18 March 1644
The army had streamed into Ashby-de-la-Zouch since dawn, not as one coherent column, but in sporadic units, separated by minutes or even hours. But they came all the same, thundering sections of horse and dragoons bursting from out beyond the newly cleared parkland behind their fluttering cornets. Other parties cantered into the castle grounds as the day wore on, but to Stryker, eyeing them as he worked his way through a loaf of soft manchet by the foot of Ashby Castle’s curtain wall, they seemed neither fish nor fowl. Mounted like cavalry, armed with muskets like dragoons, but without the confident horsemanship of either.
‘He has mounted his musketeers,’ Sir Henry Hastings, first baron Loughborough, said with a note of awe as he came to stand beside Stryker, who leapt smartly to his feet. Together they stared at the colourful cavalcade that mustered in a fidgeting mass on the hoof-churned turf, shoaling like fish to the tune of various snarling sergeants. The infantry, unused to horses, had swiftly dismounted, and required a great deal of berating to prevent the ranks from dissolving into chaos. ‘Remarkable, is it not?’
Stryker had long ceased to be amazed by Prince Rupert of the Rhine. As comfortable at court as he was on the field of battle, the king’s nephew was a born leader of men. Stryker had served the prince many times, shared a dungeon with him, heard his laughter and witnessed his wrath. To mount musketeers in the cause of haste was no mean feat, but if any man could see it achieved, Prince Rupert was that man.
‘Did you have trouble on the road?’ Loughborough asked.
Stryker had galloped all night and most of the morning, changing his horse at Kinoulton, and had indeed been accosted near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Fortunately, his name had been enough to secure safe passage. ‘No trouble, my lord. How many do we have?’
Loughborough fiddled with his frayed eyepatch. ‘I have stripped every local garrison of men. Until last eve, I mustered fifteen hundred horse, and,’ he shrugged, ‘perhaps twelve hundred muskets.’
‘But Commissary-General Porter brought a goodly party.’
‘You saw him arrive?’
Saw him, thought Stryker. It was impossible to miss Porter’s entrance. The commander of the cavalry detachment sent south by the Marquis of Newcastle was a red-faced, smug Cavalier, brimming with pomp and self-importance, who had galloped into Ashby like a conquering hero. ‘I did, my lord.’
Loughborough either missed the cynicism, or chose to ignore it. ‘Good, indeed,’ he muttered, still staring at the burgeoning force that swelled across what had once been his father’s prized gardens. ‘A thousand horse and six hundred musketeers from the north. The rest, as you see before you, His Highness brings. The smaller portion, granted, but veterans in the main. Come across from Ireland.’
Stryker eyed the newcomers with renewed interest. ‘Irish? The people will not welcome them, my lord.’
‘Not papists, Stryker,’ Loughborough chided. ‘Englishmen, posted across the sea to fight the Irish rebels. The king has made peace for now.’
There had been an uprising by Irish Catholics in 1641, but, as Parliament’s strength had grown in England, the rebellion had been a front upon which the Royalist faction could not afford to fight. They were simply spread too thinly to fight in both kingdoms at once. Thus, just as the Scots had invaded, opening a devastating third front, the king had called a truce with his Catholic enemies. Stryker nodded. ‘And it has released men to return to our own fight.’
‘Precisely,’ Loughborough confirmed, indicating a particular section of the mustering units that were dressed in coats of patched and faded green. ‘They’re good, by all accounts.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Stryker said, thinking that any regiment forged in the bitter sectarian struggles of Ireland would be highly experienced and battle-hardened.
‘Consequently,’ Loughborough went on, ‘the prince will ride out from my humble home with more than six thousand men in all.’
‘Meldrum has more,’ Stryker pointed out.
Loughborough loosed a short bark of laughter. ‘Ever the pessimist, Major. Meldrum has more, for certain. But his army is drawn from all over the damned place. Most are raw recruits, many will be led by officers who dislike one another, and none will sleep easy when they hear we are en route.’ He looked across at Stryker now, flashing a wolfish grin as a file of splendidly attired light cavalrymen trotted by. ‘We have an army hastily raised, I grant you, but we are veterans, we are unified, and, most of all, we follow the standard of our very own Teutonic knight.’
‘Blind Hastings!’
Loughborough’s grin remained plastered across his lean face as he bowed low. ‘Your Highness.’
Stryker spun on his heels, affecting an even lower bow. ‘That’s what they call you, Henry, did you know?’ Prince Rupert let his horse sidle casually out of the line of harquebusiers, steering it deftly with his thighs, and drew up a few feet from Loughborough and Stryker. He was dressed in the same kit as his companions – all buff leather and metal. What made the man different, apart from his sheer size, were the finishing touches: the silver thread trimming the coat, the ornate hilt of his sword and the huge scarf of red and gold that blazed in the wan light, a beacon for others to follow.
Loughborough straightened, still brandishing a smile of genuine warmth. ‘I did, Highness, I did.’ He absently fingered the edge of his eyepatch. ‘The Roundhead pamphleteers are most uncharitable.’ Both great men brayed at that. ‘Still, they call you worse.’
‘They do, my lord, they do.’ Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, First Duke of Cumberland, First Earl of Holderness, President of Wales and Royalist General of Horse – commonly called Prince Rupert of the Rhine – laughed again, slid down from his saddle with a nimbleness uncommon for one so tall and plucked off his hat. He offered his own bow, fanned his face with the wide brim and finally eyed the man standing in deferential silence. ‘Stryker!’
‘Your Highness.’
‘Bless me, you are a welcome sight.’ He winked at Loughborough. ‘Is there room here for another one-eyed rogue, my lord?’ Before he received an answer, his hazel gaze had speared Stryker again. ‘McCroskey?’
Stryker’s mouth became so parched he could barely speak. ‘He was taken from us.’ Rupert only took a single step closer, but Stryker suddenly felt he knew how a vole must regard the approach of a kestrel. He swallowed thickly. ‘Highness.’
‘Christ, man, do you jest?’ the young Cavalier intoned in his peculiarly pan-continental accent. ‘By whom?’
‘A troop of dragooners, now harbouring him, I suspect, at the rebel leaguer.’
‘At Newark?’
Stryker met the hawkish gaze. ‘Aye, Highness.’
‘And why have you not fetched the viperous rogue back?’ Rupert demanded. ‘He is the Scots’ prime asset! The lifeblood flowing between the Committee and London. The bleeding must be staunched.’
Stryker knew all this. Knew of the efficacy of Lornell McCroskey, the difficulty he had had in capturing him in the first place, and, most keenly of all, knew the damage the man would do if allowed to remain at large. But he squared his shoulders as he responded. ‘Sir John Meldrum commands seven thousand men at Newark, Highness. I command three.’
‘Excuses, Stryker,’ the prince retorted, though already the censure seemed to be leaving his tone. ‘I should have granted Captain Forrester’s request.’
Stryker could not argue with that. His friend, Lancelot Forrester, had begged to accompany them on this mission, but Colonel Mowbray had been reluctant to release him from his regimental duties. ‘He is in York, Highness.’
‘York,’ Rupert echoed with distaste. He shook his head in exasperation, planting the hat atop his pate. ‘Did I make you Sergeant-Major to warm your arse by the fire?’
‘No, Highness.’
‘No, Highness, indeed! We ride to Newark,’ Rupert went on, resting a hand on the pommel of his sword, ‘and you will make it your purpose in life to find McCroskey.’ He turned to Loughbo
rough. ‘And what are we to do with Meldrum?’
Loughborough’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘He may retire once he knows it is you he must face.’
Rupert nodded at the truth of the compliment. ‘Retire, my lord, only to return when I am called away.’ He slammed one gloved fist into the gauntleted palm of the other. ‘No, sir, I mean to engage and destroy his army for good and all. Remove his piece from the board. How is he disposed?’
‘Major Stryker has lately returned from scouting.’
‘All is well, then,’ Rupert said, ‘for I trust no one more.’ He advanced upon Stryker, his frame – almost six-and-a-half feet in all – casting a long shadow across the smaller man. ‘Seven thousand men at his back, you say?’
‘Aye, Highness,’ Stryker said. ‘They mean to settle in to a siege. They have fortified their positions and sappers have been set to work.’
‘Sappers? They will undermine the town?’
‘Likely,’ Stryker said, ‘though it will take many days to bring the trenches close enough to the wall to be effective. Meldrum has ordnance. Heavy pieces. My guess would be that he pounds the place until they are like to capitulate.’
Rupert chewed the inside of his upper lip. ‘The approaches?’
‘They have strong pickets on all roads approaching Newark on the south bank of the Trent.’
‘What of the north?’
‘There is only one entrance, Highness. A bridge over the river, but it is protected by the castle.’
Rupert nodded, satisfied, at least, with that piece of news. ‘So Byron controls it.’
‘Much good it does him,’ Loughborough interjected. ‘The bridge leads onto the Island.’
‘There is a patch of land,’ Stryker elaborated, ‘to the north and west of Newark, formed by the two branches of the Trent. They call it the Island, and it was always intended to protect Newark on that side. Now Meldrum controls that land.’
‘Ergo,’ Loughborough added, ‘he has severed Newark’s contact with the outside world.’
‘And he may focus his attack upon the flank devoid of the new earthworks,’ Rupert said. ‘Thank Christ the river will be much swollen by rain. It will take time to send ordnance across.’
Stryker shook his head. ‘The Roundheads have constructed a bridge of boats, just north of the town. They cross the Trent with ease.’
Rupert’s thick brows invaded his forehead as he read Stryker’s expression. ‘And yet?’
‘And yet the terrain provides possibility. The Island is Meldrum’s golden opportunity, but we may yet prove it fool’s gold.’ He shrugged. ‘Meldrum has a large number of foot stationed there.’
Rupert gnawed his lip again, regarding Stryker levelly, though a glimmer danced across his eyes. He switched his attention to Loughborough. ‘You have maps of Newark, my lord?’
‘I do, Highness, though they may be somewhat rudimentary.’
‘Have them fetched at once, if you please. Ink too.’ He looked at Stryker as he turned back to his waiting horse, reins looped about the hand of a helmeted gentleman trooper. ‘Sergeant-Major Stryker, you will accompany me. Put the detail to our pages.’ He smiled, suddenly enthused. ‘Illuminate this so called opportunity. We will make all haste to Newark. Lord Loughborough and I will smash Meldrum, and you, Major,’ he jabbed Stryker in the sternum with his forefinger, ‘will have your chance to find Lornell McCroskey.’
‘Very good, Highness.’
‘And, Stryker?’
‘Highness?’
Prince Rupert’s expression tightened. ‘Do not capture him this time. Bury him.’
19 March 1644
‘You are certain?’ Sir John Meldrum, commander of Parliamentarian forces at Newark, had been inspecting his troops on the Island when the scout clattered over the bridge of boats. He, had dismounted and unfastened his lobster pot helm, and Meldrum eyed his sweaty face with caution. ‘They have left Ashby?’
The lad’s sharp nose and chin pecked the air like twin beaks. ‘Aye, sir.’
Meldrum snapped his fingers and an aide scuttled up with a trencher of food. Meldrum took a chunk of hard cheese. ‘And they head west?’
‘They do, sir.’
‘How many?’
The scout grimaced. ‘Hard to tell. A strong body o’ horse, sir, and a strong body o’ foot.’
‘Strong enough to dislodge us?’ Meldrum asked irritably.
‘Maybe, sir,’ the scout said, with a helpless expression.
In the awkward silence that followed, a team of mattrosses hauled a small gun from a battery beside the river. The gun captain – a ruddy-cheeked Fleming with ears folded like desiccated leaves – spat orders at them, leading from the front, while his subordinates heaved on taut ropes. The wheels spun in the mud, but eventually found some purchase, and they were quickly trundling westward, towards the centre of the Island, from where Meldrum had decided to concentrate much of his firepower. After all, this was the only part of Newark not protected by the new-fangled ditch system, and, as such, the high walls would be no match for his larger ordnance. They would still have to cross the thundering Trent once a breach had been made, but that was eminently preferable to tackling the formidable works on the south bank.
The Fleming bawled at his crew as they drew up at the designated battery, a place where earth-filled gabions were already being positioned. Their gun, a black-mouthed drake, was too small for siege business, and would make no dent in Newark’s stone circuit, but Meldrum had wanted artillery pointing directly at the town bridge to dissuade Sir Richard Byron from the temptation to launch a sortie. It would soon be trained directly along the line of the river crossing and loaded with case shot that would cut down a sally party like corn before a scythe.
‘They can only move as quickly as their slowest unit, Sir John,’ one of Meldrum’s advisers, a short, wiry colonel of foot named Sir Miles Hobart, said in the rural drawl of East Anglia. He was standing beside Meldrum, sucking at the overgrown whiskers of his ginger moustache, and flinched as a large gun roared from up on Newark Castle’s rampart. A plume of smoke pulsed out slewing sideways with the breeze, and the ball slammed into the earth somewhere on the Island’s southern periphery. ‘The roads are not good. The foot would take days to reach us. If they intend to come hither at all.’
Meldrum had to admit this did not seem likely. Loughborough had certainly been reinforced, but who knew where he had been sent? The relief of Newark was one possible purpose, but…
‘There are any number of targets for Blind Henry,’ Colonel Hobart went on. ‘And our man, here,’ he added, nodding at the exhausted scout, ‘claims they headed west, not east.’
‘But it is not only Blind Henry, is it?’ said Meldrum grimly. They all shared the same concern. There were rumours that Prince Rupert had come into the Midlands, that he had brought Loughborough’s reinforcements in person. Why, Meldrum had asked himself over and over again, had the prince abandoned his new commission in the Welsh Marches? It could only mean that the Cavaliers had set their sights on something significant. Remembering the cheese, he lifted it to his lips, but it seemed his appetite had suddenly vanished.
‘Sir Richard Byron is an oak-hearted fellow,’ Prince Rupert of the Rhine exclaimed as his vast black stallion negotiated the sloppy field just shy of a canter. ‘His brother commended him to me.’
‘That he is,’ Sir Henry Hastings, first Baron Loughborough, muttered at Rupert’s side, though he seemed more concerned with the terrain than the conversation. His men had been dispatched in teams to cut a straight course through the hedgerows, and the troops were making good use of it, but it had rained again during the night and the open meadows took only moments to become a mire.
Stryker, on his borrowed mare, was behind the two great men, and Rupert twisted round to address him. ‘How long can Byron hold Newark?’
‘I do not know, sir.’ Stryker searched for something more meaningful to add. ‘His defences are robust.’
Rupert jerked hi
s long chin, indicating for Stryker to come alongside them. ‘But he relies on this land you mentioned, The Island.’ Rupert leaned forward to stroke his horse’s neck, a gesture incongruously tender. ‘And now that has fallen, Meldrum has only the river between him and the ancient wall. Henderson built the earthen defences,’ he added suddenly. ‘Did you know him?’
‘I did not, sir.’
‘Another Scot, would you believe? Though he served all over the world, rather like you and me. A man moulded by many nations, and belonging to none.’ Rupert’s sigh was wistful. ‘Knew his business, did Henderson.’
‘What happened to him?’ Stryker asked.
‘Beaten by that runt Cromwell at Winceby. Fled the country after that. A shame.’ Rupert rolled his shoulders. ‘Still, we must not dwell on our fallen, for we will dwell an eternity! We must think upon Newark, and upon its relief.’ He smiled at Stryker. ‘You’ve done well, my old friend. Meldrum believes the Island is a gift from God, and he’d be right. But it is a gift meant for me.’
Stryker hoped he was right, but the terrible state of the tracks they had cut through the wilderness had proved difficult to negotiate. A large contingent of musketeers had been mounted for the journey, yet the majority of Rupert’s force remained on foot, and they would be slogging through increasingly filthy terrain. Everything hinged upon speed.
A rider joined them, cantering up from somewhere at the rear of the straggling column. He wore green for the most part, with tall riding boots and a red scarf that swathed his torso diagonally, forming a cross with his baldric. ‘Highness.’
Rupert was squinting at a group of horsemen moving slowly across the northern horizon. It was deep into the afternoon, and the sky was turning from slate to gunmetal, making it impossible to discern their allegiance. ‘Meldrum will be watching us.’
‘He will, General,’ the newcomer said.
‘And our little feint will only have bought us a matter of hours, if anything at all.’
The Prince's Gambit: Major Stryker and the the Relief of Newark Page 5