by Smith, Skye
"Told me what?” Urrey asked as he glanced between the two filthy and exhausted men.
"It was all a ruse,” Daniel told him. "Waller will be just leaving Marlborough. There is no army behind my scouts, and my men are so exhausted it is a wonder they can keep to their saddles. If you aren't going to attack Grandison's retreat, then the least you should do is get your men ready for another attack, just in case Grandison finds out about the ruse."
The Colonel nodded a "make it so” to the captains he had just been whispering secretively with, and all of them left the canopy together, so Daniel and Burt found themselves alone with the three guards. Burt noticed a duek cot off to one side, and he lowered himself into it carefully and then sighed at the simple comfort of lying out horizontally. Daniel stumbled over to the brazier to warm his hands.
One of the parchments had not yet completely burned. He could still read a part of a phrase, "swear fealty to Charles, King of” and then it turned black and then flamed. Had Urrey been doing a Faithfull? Had he been agreeing to change sides as Waller's other Colonel, Faithfull Fortesque, had done during the battle for Edgehill? Damn this king and his ability to sway gentlemen officers with the promise of honors and titles.
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Colonel Waller's rage at Lord Grandison being allowed to reach Winchester went on unabated for a full day, the day of rest his army needed after the forced march south from Marlborough. Waller's anger was not really with Urrey, but with Grandison for what he had done to Marlborough.
"The king's gentlemen have now learned to use the outrage from the sack of Brentford to their advantage,” Waller told his officers, yet again. "They use the fear of another sack to undermine a town's resolve. It is nothing less than criminal extortion. Pay us, or else. They threaten the lives of the eldest sons to force the fathers to offer up every bit of the portable wealth that has taken them a lifetime to save. They threaten the lives of the babies to force the young women to offer up their womanly comforts and their honor. The result is that every young woman in Marlborough has been ruined, while their fathers face poverty. It was Grandison and Digby who are responsible, and yet both of them have escaped me."
"But I had already signed the articles when the captain and his skirmishers arrived and played out that ruse,” Urrey repeated for the umpteenth time. "Would you have me break an honorable truce with treachery. What future horrors would that lead to?"
"Well, at least Andover was saved from suffering the same fate as Marlborough,” Waller eventually admitted.
After the first half hour, Waller's recriminations and Urrey's excuses began to follow the same pattern, so every other officer stayed well out of it. For Daniel that was easy, because he and his brigade of skirmishers had already been refreshed by a full day and a night of rest by the time Waller's army had arrived. Since the regular force was exhausted, he and his skirmishers had been sent out in all directions as pickets and scouts.
It was from one of those scouting missions towards Winchester, that Daniel was now returning from. His report to Waller and Urrey was hurriedly given in pants of breath for he had ridden like the wind to get it to them. "On the orders of the Bishop of Winchester,” pant, "all silver, gold, and jewels,” pant, "in all of the churches of his parishes,” pant, "are being gathered up and shipped to Winchester."
"Blast the man!” Waller yelled out. "It's not enough that he is using the wealth from his cathedrals to finance the king, but now that of the parish churches also.” The ancient wood floor of the Angel Inn which he had rented as his headquarters, seemed to shake as he stomped about in time with the pattern of his words. Finally he looked around the faces of his officers and said, "I want everything that the bishop has ordered gathered to be brought to me instead. Don't bash heads, don't break down doors, and don't smash windows unless it is absolutely necessary, but I want those church treasures secured from being thieved by the bishop."
"What? In all of the churches?” Urrey asked. "I can understand the Episcopacy ones, but what of the Presbytery, and the Independent ones?"
Waller looked long at his second in command. The man's words proved that he was of the Episcopacy, for he did not know that the other churches considered rich trappings within a church as a throwback to the papacy. There would be no treasures found in the other churches. "All of them must be accounted for, but as I said, go easy with any destruction or violence. We do not want to make new enemies, but that treasure must not reach the bishop."
"Sir, if I may interrupt?” Daniel had regained his breath. "I have already sent out the same orders to my scouting parties towards Winchester, but I had not men enough to cover all of Hampshire."
"You, you, a mere captain,” Urrey replied sharply, "gave the order to desecrate the houses of God?"
"I don't hold with rich ministries, sir, not with this war causing so much hunger and strife. It should be put to a better use in the community than adorning the bloody church. My men will tread gently unless they come across someone already doing the thieving."
"And your men, what of their thieving ways. Amongst your ragged skirmishers there are no gentlemen to guard the treasures they find."
"Exactly sir, which is why most of it will reach Colonel Waller intact.” Daniel said defensively. "Poor men thieve poor things that won't much be missed. Rich men would take it all.” He didn't mention that an apprentice flashing too much silver would be arrested, whereas a gentleman would well know how to bribe his way out of any trouble.
"Colonel,” Waller interrupted so he could tell what he had decided to Urrey, "have your officers confer with the captain over a map and decide which ministries still need to be visited, and then they are to ride out and capture those treasures. Oh, and please tell them from me that the bleed rate on the treasure had better be less than one part in twenty else it will be a looter's noose for them."
It took Daniel an hour to brief the other captains. In truth it took him but ten minutes, but the rest of the hour was spent waiting for the other captains to gather so he could explain the lay of the map. They would still be chattering on about gentlemanly things, if he hadn't been rude and forced them to pay attention. When he finally escaped them and was on his way to find some food, better food than dried smoked horsemeat, Jake found him. "Not now Jake. This is the first time I have been in an Inn with a proper kitchen since Newbury, and I'm going to stuff myself silly."
"You must come now, Danny,” Jake urged him by pulling on his arm, "else what we've found will be gone."
"What do you mean?"
"Follow me to the stables,” Jake whispered, "quick like, before the horse is taken away by one of them captain's you've been fillin' wi' bull shit."
Daniel sighed and followed him. It wasn't far to the Inn's stables and so it wouldn't delay his meal by much. Inside the stable two of his skirmishers were waiting in the normal way of apprentices, by holding the walls up with their backs. The easy way the two men were accepted by the stable lads was not surprising, as they were both apprentice farriers who had been given the horses they rode by their master farrier. Supplying a horse to an apprentice who had been called up was the best of kindnesses by any master, for the horse kept them out of the regular infantry, out of the regular cannon fodder.
"Show 'im,” Jake told them.
"This way,” the older lad said and motioned them towards a chestnut mare, a big healthy horse with a handsome face and a white blaze on her forehead. "We know this horse,” he told Daniel. "Seen it we did, up in Newbury after comin' in out of the storm on the downs. Pretty filly, ain't she. I wanted her for me when we swapped for fresh horses. Not to be though. Too fine for me. She was a messenger's horse, she was, cause she's long winded. See the depth of her ..."
Daniel's mind had snapped awake. "A messenger's horse?"
"Aye, you remember that the garrison at Newbury sent messengers both to Waller and to Urrey. One of the messengers sent to Urrey, well, this was his horse. Nice lad. Youngest son of sir someone or other. The mare was
a gift from his pa on his eighteenth birthday. Nice gift, I said. Lucky bugger, I said. He never did tell me his name, me being just an apprentice hoofman and all."
"So a message did reach Urrey,” Daniel said almost to himself.
"That's just what I said!” the youngest farrier exclaimed. "So we went to find him, you know, just to hear his story of the ride. Would have been exciting, a ride like that carrying such an important message.” The lad shrugged. "He's not anywhere. No one's seen 'im. When we asked after the chestnut's owner we wus told that the horse belonged to one of the captains."
"Good work, men,” Daniel told them. "Do me a favour and keep a watch on the mare, quiet like, and find out who claims her. It could be that the messenger was rewarded with a woman in a feather bed, which would explain why you haven't seen him yet."
"Ooh, that would be good. A woman in a feather bed,” the eldest said. "I could do with a night of that. You have any messages you want galloped, Cap'n?"
"Not now, or at least not yet,” Daniel told him with a laugh. They all laughed, but then Jake shushed them so they wouldn't bring attention to themselves.
As Daniel walked back towards the kitchen to find his meal, Jake kept up with him and asked, "So if the messenger arrived in time to warn Urrey that Grandison was in the area, then I don't get it. The messenger was sent so that Urrey wouldn't walk into a trap, and yet he walked into it in any case. If he were you, or Waller, he would have set a trap to trap the trappers.” He paused and scratched his head. "Yeh, I think I said that right."
"I don't understand it either, Jake, but you are not to speak of it to anyone, not unless we have more proof that something is going on. This is the army, remember. Gentlemen who slander their superior officers are drummed out of the company, but the likes of us are quickly and violently silenced."
"I wonder if that is what happened to the messenger lad?” Jake speculated, but the words were finished with Daniel's hand over his mouth.
They never did find out what happened to the lad, though they assumed treachery for the lad's horse was claimed by a Captain Knightly of Urrey's dragoons. Meanwhile Waller's orders put them back in the saddle to find Daniel's scouting parties and ensure that they did deliver all confiscated church treasures into Waller's hands. This put them in the lead of Waller’s army who were assembling to march from Andover to Winchester. Waller was being canny about choosing the obvious route he would take to Winchester for he feared that if he took the absolutely straight ancient road between the two places that he may fall foul of an ambush by Grandison. Instead he went south to Stockbridge to cross the river Test, and then east to Winchester.
At the village of Littleton, Daniel caught up to the scouts who had ventured the closest to Winchester in search of church treasure. In truth they were just over a mile as the crow flies from the great tower of Winchester Cathedral. Daniel led a party of thirty men, which was double the number of his men already at the church in Littleton. Double was a good thing because when they did find those men, they found them in hot debate about whether to take the treasure they had confiscated back to Waller, or make for London with the loot.
The debate was never finished, not because Daniel ordered them to do the right thing, but because the lookout up in the church tower called down to them that a flying army of cavalryers was coming along the road from Winchester, with seven hundred or even a thousand horse. With the debate and London forgotten, forty five skirmishers rode hell bent out of Littleton and west towards Stockbridge to warn Waller.
Once clear of the village and in open ground, Daniel felt more secure and had time to think about his situation, or rather the situation of the flying army they had so narrowly just escaped. He decided to slow his company to allow the flying army to close the distance with them and see them. When it seemed like the nerves of his company would break, he ordered his men to whip their horses and resume their original hell bent pace. This time the flying army were right on their tails, and the race was on.
Had the king's flying army been pistoleers or trained as skirmishers, they would have been too suspicious to give chase. The commanders must have thought that Waller was marching to Winchester along the ancient direct road from Andover, and so felt safe in their sortie out towards Salisbury. Whatever the case, they did not waver from their hot pursuit of Daniel's men.
The only explanation for such lack of caution was that these men were more used to the hunt than the battle. Daniel and his company played fox and hounds with them and kept them right on their tail for about four miles, at which point suddenly the thousand hunters became the hunted. This because at the half way point to Stockbridge, they ran headlong into Waller's heavy cavalry, and those cuirassiers were led by Arthur Haselrig. Haselrig knew Daniel and owed him big, and never even questioned Daniel's suggestion, nay his order, to charge the flying army. With a howl at his officers, he immediately rallied his cuirassiers and they broke into a full charge towards the royalists.
The royalists immediately turned and ran away back towards Winchester, but their horses were flagging as much as the horses of Daniel's scouts. More even, because they were carrying a heavier load due to their riders' armour and supplies. Haselrig's five hundred lobsters on their great chargers were fresh in comparison. They were called lobsters because they wore more armour than anyone else. The royalist flying army had no chance of winning a horse race against the lobsters. Once they realized that they could not escape by speed, they rallied their numbers and turned to face the charge of the lobsters.
Waller's regiments could have chosen to slaughter the flying army, but that was not the way that Parliament was fighting this war. Not that the leaders cared a hoot about the enlisted men, but Essex's orders were clear and specific. The officers and son's of nobility must be spared. At least half of the royalists formed a defensive line but there was no fight left in their mounts. Instead they just served as a picket to slow down Haselrig enough to allow most of the royalist officers and nobs to retreat back to Winchester. Six hundred of them surrendered to Haselrig, but the senior officers and four hundred of the king's gentlemen had a good head start back to the safety of Winchester Castle. Certainly no more than twenty of them suffered any serious wounds from the charge of the lobsters.
The easy victory, with nary a drop of his own men's blood being shed, put Waller in a very good mood. This despite the fact that Grandison, twenty officers, and the wealthiest and best equipped of the flying army had escaped back to Winchester. In his good humour, he kept the captured eighteen officers as prisoners, but told the rest of his captives, all six hundred of them, that they could disperse back to their homes so long as they first swore oaths not to cause any trouble in the countryside.
It was a merciful order, but his army had other ideas, and as soon as Waller, his senior officers, and the captured officers were out of sight, his army fell on their prisoners and stripped them of horses, weapons, armour and other valuables before sending them on their way to their homes. Since the weather was frigid, they did show mercy enough to allow them their boots and their bed rolls. Such was the more normal way that wealth was transferred from vanquished to victors in the real world of soldiering.
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The Pistoleer - Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-15
Chapter 4 - The Seige of Winchester in December 1642
Since Daniel's forty-five skirmishers had done the hard and dangerous work of leading Grandison's army into a trap, his company were given first choice from the captured horses and saddles, and there were some beauties. Within the hour they were on those horses and saddles riding towards Winchester to scout out what was happening in the grand city. This turned out to be a good thing because since they were amongst the first of the army to reach the city, they had the first choice of quarters.
Grandison's army had past right through the town and into the safety of the castle walls, without lingering to organize the defense of the town or even throwing together barric
ades in the streets. Yes, the gates of Winchester town were guarded, but it was a senseless defense because the dressed stone of the town's walls had long ago been thieved to build the stone houses of the wealthy merchants. When you could walk through the gaping holes in the wall, what was the sense in guarding the gates?
Daniel sent messengers back to Waller to tell him what to expect, and then he chose a grand house on the cathedral grounds to house his skirmishers. In all there could be as many as two hundred men, depending on how honest they decided to be with the church treasures they were collecting.. It was a strong house made of stone which they could defend if necessary. From the top floor it gave them views of the castle and the cathedral. This meant, of course, that they needed to displace the clerics who were living there, and their servants and 'nieces', but those clerics made no complaint. They were probably relieved to be ordered out and away and not arrested, being that there were many papist trappings in the grand house.
They set a watch up high to kept a close eye on the castle, cathedral and town until Waller's main force arrived, but then they eagerly shut the heavy doors, and the ground floor shutters and called it an early day and time to bed down. Not that they could sleep. Armies made a lot of noise, and that noise was compounded by the sounds of evictions all around them as billets were claimed in the stone houses of the ministries and the high street merchants.
The morning was much quieter because everyone was sleeping in and hiding from a bout of weather cold enough to freeze all the standing water in this low lying city. In truth there was only one commotion that morning, and that was when Waller sent out orders to rescue all the horses from the freezing wind by stabling them in the cathedral. That order, of course, caused the numerous cathedral staff to begin misbehaving and complaining, but they should have praised Waller instead. In one order, Waller had not just spared the horses from extreme hardship, but had spared the great stained glass windows from destruction by his more radical followers of the Presber and Puritan persuasions. After all, the heat of the crush of horses could not warm the cathedral if the windows were smashed open to the weather.