  Orlando Lovell and Edmund Treves had spent three days in an outhouse, which they shared with their horses. It showed. Mud and straw besmirched their once-gallant cloaks and boots. Their beards were ragged. Their tempers were short. As they made the journey to Birmingham, their mounts were fretful, only willing to move forwards because they were part of a group. When they reached the town's outskirts, the beasts stamped and steamed and dragged at the bit rebelliously Treves soothed his horse, Faddle, a bounding brown mare bought with money his mother had sent him after accepting that her son could not be deterred from fighting. Lovell had stopped bothering to quieten his mount, an anonymous bay of very much superior quality, which he had borrowed — without mentioning it — from a higher officer in Oxford who was indisposed.

  Quartermasters had been sent ahead, as was conventional. They were held up at the barricade. Arriving at the head of his small army, Prince Rupert quickly set up a military headquarters in the Ship Inn. He issued a message to the townspeople that if they provided shelter and received his men quietly, he would do them no injury. This was also conventional; he cannot have expected anyone would believe the offer. As Lovell and Treves rode up, the defenders raised their colours in the Deritend trench, then at once sallied forth and fired briskly.

  Surprised, the Royalists pulled back.

  'Madness!' scoffed Lovell, quietly counting them. He got to sixty, assessed the length of the trench, doubled his figure and was distressed by the pathetic opposition. From what he could see, the Birmingham musketeers confirmed the Royalist view that the rebels fighting against them were 'men without shirts': ships' deserters, runaway prisoners, beggars and broken-down serving men. 'They have no idea of their danger!'

  'They have courage, Orlando.' Treves saw good where he could.

  'The traitors will die for their bravado then.'

  The location was bad, however. The prince — young, handsome, and in full body armour with his trademark pistol and poleaxe — took cover under the overhang of a building and consulted with advisers while his large white poodle, Boy, austerely sniffed the air. A signboard creaked with mournful insistence. High grey clouds moved slowly, shadowing the dreary scene. Rain was in the air, but would not fall.

  The Royalists had approached on a badly maintained country road that crossed half-flooded, inhospitable water meadows and narrowed awkwardly between old half-timbered houses just before the bridge across the River Rea. They were overlooked by fourteenth-century inns, with steep roofs and crooked gables above the street. Although it seemed a meagre defence, the rebels' trench blocked a bottleneck and would serve its turn temporarily. Beyond it, on a shallow rise, a manor-house and church stood before a ribbon of almost medieval houses; it was a rural backwater, unprotected by walls or other fortifications. Word had it that there might be a few more musketeers hidden up; plus maybe a small troop of dragoons; maybe another troop of horse. No reinforcements from the Parliamentary garrisons were reported in the area.

  Prince Rupert brought up his artillery, two sakers, which were heavy long-range field guns, and four lighter, more manoeuvrable drakes. He prepared to fire, using his own musketeers, though the defenders did not waver. An annoying barrage began, which the rebels managed somehow to sustain for over an hour. They yelled the usual shouts of 'Cursed dogs! Devilish cavaliers! Popish traitors!' The Royalists replied with desultory oaths of their own. Not taking the defenders seriously, they charged — and to their astonishment, were beaten back again by musketfire.

  A second hour passed, before the Parliamentarians were inevitably forced out — only to take up another position in a second trench behind the first, at Digbeth. An untrained collection of smiths, nailmakers, labourers and cutlers was holding up a small army of
professional soldiers. The rebels' boldness only increased the Royalists' bitterness against this town. Cannon could achieve little in such a tight situation. Eventually the prince ordered a thatched house to be fired, which spread to a couple more buildings, opening up an access route. This sent the right message.

  Impatient to advance, a group of cavalry under the Earl of Denbigh set off across the water meadows to find other roads in. Lovell and Treves went along. They splashed through the shallows, managed to ford the river, and rode into the town through the back ways. Lord Denbigh led them, singing loudly as he went. Soon they were breaking through hedges, leaping garden walls, and bursting among the houses on the south side. Now Edmund Treves learned to be a cavalier, as the horsemen announced their presence by shooting at doors and windows whenever anyone showed a face. Enemy fire came sporadically from upper-storey windows. Barging along amongst his colleagues in the single winding main street, Edmund felt his heart pound. His right arm was up, bearing his sword, and he fired off his remaining pistol with his left hand, aiming badly as he held the reins, unaware whom he shot at, unable to determine friend or foe among the citizens who stared out in curiosity. Exhilarated, the cavaliers stormed at full tilt through the markets. Then at the north end where habitation petered out, quite suddenly they came upon a troop of rebel horse. These were local riders, raised and armed by a Mr Perkes of Birmingham and led by Captain Richard Greaves, who had already fought Prince Rupert once at King's Norton the previous year.

  Greaves and his men took off at once down the road to Dudley, with the cavaliers flying at their heels. To have more room to ride, the cavaliers fanned out on either side of the highway. The chase had all the excitement and danger of a cross-country hunt — jumping into the unknown as they tackled hedges, palings and gates. Treves saw one rider fall, with such force he must have broken his neck. Though an anxious horseman himself, he took his own lead from Lovell, who saw foes and dashed straight at them. They galloped along furiously until they reached a place between two woods. There, at Shireland Road, Captain Greaves gave a signal and wheeled his men about. They fired, then charged the pursuing Royalists. In those first moments of surprise, the Earl of Denbigh was shot, knocked from his horse and left for dead. Instantly demoralised, his men scattered back across the fields. They were hotly chased by Greaves and his cheering troops; Greaves himself was streaming blood from several minor face wounds. The rout continued until the cavaliers had almost reached the prince and their own colours in Deritend. Unable to tackle Prince Rupert's whole force, Captain Greaves and his men retired.

  Someone went to break the news to Rupert that Lord Denbigh, a close friend of his, had fallen. Lord Digby was thought to be missing too, along with another man of quality, reported as Sir William Ayres. While the riders shook themselves down and made light of the incident, they learned that progress had been made here. Under cover of the fracas and the smoke from the fired houses, the hundred Birmingham foot had abandoned the trench and made their escape. The prince ordered that the house-fires be quenched.

  'They'll not be back.' Indicating Greaves's retreating horsemen, Lovell seemed unimpressed by the sharp little cavalry encounter, but he had advice for Treves. 'Edmund, if you are of a mind to prosper, take some of our men, ride back to where Denbigh fell and recover the corpse. He is much loved by Rupert. Do yourself some good by it.'

  'And you, Orlando?'

  Lovell cracked a grin that the rebels would rightly have called devilish. 'Business in town!'

  'The Prince banned plunder,' warned Treves.

  'Of course!' scoffed Lovell. 'He knows the rules of engagement. And we know how Rupert interprets them!'

  Already sickened by the four days of looting at Henley-in-Arden, Treves wanted no part of whatever was to come here. He took the advice to search for Denbigh's corpse.

  Beside the little River Rea, the situation changed. Opposition had finally ended; the rebel musketeers were scrambling off as fast as they could to hide their weapons and themselves. A Royalist signal was given: it was safe to advance across the bridge. The men collected themselves to ride in search of prey. Cavaliers streamed across the ancient stone bridge, galloping at any local people they saw, shooting wildly and cutting down anybody they caught in their path. They fanned out through gardens, orchards and back alleys. Soon Birmingham was theirs. They made brisk work of establishing their presence, then settled in for the night.

  This was just the start. Birmingham was about to learn what it meant to be taken by Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

  Chapter Sixteen — Birmingham: 3–4 April 1643

  Kinchin Tew spent much of Monday morning out in the woods. She knew there had been arguments in parish meetings and in the taverns about whether Birmingham should defend itself or succumb. Her parents argued as hotly as anyone, though there was never any possibility her father or unenlisted brothers would fight; the Tews had decided to flee. None of them had much idea what to expect. That did not stop her father, Emmett, loudly asserting that Birmingham would be horribly punished for its acts of rebellion. 'And what poor devils will come off worst — ?'

  'Us,' grumbled Kinchin's mother. As always!'

  The family built a smoky bonfire in the woods, made feeble efforts to put up a temporary shelter and hunched down glumly like a group of hibernating vermin to wait until it was over. They had no pity for the town's predicament. Only the fact that whatever livelihood they scraped together depended on Birmingham gave them any interest. If Birmingham people suffered, it would reduce available charity and for those Tews who occasionally accepted labouring jobs, serious trouble might end all possibility of work. However, they had seen the King and his army pass through in procession last autumn, so they did not imagine today's events would be much worse.

  Around noon, Kinchin and some of her siblings grew bored and cold. They crept back to town, where they watched the handing out of arms. They noticed Francis Roberts, the minister, leaving; he knew he would be a target for reprisals after his many anti-Royalist sermons.

  At that time, before Prince Rupert arrived, the streets were quiet, although many people stood in their open doorways. Small groups of neighbours huddled together, seeking reassurance. Kinchin visited her friend Thomas at the Swan Inn on the High Street. A short, pale, mild-mannered man in his thirties, the ostler's light wispy hair was balding back from his forehead and he had a limp where he had once been kicked by an unfriendly horse. 'I'll be working later. I won't see the carnival…'

  Thomas took Kinchin down into Deritend and showed her the earthworks that had been thrown up across the road. Small groups of musketeers were standing about quietly, one or two drinking beer from pint pots brought out to them by sympathisers. Kinchin parted from Thomas and moved on to beg for bread and butter from Mistress Lucas. 'And can your good man spare a sword, so that my father may fight for us with the rest?' She knew Emmett would not fight. But he had trained her to try for anything available.

  "We have no swords left, Kinchin. Every finished weapon has been given out to the men. Now take yourself to some safe place, girl.'

  With a shrug, foreseeing no particular danger, Kinchin made her way sulkily back to her family. They would moan at her for coming empty-handed, the laziest of her work-shy brothers moaning the loudest. Shortly after she left Mistress Lucas, the dull reverberation of the prince's cannon nearby shook the smith's house, while loud salvoes of musket shot caused the housewife to catch her breath in panic. But as Kinchin crossed the fields, she heard that first gunfire, which out in the countryside seemed distant and innocuous.

  She had almost reached the wood, homing in on the wispy smoke from the fire. Then, suddenly, thunderous hooves closed in behind her. So many horses were coming, the ground shook. After one scared glance back, the girl gathered her skirts and ran. It felt as if Captain Greaves and the pursuing cavaliers were furiously chasing her. Terrified, she stumbled into the wood, just as she realised the horses had stopped. Scratched by brambles and brushwood and shaking
with panic, she turned back from cover. She heard shouts and pistol shots; creeping closer, she witnessed the fierce exchange between Greaves's and Denbigh's men. Abruptly the skirmish was over. The cavalry of both sides all rode away like furies, back towards Birmingham.

  Several loose horses remained, milling in the road. Her father ran out instantly with a couple of other Tews, to round up any they could catch. These were gentlemen's horses, good quality and expensive, even though when sold without a provenance they would fetch far less than their true value. Emmett would move them fast, putting twenty miles between the place he found them and backstreet stables in other market towns where scoundrels as shady as he would be glad to take the beasts, no questions asked, then sell them back to one of the armies' buying agents.

  Wounded men were crawling; dead ones lay on the ground. Kinchin's mother emerged from cover. Flinging her ragged shawl back over her shoulders, she grabbed her daughter's arm and headed for these casualties. The two women hovered cautiously, then grew bolder. Her mother poked the dead to see if that produced any movement, then eagerly began to strip them. She had a rusty knife, which she plunged into her victims, rather than take chances. It was the first time the Tews had plundered like this, but they needed no lessons. Boots, hats, breastplates, jackets, belts and shirts were swiftly peeled from the bodies. Weapons, purses, finger rings, handkerchiefs, medallions, gloves, sashes and riding hose all followed. Kinchin and her mother worked fast and in silence, not stopping to waste time on cries of delight. Before her mother stripped off britches and coats, the girl's small fingers dug deep into pockets, knowing that gentlemen's pockets would probably have three interior divisions, and that she must not miss the smallest, which might be fastened with a button. Their gleanings were rushed away into the woods by other Tews who came running for armfuls of fine clothes and fistfuls of jewellery. One of the boys collected guns and bullets in a cloak, tied up the corners and dragged it away.