He struggled to his haunches, found he could not find his feet. Coughed again. Then he saw the blood. It was on his boots. He followed the trail of spatters up the length of his cloak, and still they climbed, to his chest, his collar. He felt the wetness on his chin. He realised the cough had not been caused by smoke. He stared up at the figure that stepped through the sulphurous mist. The face of a one-eyed man stared down at him, cold and implacable. In his hand, the man gripped his own pistol. A thin wisp of smoke meandered from the muzzle.
Lornell McCroskey felt suddenly exhausted. His skin was strangely numb. He closed his eyes.
22 March 1644
Stryker heaved himself up into Vos’s saddle. His sorrel stallion, captured by the dragoons twelve days earlier, had been stabled within the Spittal, and he was glad to have the animal returned unscathed. Rupert was keen to return to his base at Shrewsbury, and under oath to return his borrowed army as soon as was practicable. But they would wait a day or two. This day, as the drizzle started again, was one for watching an enemy march away. The prince had been true to his word. With McCroskey dead, he had offered generous terms to Meldrum, and the Parliamentarian column now streamed north on the Fosse Way, trudging back to Lincoln with full honours of war, colours flying, drums beating. In return, Newark was free, the king’s men had wrested back control of Nottinghamshire, and Rupert could advise his uncle of the capture of more than three thousand muskets and eleven artillery pieces, one of which, to the amusement of the men, was a vast, menacing siege gun named Sweet Lips. All would be put to good use, Stryker felt sure.
Byron had gone back to the town after witnessing the departure of the first of Meldrum’s units, and, despite the beat of Roundhead drums, the cheers of the townsfolk carried all the way to the Spittal.
‘You’d think he won a victory,’ Sergeant Skellen sniffed from somewhere behind Stryker.
‘He played his part,’ Stryker said, twisting in the creaking saddle to see his three men rein in together.
‘As did we,’ said Hood.
‘The great men’ll get the gratitude,’ Simeon Barkworth, tiny on his big mount, croaked bitterly. He turned to peer down the line of Royalists, glowing eyes fixed on the huge banner of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. He scratched at the scar that mottled his neck. ‘Ours is to bleed.’
Stryker instinctively put a hand to his right shoulder. McCroskey’s shot had clipped him, carving a searing gully through the flesh. Fortunately no scraps of cloth had entered the wound, and it was already showing signs of healing. ‘Ours is to bleed, Simeon. But Newark’s salvation is owed to one man.’ They all followed Barkworth’s stare, taking in the square of taffeta rising higher than all others to dominate the dreary morn. Indeed, Stryker thought. It was the prince’s gambit, and he had won.
Michael Arnold
Marston Moor
BOOK VI OF THE CIVIL WAR CHRONICLES
FIVE ARMIES.
FORTY-SIX THOUSAND MEN.
ONE CROWN.
THE BIGGEST BATTLE OF THE AGE.
2 July 1644. Five armies converge outside York. It will be a battle for honour, glory, and the fate of three kingdoms. And it will pit two great leaders – Oliver Cromwell and Prince Rupert – directly against one another for the first time. It is a day that will change the course of history. Into the cannon fire and musket smoke marches Major Innocent Stryker, battle-scarred hero of the Royalist cause. He must not only lead his men through the bloody horror and outwit his Parliamentary enemies, but uncover foul treachery on his own side. He will need every shred of experience and determination to survive. Marston Moor will be the decisive turning point in the British Civil Wars. This is the thrilling and shocking story of that battle.
Marston Moor—Prologue
Near Tockwith, Yorkshire, 2 July 1644
The stalks, a pale green blanket pearled in raindrops that shimmered in the fleeting moonlight, grew thick.
Deep within the green shroud, the young man shifted an arm to stave off numbness, wincing as the bean pods rustled overhead. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, waiting for the cry of alarm that would signal his discovery. The plants were heavy with a summer’s bounty, a dense maze that concealed him well enough, but the season had been wet and the drooping stems were stunted, forcing the fugitive to lie completely flat.
The cold seeped into his marrow, and the soil tainted his lips. He let out the breath that had grown to flame in his lungs, and shuddered into the sodden mud. He was lying face down, clothes filthy, yet he prayed thanks all the same. He was still alive.
The pungent stench of roasting meat wafted through the crop. His mouth filled with saliva and his stomach cramped painfully. He knew the flesh sizzling out on the moor would likely be that of a thousand horses, but hunger overrode any qualm. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a hearty repast. All he saw in the blackness were faces. Lily-white corpses staring at him in mute condemnation. He saw his dog, his beloved companion, gone now, rotting out on the cursed plain. He saw his uncle, delicate features screwed into the sour anguish of betrayal, his eyes – dark and wide – questioning how such misfortune could come to pass.
A shout in the dark. He froze. Horsemen were gathering beyond the bean field, out where pyres blazed and wounded men still moaned. He could feel the stamping of their hooves through the earth, could hear the chatter of voices and the jangle of armour, tack and weaponry. He eased his chin up from the sticky soil, squinting into the stems, but he could see no further than a yard or two. He prayed harder than he had ever prayed before.
An order broke out from amongst the unseen troop, shrill and stark above the murmurs of a victorious army making camp. The hooves rumbled again. The young man braced himself. He felt sick. Then the vibration faded to nothing and he was left alone once more. He began to shuffle backwards, slithering on his belly like a serpent, pushing further and further into the embrace of the crop. There was nothing left for him here. Escape was all he could hope for. He had to survive, to find his friends and rebuild his army, for on a moor in Yorkshire the world had been flipped on its head and suddenly everything had changed.
Marston Moor—Chapter One
Berwick-upon-Tweed, 19 January 1644
The River Tweed marked the frontier between the two kingdoms. It gleamed in the weak dawn sun, a thick crust of ice transforming it from barrier to opportunity. The stone crossing remained, its arches looming large above the river, but it was no longer the only gateway to the south; a bitter winter had seen to that. The cavalry clattered over the bridge, three thousand lances – peculiar to this part of Britain – bobbing with the rhythm of hooves to turn the column into a never-ending Leviathan of wickedly glinting spines. Artillery and baggage trains would follow, bringing one hundred and twenty heavy pieces of ordnance to the invasion, too heavy and cumbersome to brave the ice. Meantime the rest, thousands upon thousands of pikemen and musketeers, all clad in suits of Hodden grey broadcloth and voluminous lengths of plaid, slipped and slid their way across it as they fought to keep step with the incessant drums. Each unit safely across re-formed behind their colours – flags that bore the cross of St Andrew, rather than St George – held aloft by ensigns to bob like the prows of warships in the last tendrils of mist. The officers barked orders, their sergeants transformed the barks to snarls and, one after another, they tramped over the frost-silvered grass and on to the wide road.
A group of horsemen watched the procession from the north bank of the Tweed. They were clustered around a man perched on a dappled grey mare. His face was deeply lined, his red hair and whiskers shot through with veins of slate, so that he could not hide his advancing years. And yet they regarded him with reverential silence. The man shivered, glancing down to fasten the last of the silver buttons that brightened his black cassock. ‘Alea iacta est, Davey.’
The man mounted to his side was younger, leaner and heavily wrapped against the cold. He let out a lingering breath, studying the bilious cloud of vapour as it rolled from his nostrils. ‘W
ill they stand?’
The older man looked across at his companion, blue eyes narrowing. ‘They’ll fight, and they’ll stand, and they’ll die if I say so.’
Davey shook his head. ‘Not our lads, Sandie. The English.’
The general gazed back at the army that rumbled inexorably across the Tweed. He wore a wide, dark hat with a single blue feather, which he tilted down against the biting wind. ‘They’d better,’ he replied, and he said it with feeling, because his name was Alexander Leslie, First Earl of Leven, and he was commander of the Army of the Covenant; the best, hardiest, most fearsome army to be found anywhere in the Stuart dynasty’s three kingdoms. But they could not win this war on their own. They would need the English Parliamentarians to grow a backbone for the new alliance to bear fruit. He eyed a company of foot as they slewed awkwardly across the river, their blue bonnets bright against the pale frost. ‘That ice had better not break.’
‘It is as thick as castle walls,’ Davey replied.
Leven cast him a withering glance. ‘Castles crumble with enough pressure.’
Davey offered a shrug. ‘You wanted speed, Sandie. At this rate we’ll be half the way to Alnwick before the buggers know we’ve marched.’
Leven knew he was right. The crossing, precarious as it was, had seemed a risk worth taking. God had sent the cold, and with His touch the bottleneck of the bridge had been negated. It would be foolish to ignore such providence. ‘I want a proclamation,’ he said after a short time.
‘A proclamation, my lord?’ Davey was nonplussed.
‘Proclaim throughout our ranks, Lieutenant-General, that plundering, ravishing and whore-mongering are forbidden.’
David Leslie, Lieutenant-General of Horse, screwed up his thin mouth. ‘Forgive me, my lord, but that’ll be a tall order to—’
‘And lewd language,’ Leven went on as if his second in command had not spoken. ‘I’ll have none of that in my army. Make no mistake, Davey. We are foreigners here. We share a king with the English, but not a kingdom.’
‘Foreigners in England are myriad, my lord,’ Leslie argued. ‘Fortune-seekers from the Low Countries. You and I both fought with them in the Swedish service. And what of the Welshmen who fight? Celts crawled down from their mountains. Or the Cornish?’
‘Trickles in the face of a flood,’ Leven answered. ‘We outnumber Herbert’s Welsh division tenfold, and the Cornish many times over. Besides, the Cornish have slunk back into the south-west. They do not lance the heartland of their enemies. But we? We are vast, and we are here to stay. The common sort will not find comfort in our presence. We must, therefore, behave impeccably. They must welcome us at their hearths or we will not survive the winter.’
‘Very well, my lord.’
‘Derogatory remarks, Davey,’ Leven added.
‘My lord?’
‘Referring to His Majesty. No word of irreverence or insult towards King Charles will pass a Covenanter’s lips. He remains our king. We are nae here to topple him, but to aid the English in extricating his person from the smooth-tongued advisers he so calamitously admires.’
David Leslie nodded. ‘I’ll see it done, sir.’
The Earl of Leven touched his spurs to his snorting grey’s flanks so that she skittered forward. He drew her up at the edge of the frozen river. On the far side his formidable force was rapidly assembling in the hoary dawn. He had more than twenty thousand men in all. Many were veterans of the European conflict; more still had served with him in the Bishops’ Wars, where the king’s army had been trounced and humiliated. They were granite-hewn, experienced and godly. And they were ready for a fight.
Yes, thought the Earl of Leven, the die was indeed cast. The Army of the Covenant had finally crossed the frontier. They were in foreign territory, marching south to crush the malignant Royalists and end a war. The invasion of England had begun.
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Hodder & Stoughton
First published digitally in the USA and Canada in 2016
Copyright © Michael Arnold 2015
The right of Michael Arnold to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved
www.michael-arnold.net
Table of Contents
Title Page/About the Book
Praise for Michael Arnold
Contents
The Prince’s Gambit
About the Author
Also by Michael Arnold
Marston Moor – Title Page
Marston Moor – Prologue
Marston Moor – Chapter One
Copyright
The Prince's Gambit: Major Stryker and the the Relief of Newark Page 9