Formed up along the ridge, the Parliamentarian force must have seemed formidable to the first Royalist cavalrymen to ride out from Stafford. The Parliamentarians had tactical and numerical advantage, were protected on either side by flanking breastworks in the hedgerows of the hay fields and behind the walls of the deer park, and had eight fieldpieces angled down the slope to create a lethal crossfire covering the Royalist approach. Furthermore, the main body of infantry, still awaiting Brereton’s foot, was protected by a vast rabbit warren that spanned the entire breadth of the ridge, rendering a cavalry charge exceedingly perilous. With all the apparent advantages, Gell must have felt extremely confident as his enemies massed on the lower part of Hopton Heath. A frontal assault by Northampton would surely have seen his horse delayed by the rabbit warren and eviscerated by cannonades and musket fire from three sides.
But Northampton did not fall into the trap. Instead, he deployed his seasoned dragoons to clear the flanks of the breastworks, a task they managed to execute with few casualties while inflicting severe losses on the rebels and capturing eight cannon, thereby nullifying Gell’s planned crossfire. While his dragoons skirmished so successfully, Northampton’s artillery piece, a huge 29-pound demi-cannon, began to create mayhem on the ridge. I have given the honour of commanding the cannon to Jonathan Blaze, but the event itself is real. Contemporary accounts record that the first blast from Roaring Meg killed six rebels and injured four. The second cut such a swathe through the rebel ranks that the gap was never filled.
Spying such a ‘swathe’ must have given Northampton great encouragement, and he immediately released his cavalry, who swept Brereton’s horsemen from the field and fell upon the infantry holding the ridge. With the rebel flanks destroyed, Brereton’s cavalry scattered and their front ranks disordered by cannon fire, the Staffordshire Moorlanders, held in reserve by Gell, promptly fled the field.
But, as described in the book, at the very point of annihilation it was Sir John Gell who steadied the Parliamentarian ship. Seeing several of his greycoated units shoulder their pikes in readiness of retreat, he dismounted and ran into their midst. Contemporary accounts talk of him knocking their points down with his sword and ordering them to stand firm. Having reformed his men into coherent defensive formations, Gell was able to repel the Royalist charges time and again. Each time the king’s men galloped up the slope, his troops held their ground and fired devastating volleys into the charging Royalists, who reached the line each time only to wheel away as they fell upon the rebel pikes.
In one of the early charges the Earl of Northampton was killed. His son, Lord James Compton (now the third earl) was wounded, as was Sir Thomas Byron. Sir Henry Hastings led the fourth charge and then decided that further attempts at breaking the rebel formation would be foolhardy, despite his own reputation for reckless bravery.
As the day drew to a close, the Royalists retreated to the low ground on the heath. Gell and his forces remained on the ridge, but withdrew towards Uttoxeter during the night. Although the battle concluded in a stalemate, Parliament could at least take pride in the avoidance of a rout; for the Royalists, it was a bittersweet day. They had saved Stafford and inflicted heavy casualties on the rebels, despite being heavily outnumbered, but they had lost many of their senior officers, including their overall commander.
Accounts differ on the exact nature of Spencer Compton’s death. How he got to be isolated by Gell’s infantrymen is a mystery, but it seemed logical to me that the rabbit warren might well have unhorsed him. We do know, as I have described in Devil’s Charge, that he died fighting on foot, surrounded by rebel infantry. While on foot, Northampton killed a rebel officer and a number of ordinary soldiers prior to being overwhelmed. He was given the option of quarter, but refused with the famous dying words, ‘I take no quarter from such base rogues and rebels as you are.’ Having refused quarter, he was struck on the head from the rear by a halberd.
As alluded to at the end of the book, Gell took Northampton’s body from Hopton Heath to be used as a bargaining tool. James Compton, third Earl of Northampton, sent a trumpeter to Gell at Uttoxeter requesting his father’s body, but Gell refused, issuing the reply that he would exchange the dead body for the eight captured cannon. Compton refused, as the cannon belonged to King Charles and not him personally. In what became the defining act of Gell’s career, he had the dead earl stripped naked and the body slung over the back of a horse. He transported it to Derby and paraded it through the streets. When King Charles got to hear of the events at Derby (he was a lifelong friend of Northampton), he immediately put a price on Gell’s head. I feel certain Stryker and Gell will cross paths again …
The Blaze brothers are entirely my own creation, though many men like them had enlisted in the armies of King and Parliament at the outset of war. They were often (though not exclusively) Frenchmen, experienced in the use of black powder, who had plied their trade for the vast European armies in the wars of the 1620s and 1630s. Consequently, these fireworkers – men like La Riviere, La Roche, St Martin and Montgarnier – were highly prized assets in the various field armies.
Stryker and his men have made it through a difficult winter, but the campaign season is only just beginning. The spring of 1643 will see some of the bloodiest engagements in British history, and I’m certain the men of Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot will be right in the thick of it.
Captain Stryker will return.
Devil's Charge (2011) Page 47