Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier

by Charles Spencer

  Charles further complicated Rupert’s task by dithering over how best to counter a serious threat to Reading. This important buffer between Parliamentary Windsor and Royalist Oxford was in peril, the full strength of Essex’s army bearing down on its 3,000-strong garrison. However, if a rescue operation were to be mounted, Rupert’s army would need to lead it. The choice for Charles was simple: either to urge Rupert on to hurry queen and convoy to Oxford’s safety, while the garrison in Reading tried to hold out; or to call the prince back immediately, save Reading, and trust the queen would be safe until the Royalists could ride out to meet her again. Charles’s inability to make this decision is betrayed in this muddled letter, which arrived at Lichfield during Rupert’s siege:

  Nephew,

  I thought necessary to advertise you that the Rebels have attacked Reading, not to recall you (though I could be content you were here) but to desire you to hasten Northward. I write not this to make you raise your siege but that you lose no more time in it than you must needs. I suppose that this direction needs no ways retard my wife’s coming ...[159]

  Ambivalence was alien to a man of Rupert’s uncompromising focus. The phrase in parentheses suggests that Charles wanted his nephew to decide for himself where he should be. The king’s next letter was more decisive, probably because it resulted from his counsellors’ deliberations:

  Nephew,

  Upon further debate this day I have resolved to desire you to come to me with what diligence you may and with as much force as you can ... This I confess is somewhat differing from what I wrote to you yesterday.[160]

  The postscript of Charles’s letter, a personal addendum, revealed the king’s wavering nature: ‘I hope you will have done your work about Lichfield before this can come to you,’ he added.

  Rupert’s papers recorded: ‘The King sent for the Prince from Lichfield without delay to march to the relief of Reading.’[161] The urgency of the summons denied Rupert time to finish off the Lichfield rebels. He was forced to grant them generous terms of surrender, before setting off for the Royalist rendezvous at Wallingford. The next day the combined forces of king and prince tried to relieve Reading in an attempted push across Caversham Bridge. The Parliamentarians were strongly entrenched, however, and the besieged Royalists failed to help their would-be rescuers by striking out from Reading. Their commander, Sir Arthur Aston, had taken a serious blow to the skull from a falling brick. In his place stood Colonel Richard Feilding, who had already started negotiating Reading’s surrender.

  When Rupert heard of Feilding’s defeatism, he took it upon himself to snuff it out. ‘The Prince spoke to Feilding over the river by Reading to know if he wanted any thing,’ the Prince’s papers record, ‘he said they wanted [gun-]powder, but that they were in treaty and were offered terms to march out of the town ... His Highness told him that there was no treating to be admitted, the king being there in person, and that for Powder he might be furnished when he pleased, passing over a quantity in a Boat for the present.’[162] Yet Feilding, whether believing that he must honour the ongoing peace negotiations or out of fear of the enemy, disobeyed the prince and surrendered Reading. The terms of the treaty allowed Feilding’s men to march unimpeded to Oxford, yet some Parliamentarians breached these terms, plundering the Royalists before they could reach safety. ‘The soldiers were not only reviled’, Clarendon wrote, ‘and reproachfully used, but many of them disarmed, and most of the wagons plundered, in the presence of the Earl of Essex himself, and the Chief Officers; who seemed to be offended at it, and not to be able to prevent it.’[163]

  Many viewed the capitulation of Reading as shameful and unnecessary, a treacherous betrayal by an inadequate colonel. Feilding was court-martialled, found guilty, and sentenced to death by beheading. However, Rupert helped secure a pardon, seeing Feilding’s execution as an unnecessary additional casualty for the Royalist cause.

  After Reading’s fall Oxford was more vulnerable, prompting several of the king’s counsellors to advise him to move his headquarters further north. But Rupert realised the strategic importance of maintaining a strong presence in the Thames Valley, within striking distance of London. He persuaded his uncle not to move.

  *

  By contemporary standards, Rupert possessed the key ingredient of a successful general: ‘As one said that pronunciation was the first, second, and third part of a good orator,’ said the Bishop of Derry, in a sermon to a Royalist congregation, ‘so may I say that Courage is the first, second, and third part of a good commander.’[164] To valour, Rupert added versatility. Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie, an influential tract published a decade before the Civil War, advised that: ‘The Cavalry must principally be employed to travel and molest the enemy, sometime by hindering him from his victual, sometime by endamaging his foragers, sometime by sending some troops even up to his camp to take some booty, by that means to draw him forth, and to make him fall upon some embuscadoe disposed beforehand in some fitting place.’[165] The prince used all aspects of the cavalier’s art to pull off one of his most famous successes.

  Colonel John Urry was a Scottish mercenary whose Civil War record became a byword for disloyalty: he was to change sides four times. In mid June he slipped away from Essex’s army, which was suffering from low morale and an epidemic of typhoid, and defected to Rupert. He brought with him tantalising news: Essex was awaiting the arrival of a convoy from London, bearing the pay for his entire army — a sum in excess of £20,000.

  Rupert targeted this bonanza with his flying army. He had 1,800 men, three-quarters of whom were mounted. He was aware that this small force would be outnumbered, if cornered. However, he also knew the capabilities of his troops, who were commanded by his favourite lieutenants: Sir Richard Crane, a veteran of Vlotho, was in charge of Rupert’s lifeguards; the Irishman Daniel O’Neill, an equally trusted comrade in arms, rode as lieutenant colonel of Prince Rupert’s Regiment; and Will Legge, the son of one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s naval officers — and who was to become closer to the prince than any other British Royalist, acted as brigade major. Legge rode ahead of the main body with 150 scouting skirmishers. On foot was Colonel Henry Lunsford, whose regiment of experienced Somerset men had seen action in the Bishops’ Wars, at Edgehill, and at Reading. Rupert would soon show his admiration for their gritty professionalism by adopting them as ‘Prince Rupert’s Bluecoats’. This was the force that accompanied him as he departed Oxford, over Magdalen Bridge.

  Rupert sent his handpicked men out in sweeping manoeuvres to disable Essex’s outposts, so the rebels marching with the military chest would have no warning of the Cavaliers’ approach. Early on 18 June, Parliament’s detachments in the Chiltern villages of Postcomb and Chinnor were surprised and easily overcome. Many were killed and some were captured, but others escaped and fired shots into the air, raising the alarm and allowing the convoy to escape into nearby woodland. Rupert, disappointed that his plan had come to nothing, now looked for alternative action. He retreated slowly, luring on the superior numbers of the enemy, teasing them with the prospect of revenge for their recent reverses.

  The prospect of bettering the infamous prince proved irresistible. Essex sent men from his main base at Thame to join in the pursuit. John Hampden, the leading Parliamentarian, learnt of Rupert’s proximity while in bed at Warpsgrove House. Hampden was colonel of his own regiment, but now rode independently as a simple volunteer, so eager was he to join the fray. A rolling series of skirmishes took place throughout the morning near Chiselhampton. Rupert ordered his infantry to hold Chiselhampton Bridge, in case a speedy retreat became necessary, and then hid his dragoons in surrounding hedges, setting the ambush for the enemy.

  When the Parliamentarian horse and dragoons bore down, charging through the ripening corn of Chalgrove Field, they expected the prince to gallop off in retreat. So did Rupert’s officers, who could see they were outnumbered and thought flight their only option. Instead, to everyone’s astonishment, Rupert turned to face the enemy a
nd shouted: ‘Yea, this insolency is not to be endured.’ He then spurred on his horse and plunged over the hedge separating his force from the enemy. Without hesitation, one of Rupert’s officers reported: ‘The Captain and rest of his Troop of Lifeguards (every man as they could) jumped over after him, and as about 15 were gotten over, the Prince presently drew them up into a Front till the rest could recover up to him. At this, the rebels’ Dragooners that lined the hedge fled: having hurt and slain some of ours with their first volley.’[166]

  Rupert led his men in a fearless charge across flat and open countryside. Although the Royalist cavalry noted that the rebels resisted their first charge better than at any point since Powick Bridge, they were still quick to break and flee. Chalgrove Field was (like Powick Bridge) an action that had repercussions out of all proportion to its scale: it confirmed the already dread reputation of the prince and his Cavaliers. Rupert lost just twelve men. This slight cost had garnered huge psychological advantages, as the Royalists left their enemy demoralised and disordered.

  It also produced a significant enemy casualty: John Hampden had written an ode at the time of the marriage of Rupert’s parents, wishing them many illustrious children. Now, while attacking one of the Palatine offspring, he was shot twice in the shoulder. After six days of ineffective medical treatment, he died of his wounds. Hugely respected in the Parliamentary camp, Hampden was regarded as a wise and calming influence on his more extreme colleagues, particularly the radical Pym. At Chalgrove Field Rupert’s Cavaliers silenced Westminster’s clearest voice of reason.

  This was one of several victories that turned the summer of 1643 into the season of greatest success for the king. In the north the rebels reeled from total defeat at Adwalton Moor. In May, in the southwest, Sir Ralph Hopton and his Cornishmen trounced Parliament’s southwestern army at Stratton, despite being outnumbered two to one. They then advanced through Devon to Somerset, looking to link up with the troops led by the Marquess of Hertford and by Rupert’s brother, Prince Maurice.

  Parliament had enjoyed a series of stunning successes in southern England early in the war, thanks to the inspired leadership of the Andover MP, Sir William Waller. Waller was a gifted opportunist, who revelled in his nickname of ‘the Night Owl’: he liked to move at night, then swoop on unsuspecting prey. In little over a month he took control of Farnham, Winchester, and Chichester. He then gained Hereford, Monmouth, and Chepstow in the west. London celebrated Waller’s exploits by giving him the sobriquet ‘William the Conqueror’.

  Prince Maurice and Hertford were now approaching Waller’s sphere of influence. The Parliamentarian was eager to keep the two Royalist armies apart, but he failed to stop them from joining at Chard. The combined force pulled off an astonishing, fast-paced victory over Waller at Lansdown Hill, outside Bath. This was followed by Prince Maurice’s greatest triumph, when he rode to Oxford, rounded up all available cavalry, took them towards Devizes, and led them with real intelligence at the battle of Roundway Down. That July day, Maurice helped in the destruction of Waller’s army and the puncturing of his inflated reputation. As ‘the Conqueror’ scuttled off, vanquished, to Gloucester, with five or six hundred survivors from his army of several thousand, he left Bristol open to Rupert’s long-planned assault.

  *

  In mid February 1643, partly in response to Rupert’s success at Cirencester, Parliament promoted its own glamorous champion from colonel to major general. Waller was placed in charge of rebel troops in five western and southern counties, and was instructed to guard the Severn Valley. The newly vulnerable Bristol became his headquarters.

  Bristol was, with Norwich, one of only two provincial cities in England to have a population in excess of 10,000. With its natural harbour, complemented by a thriving arms industry, Bristol was England’s second city and a highly desirable prize for both causes. It started the war as Parliament’s possession, but its population contained a sizeable Royalist contingent: ‘So it was’, a contemporary, rebel historian explained, ‘that the King’s cause and party were favoured by two extremes in that city; the one the wealthy and powerful men, the other of the basest and lowest sort, but disgusted by the middle rank, the true and best citizens.’[167]

  Rupert had tried to take Bristol with his flying column of horse and dragoons in early March. Lacking sufficient infantry or artillery to attack, Rupert had instead resorted to subterfuge. Two prominent citizens — Robert Yeomans, a former sheriff, and George Bouchier, a merchant — agreed to open the gates to the waiting Royalists, which would be the prelude to Rupert’s attack. But the two men were betrayed, their plans ‘divulged by tattling women’.[168] They were arrested by Major Langrish, a fanatical Parliamentarian, just before their men attempted to overpower a guardhouse. The major had them chained to a dungeon’s walls. During their imprisonment they were barely fed and were given unclean water to drink. Despite the pleas of the king, as well as the mayor and aldermen of Bristol, the men were condemned to death by hanging, the Commons insisting that an example be made of these dangerous conspirators.

  On the day of their public execution the two men were taken to a scaffold, specially erected near the City Cross. On arrival the starving, terrified Yeomans collapsed and fainted. His executioners propped him up so that, when he came round, the first thing he saw was his home, along the street. As the pair huddled in final prayers, Major Langrish insulted and cursed them. Bouchier and Yeomans then summoned their final reserves of dignity and strength, and climbed the ladders to their death.

  Parliament’s harsh punishment had the desired effect: it deterred other Royalist sympathisers from acting on the king’s behalf. Rupert realised that, if Bristol were to fall, it would have to be by conventional means: he must besiege the city.

  *

  Bristol was difficult to defend. Its perimeter walls were 4 miles long and were punctuated by infrequent fortifications, which left various approaches with vulnerable dead ground. Furthermore, the city’s low-lying position (Warburton described it as ‘situated in a hole’) meant that an attacking commander enjoyed a panoramic view of proceedings.

  Rupert arrived from Oxford with a sizeable army — fourteen infantry regiments, seven troops of dragoons, two wings of cavalry, and eight siege guns. Although his units were not at battle strength because of casualties, desertion, and sickness, they easily outnumbered the 1,800 Parliamentarian defenders. Sidelining the Marquess of Hertford, the prince took control of the siege. He made his camp at Clifton, appointed Maurice as his lieutenant general, and pressed for immediate action.

  Rupert ordered the attack for before dawn on 26 July 1643. It was to be simultaneous, on all sides of the city: the prince wanted the defenders to be strung out along their perimeter, unable to concentrate their fire on his men. The assailants were drawn up in lines, each with a distinctive role. First went the dragoons, carrying bundles of faggots wrapped up in fascines and dragging carts: their job was to fill up any trenches and ditches that might slow down the Royalist advance. Next were the musketeers, under orders only to fire at close range. In the third line came pikemen, their weapons bearing blazing rags, designed to torch the rebel defences. Following these came a line of grenadiers and then more musketeers. The Cavalry was kept in the rear, ready to support the attack when Rupert decided it was appropriate.

  The fighting was intense, one eyewitness judging it ‘the hottest service that ever was in this kingdom since the war began’.[169] Maurice’s West Countrymen suffered horrendous casualties as they tried, but failed, to scale the main fort on the south side of Bristol. They were beaten back by volleys of musket-balls, and also by hurled rocks that knocked them off their scaling ladders. After half an hour they slipped back to the safety of some nearby hedges, from where they continued to fire for several hours. ‘In time of the retreat’, wrote Rupert’s engineering expert, de Gomme, ‘Prince Maurice went from regiment to regiment encouraging the soldiers, desiring the officers to keep their companies by their colours; telling them he belie
ved his brother had already made his entrance on the other side.’[170]

  Maurice’s optimism was premature. Rupert’s infantry also suffered initially, before finding some dead ground that allowed them to approach within a stone’s throw of the Parliamentary outer defences. From that range, they were able to lob grenades into the exposed rebel lines. An officer, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Littleton, then rode forward with a fire-pike, swinging it menacingly and causing terror in the enemy lines. The rebels screamed ‘Wildfire!’ as they fled in panic. The word went through the Royalist ranks — ‘They run! They run!’ — and Rupert’s men surged forward in pursuit, hacking down and running through many before they reached the safety of the city walls.

  The struggle continued for several hours. One young Royalist lord later recalled ‘the noise and tintamarre of guns and drums, with the horrid spectacles, and hideous cries, of dead and hurt men’.[171] Rupert, in the thick of the action as ever, was thrown to the ground when his horse was shot dead, a bullet piercing its eyeball. He joined his men on foot until another mount could be found, screaming orders and sustaining the assault in the cacophony of gunfire and grenade explosion. His soldiers pushed forward, through a breach made by Colonel Henry Washington’s dragoons. The fighting inside the city was confused and fierce as the men of both sides discharged their weapons, before falling on one another with sword, musket butt, and gouging hands. Eventually, the Royalists established a stronghold within sight of the harbour, but Rupert forbade his men from using this as a position from which to torch the ships or the city. In the heat of battle, with the outcome still undecided, the prince’s conduct was far from that of the bloody destroyer of popular myth.

  Indeed, at the storming of Bristol, Rupert showed himself the model professional general, hectoring, encouraging, and controlling his men so their impetus never wavered. He moved his cavalry through Washington’s breach, in support of the hard-pressed foot, who were drawing heavy enemy fire in house-to-house fighting. Henry Lunsford, Rupert’s favoured infantry colonel, already wounded in the arm, was now shot dead near the Frome Gate. The ferocity of the fighting was such that it became a question of which side could sustain the contest for the longest, in the face of terrible losses.