Marston Moor

by Michael Arnold

  Chapter 18

  William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle and commander of the king’s northern army, reached Marston Moor as the fight swirled on the lower slope of the ridge. He arrived in a coach drawn by four white horses draped in the same red and white livery as the driver. Almost every gaze turned to the vehicle as it bounced off the road and on to the moor, chains jangling above the hideous creak of strained axle-trees, a muscular destrier in the same livery tethered at the rear. The coach was escorted by a bodyguard of gentlemen troopers, who wore their own civilian clothing beneath various pieces of armour, and Stryker, spurring out from Brownell’s former unit, supposed they had been raised for just this occasion, recruited from the finest men York had to offer.

  ‘What a day to strap on your grandpapa’s sword, eh?’ Crane muttered as Stryker reined in beside him. ‘I suppose Rupert has pulled their ballocks from the flames, so it is only right that they lend their vigour to our cause.’

  ‘They shan’t do any fighting, Colonel,’ Stryker replied, aware of the bitterness in his tone.

  Crane snorted. ‘Dare say you’re in the right of it.’ He glanced behind. ‘Men ready?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Come to stick your ugly nose into the business of generals?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Crane’s scar tissue puckered as his mouth turned upwards. ‘Then observe, Major.’

  Prince Rupert of the Rhine cantered past them at that moment and intercepted Newcastle’s coach. The proud sentinels of his bodyguard parted like the Red Sea to let the king’s nephew through, and he dismounted as the coach door clunked open.

  Newcastle, resplendent in a green and silver cassock and huge felt hat, stepped briskly on to the squelching grass and returned Rupert’s bow. ‘At last we meet Your Highness.’ He glanced up at the ridge. ‘The fight begins?’

  ‘We clear their horse from that corn hill. I would take the high ground while time is on my side.’ Rupert’s face was tight, his lips pressed firmly in a pale line. ‘My lord, I wish you had come sooner with your forces, but I hope we shall yet have a glorious day.’

  Newcastle frowned. ‘My men have lately suffered much privation, Highness. They plunder the enemy siege-lines. It takes time to gather them together.’ He paused as a great shout rolled and built from the trampled crops of the slope. The song of swords rang out, echoing down to the woods at the Royalist rear, as the opposing bodies of cavalry clashed. ‘I urge you, Highness, do not attempt this thing rashly. I have good word, reliable word, that there is much discontent within the alliance. They are resolved to divide themselves imminently. We have given them many wounds, these last weeks, and their leaguers ooze with disease. They are likely to march away, should the moment be opportune.’

  ‘March away?’ Rupert repeated the words as though they were uttered by a Bedlamite. ‘Divide? No, my lord, I would face them here, now, while they are one, so that I may destroy them as a whole.’

  Newcastle swallowed thickly. ‘This is folly.’

  ‘This’ – the prince raised his voice, more heads turning towards them – ‘is His Majesty’s wish. I possess a letter, in my uncle’s own hand. It tells a tale of woe. Of the Oxford Army’s imminent annihilation if help does not reach them soon. His Majesty commands me to relieve York, to defeat the Scots and Roundheads, and then to march south with all haste, to lend him my strength. I have achieved one of those aims. Now, together, we will see to the second. You have four thousand foot, yes?’

  Newcastle grimaced. ‘The siege whittled us without mercy. It is nearer three.’

  ‘Three thousand,’ Rupert said, turning the figures in his mind. ‘We will come to twelve thousand foot when all is joined. And over six thousand horse. How many do the enemy bring to bear?’

  ‘Fever struck them, this we know, for we perceived their digging of grave pits. But I know not what toll it took.’

  ‘Then?’

  Newcastle blew out his cheeks. ‘Not a great deal fewer than thirty thousand.’

  Trumpet calls captured the attention of both Royalist leaders at once. Prince and marquis turned together, squinting into the drab morning to witness the rout of their cavalry. The Parliament horse had swept down from the crest in numbers, first hitting the Royalist party, then enveloping it, so that they pressed too closely for the supporting musketeers to fire. In a matter of minutes the skirmish was over, king’s men crashing pell-mell down towards the safety of the moor.

  ‘Christ’s bleeding wounds!’ Prince Rupert bellowed, thumping fist into palm. ‘Who are those horsemen?’ He jabbed a finger towards the summit. ‘Who?’

  An aide let his mount take a stride forwards. ‘Eastern Association, Highness.’

  ‘Bible thumpers to a man,’ Rupert hissed scornfully. ‘Make for good fighters, more’s the pity. Commanded by?’

  ‘Lieutenant-General Cromwell, Highness.’

  ‘God damn farmer!’ Rupert raged again. ‘Send more men up that bastard hill and take it.’

  Even as the aide nodded acquiescence, another rider on a mud-caked gelding slewed to an arcing stop beside the young general. ‘Highness! Body o’ foot climbing the ridge, thither.’

  Rupert followed his outstretched arm. ‘How many?’

  ‘This one? A thousand.’

  ‘This one?’ Rupert repeated. ‘How many bodies of foot are there?’

  ‘All of them, Highness,’ the rider replied. ‘The Scotch army and all the English. They return as one.’

  Rupert swore viciously, turning to Newcastle. ‘We are in dire need of your regiments, my lord. Where are they?’

  ‘Lord Eythin brings them forthwith.’

  ‘Eythin?’ Rupert spat. ‘I no longer wonder as to their tardiness, my lord, for James King is a knave and a scoundrel.’

  Newcastle scowled at the insult to his adviser. ‘I understand you two have your differences, Highness, but you have my word that he will bring my men to the field soon.’

  The tall prince rubbed his lean, cleanly shaven chin as he regarded the ridge. ‘I’ve a mind to take that hill with my full force and scatter the enemy to the wind.’

  ‘Wait, Highness,’ Newcastle urged. ‘My lads are as good foot as are in the world. Lord Eythin will come.’

  ‘He had better, my lord Newcastle,’ Rupert said, still staring at the ridge, ‘for delay will be our undoing.’

  Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven and senior commander of Allied forces about York, ascended the ridge at noon. The journey back from Tadcaster had been fraught, riven by waking nightmares of a horde of red-scarved wolves marauding over his uncoordinated and confused brigades. But now, as he finally arrived to resume the position he had maintained during the previous day, he gave thanks to God, for miraculously the Army of Both Kingdoms still held the high ground and the wolves remained on the moor.

  Leven kicked his whinnying grey up to the highest point towards the eastern end of the ridge. When he had been here previously, the moor had been secondary to the River Nidd in his mind. He had used the vantage – a view unsullied all the way from that shimmering river in the west to the walls of York in the east – to warn him of Prince Rupert’s approach. Now, though, his eye was attuned to the terrain itself, for this time his enemy had not played him false. This time, the only viable Royalist army in the entire north of England mustered on the flat plain below. The infantry were manoeuvring into position at the very centre of the formation, while huge bodies of cavalry formed both wings; the Northern Horse on their left, while the rest, under Lord John Byron to judge by the colours, took the opposite flank. Leven was pleased with all this, because he had the advantage of the terrain. Had Rupert’s earlier play for Bilton Bream proved successful, the reverse would be true, but Cromwell, that dour, blunt-speaking cudgel of a man, had led a fine action in defence of the position, beating Byron’s horse clean away, and Leven knew that it might well have won him the day already.

  Because Marston Moor was a killing field.

  Leven had been through
the hellfire of conflict many times, and one thing he had gleaned was that battlefields were not perfect. They were not usually like the wards of a castle, where engineers designed and delineated fiendishly clever zones into which men might be coerced and slain. Yet what he saw before him now was exactly that. The moor was delineated, by God, if not by engineers. The ridge on which he stood, climbing high above all, marked the southern boundary. Villages – Tockwith and Long Marston – provided clear limits to the west and east respectively, while a dense forest, Wilstrop Wood, shrouded the land to the north. Immediately below Leven’s position, the ground fell steeply away, easing into a gentle slope as it met with the moor at its foot. Away to his right, around Long Marston, the terrain was rough, broken by hedgerows and ditches, while to his left, at Bilton Bream, pioneers with picks and shovels were already setting to the task of clearing a large cony warren so that Cromwell’s horse could move unhindered.

  Immediately before the ridge ran a track connecting the two villages, while beyond the track, a ditch – intermittently hedged – curved through the plain, marking both the extent of the cultivated land and the extent of the enemy forces. He watched that hedge. It was difficult to see exactly what awaited anyone brave enough to assault it, but it seemed obvious that the prince would have men lying in wait.

  ‘He has fewer than we feared.’

  Leven looked to his left to see the lords Manchester and Fairfax approach. ‘I see no colours belonging to Newcastle’s foot. When they arrive it will bolster him markedly.’

  Manchester stroked his horse’s ears and stared at the enemy lines. ‘My guess is we look upon fewer than fourteen thousand. With the Northern Foot, he’ll have eighteen at a pinch.’ He shrugged. ‘We have thirty thousand in reply.’

  ‘Twenty-eight,’ Leven corrected. ‘So many did the fever take.’

  Fairfax laughed as though he were out for a Sunday hack. ‘It is enough, my lord. Look at them! They are magnificent!’

  Leven could do nothing but agree. Like the Royalists down on the moor, their flanks were formed of horsemen. On the far right, facing Goring’s Northern Horse, were the cavalry and dragoons of Fairfax’s Northern Association commanded by the lord’s son, Sir Thomas, who rode in the front line, which, in turn, was comprised of five bodies of horse interspersed with units of musketeers. There was a line behind, of equal strength, and a third line of Scots horse in reserve. Over on the left, at the already bloodstained Bilton Bream, the cavalry were commanded by Manchester’s second, Oliver Cromwell. He too had a trio of deep lines, leading the first in person, with the second commanded by Colonel Vermuyden. The third was again made up of Scottish cavalry, to be led by David Leslie. The centre of the army was dominated by foot, and that was where Leven’s proud Covenanters brought their strength to bear. Fairfax had taken three thousand foot to the gates of York, while Manchester had supplied twice that number. In contrast, Leven’s army had fourteen thousand pikemen and musketeers, and now they marched past him in huge, snaking columns to take up position on the ruined fields of corn. The Army of Both Kingdoms had suffered much during their abortive siege, with cannon, musket and plague pecking at them without remorse, but still, after all that, Leven could gaze upon a burgeoning battle line that would, within an hour or two, boast the better part of twenty thousand infantry. More, indeed, than the entire Royalist army combined.

  Eventually he looked at Fairfax and nodded. ‘Pray God you are right, my lord.’

  Stryker stared up at the ridge. They had stood to arms the entire morning and watched, with unease and then horror, as the escarpment had filled with soldiers. The cornfields had gone, replaced by metallic killers on red-eyed destriers, by phalanxes of musket and pike, by dragoons with long-arms slung across their backs, by gun crews and their black-muzzled murderers. There were so many banners on that hill. Reds and blues and yellows and blacks. They swirled high, every blurring smear of colour a marker for each individual unit, though he could not count them all. He had not seen an army so vast since the Low Countries. It spread over the ridge and down part of the steep slope like a swarm of bees, vastly outnumbering his own army. A vague memory of Bolton-le-Moors swirled through his head, and he found himself wondering if this day was God’s revenge.

  He took some salted trout from his snapsack, tearing off strips and handing them to the others. Skellen and Barkworth were behind him, their mounts flanking Faith’s hirsute pony.

  ‘The unholy trinity,’ Thomas Hood said. He was saddled at Stryker’s right side, chewing as he spoke. ‘I see the Fairfax Foot hold the centre. Thank the Lord, for I’d rather our lads face them than the blue bonnets.’

  Stryker saw Lord Fairfax’s banner in the middle of the Allied infantry. The front row, from what he could see at so low a perspective, was made up of ten regiments. They were brigaded into five divisions, two regiments apiece, and on the right, as Stryker saw it, were the red and green coats of the Earl of Manchester’s army, while on the far side were the grey Scots in their blue hats and plaid shawls. Between them they accounted for all but one of the brigades, and that, in the very centre, was the one that had taken Hood’s eye. It seemed strange that Lord Fairfax’s men – those who had suffered many defeats to Newcastle’s grizzled whitecoats – would be entrusted to hold the very epicentre of the Allied line, the fulcrum around which the rest of the foot brigades would turn. ‘They hurried back,’ he said, considering what had prompted the deployment. ‘They are not drawn into their separate armies, but mixed and spread. The Yorkshiremen probably reached the field first.’ A thought struck him as he glanced at Hood. ‘The banners are not easy to make out. You are sober?’

  ‘The men have drained the sutler dry,’ Hood said with mock chagrin.

  Stryker laughed. ‘I need your wits, Thomas.’

  ‘You have them, sharp and clear.’ He twisted to see the girl. ‘I have Miss Helly to thank.’

  ‘Do not turn hot-gospeller on me, Lieutenant,’ Stryker said as Faith blushed, ‘for I plan to get blind drunk in York this night.’

  Hood nodded. ‘I look forward to it, sir.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ Skellen muttered.

  Faith opened her mouth, but her words were drowned as they crossed her lips. The volley had come from a line of heavy guns up on the ridge, its thunderclap reverberating across the moor. Vos edged to the left, and Stryker had to grip hard to keep him steady. One man, a dragoon away to the right, was thrown, his mount rearing in terror. A mighty flock of birds rose from the forest at their backs, speckling the sky amid a crescendo of flapping wings and shrieking caws.

  ‘Steady!’ a voice was bellowing out in front, from somewhere within the dense rows of the prince’s foot brigades. ‘Steady my good men!’

  The guns flashed orange again, tongues licking the crest of the ridge. Smoke billowed, obscured the black muzzles in bitter cloud, and then the rumble shook the earth. The half-dozen lumps of iron whined over their heads, crashing into the forest canopy. A nervous murmur rippled through the ranks.

  ‘Saker, sir,’ Skellen said. ‘Tickles my back teeth.’

  ‘Did’nae think you had back teeth,’ Barkworth replied.

  ‘With the Major’s leave, you shall have no front teeth,’ Skellen growled.

  The tall Gosport man and the tiny, yellow-eyed Scot glared at one another and then they were all laughing as the first of the Royalist artillery pieces rent the damp afternoon. Skeins of smog threaded back through the brigades into the woodland. Faith caught her breath, smothering her face with her sleeve. For Stryker, it was as though an apothecary waved a pungent potion to his nostrils, livening his senses and churning his bowels.

  Skellen’s voice turned to a whisper. ‘There’s a lot of fuckin’ rebels up there.’ He glanced at Faith. ‘Beg pardon.’

  ‘Like fleas on a dog’s back,’ Barkworth reflected.

  ‘Only one dog I’m interested in,’ Skellen said, and Stryker looked back to see Boye, the large white poodle that had seen more battle than most, barking madly
as Prince Rupert cantered out to the left wing with a group of aides.

  ‘You believe him Satan’s creature?’ Faith asked dubiously.

  Skellen wrinkled his nose. ‘He can’t win a fight, lass, but he’ll lose one right enough.’

  Stryker tore his gaze away from the party around which the dog sauntered. ‘The men believe, Mistress. The simple folk, dragged from their ploughs to spill the blood of their neighbours for kings and nobles they will never meet and principles they can never understand. Remember the sutler’s charm?’ He paused for her to nod. ‘They pray to God, right enough, but also to the faeries in the forest and the wraiths in the rivers. Those men believe Boye brings us luck. If he is harmed, they will believe the magic brook runs dry.’

  ‘And then, Miss,’ Skellen said, ‘we really are in trouble.’

  The bombardment was feeble. The great guns on both sides shredded the afternoon, Scottish crews spewing fire and venom from atop the ridge, king’s men replying by turns, but the rain had persisted, and the ground had turned to bog. The mattrosses worked tirelessly with scourer and sponge, rammer and priming iron, but the damp powder fizzed meekly and the soil beneath the huge wheels shifted and collapsed with each recoil so that every new shot required a different elevation than the last. And all the while the targets moved as brigades on both sides were cajoled into amended positions to accommodate new arrivals.

  It was around five o’clock when the singing began. The cannon duel had petered to nothing, and the big sakers and demi-culverins seeped smoke from silent muzzles, their barrels hissing as the unrelenting rain pattered. Some of the smaller pieces engaged in their own duel, the higher-pitched spitting of drake minions and falconets continuing where their monstrous cousins had ceased. But in the main there was quiet, and out of that quiet came voices.