The First Battle of Newbury 1643 E-Book

John Barratt

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 215

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Beschreibung

Late summer 1643 saw the Royalists in the English Civil War at the height of their military success. After three months of almost unbroken victories, the king's forces had gained control of much of the north and west of England, whilst Prince Rupert's seemingly invincible cavalry raided out from Oxford to the outskirts of London, Parliament's stronghold. In July the wave of Royalist successes climaxed with the storming of Bristol. It seemed that one more success might be sufficient to topple the Parliamentarian leadership and lead to peace. In a move to consolidate their position prior to a final advance on London, in August the Royalists laid siege to Gloucester. However, an anticipated easy success met with stern resistance until the garrison was eventually relieved by Parliament's principal remaining field army, under the Earl of Essex. But Essex, now deep in hostile territory, faced the difficult task of getting back safely to London. A race with the king's forces ensued, culminating in Essex's road being barred at Newbury. Cut off from his base, Essex had to stand and fight in a battle whose loss would mean the destruction of his army and in all probability total defeat for the Parliamentarian cause. On September 20 1643 some 30,000 men met outside Newbury in one of the largest battles of the English Civil War. John Barratt's history, the first detailed study of the battle of Newbury for over a century, reveals a new interpretation of the battle and discovers the real reason why the Royalists lost.

Leseprobe

THE FIRST BATTLE OF

NEWBURY

THE FIRST BATTLE OF

NEWBURY

JOHN BARRATT

This edition first published 2005

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved © John Barratt, 2005, 2013

The right of John Barratt to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9635 1

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

About the Author

Preface

Chronology

1

The Strategic Situation: Summer 1643

2

The Siege of Gloucester: August–September 1643

3

The Race for Newbury: 7–19 September 1643

4

The Armies

5

Newbury: Approach to Battle

6

Newbury: The Battle

7

Aftermath

Notes

Appendix: Order of Battle

Bibliography

About the Author

John Barratt has written and lectured extensively on the English Civil War. His other books include The Battle for York: Marston Moor 1644, The Great Siege of Chester (both published by Tempus), Cavaliers: The Royalist Army at War 1642–46 and Cavalier Generals: King Charles I & His Commanders. He also writes regularly for Military Illustrated and The English Civil War Times. He lectures at the National Army Museum and the Royal Armories. He lives on Merseyside.

Preface

By the summer of 1643 the Royalist tide of success in the English Civil War was approaching its peak. The capture of Bristol, England’s second largest port, on 26 July climaxed a string of successes which had seen most of the west and north of England pass into the King’s control. The Royalists appeared to be on the verge of complete victory, with one more major reverse likely to bring the tottering Parliamentarian cause crashing down.

The Royalist Council of War hoped to make the capture of the town of Gloucester that catalyst. But the siege which followed, together with its succeeding campaign climaxing in the First Battle of Newbury (20 September), proved instead to be decisive in thwarting the hopes of the Cavaliers. Though the King’s supporters would enjoy other successes in the following weeks, their hopes of decisive victory faded into a military stalemate in which the growing power of the Parliamentarian-Scots alliance would eventually tip the scales inexorably in favour of the King’s opponents.

Though its significance was not fully grasped at the time, the First Battle of Newbury, variously regarded as indecisive, a Royalist failure or a narrow victory for the Parliamentarians under the Earl of Essex, was far-reaching in its effects. By avoiding a defeat which would have almost certainly have been fatal for his cause, ‘Old Robin’ as Essex was known to his troops, not only saved his army but breathed decisive new life into the Parliamentarians.

Despite its importance and its ranking, in terms of numbers involved, as probably the third largest battle of the First Civil War, Newbury is one of the more neglected actions of the conflict. Indeed the battlefield itself lacks much of the visual interest of, for example, the other great engagements at Edgehill and Marston Moor.A large part of it is now covered by the spreading suburban housing of the modern town of Newbury, whose roads, named after such luminaries of the action as Cary, Villiers and Essex, represent the only visible reminders on much of the battlefield. Further dislocation has resulted in recent years from the development of the controversial Newbury bypass, while the only monument, a nineteenth-century memorial to the Earl of Falkland, stands marooned on a small grassy island amidst a busy road intersection some distance from the probable site of his death.

Only on the northern part of the battlefield, around the key high ground now known as Round Hill, and in some of its adjacent high-banked lanes, does the modern terrain still give an idea of its significance and appearance in 1643.

To add to the difficulties encountered by anyone attempting to reconstruct the course of what has been described as ‘a monumentally confusing’ battle, extant contemporary accounts give little information regarding many of its details. Yet Newbury’s significance is such that it deserves much fuller treatment than is usually afforded to it.

As in previous books, I owe a great debt of gratitude to the painstaking researches of many others in the field of the English Civil War and of seventeenth-century military theory and practice. Among them are David Blackmore, David Evans, John Lewis, Les Prince, Stuart Reid, Keith Roberts, David Ryan, John Tincey and the late Brigadier Peter Young, whose enthusiasm and pioneering research did so much to spark the modern interest in the Civil Wars.

As usual, I owe a great deal to the long-suffering and invariably helpful staff of a number of libraries, including the Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool; Berkshire County Libraries and Record Office; the British Library, London, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. At Tempus Publishing, Jonathan Reeve and Joanna Lincoln and their team have provided their customary outstanding support.

John Barratt, April 2003

Chronology

1642

22 August

King Charles I raises Royal Standard at Nottingham, signalling formal outbreak of Civil War.

23 October

Battle of Edgehill. Marginal victory for Royalists over Earl of Essex.

12 November

Royalist advance on London checked at Turnham Green.

9 December

Royalists go into winter quarters around temporary capital of Oxford.

1643

19 January

Battle of Braddock Down. Cornish Royalists under Sir Ralph Hopton defeat Parliamentarian invasion of Cornwall.

15–27 April

Essex takes Reading.

16 May

Hopton defeats Parliamentarian army under Earl of Stamford at Stratton, decisively winning battle for Cornwall.

18 June

Prince Rupert defeats Parliamentarian cavalry at Chalgrove. John Hampden mortally wounded.

Essex’s campaign in Thames Valley stalled by sickness among troops.

30 June

Northern Royalists under Earl of Newcastle win major victory over Parliamentarian army of Lord Fairfax at Adwalton Moor.

5 July

Battle of Lansdown. Parliamentarian army under Sir William Waller narrowly defeats Western Royalists under Marquis of Hertford and Hopton.

13 July

Battle of Roundway Down. Cavalry force under Lord Wilmot and Sir John Byron defeat Waller and relieve Hopton, besieged in Devizes. Queen’s munitions convoy reaches Oxford, enabling Oxford Army to begin active operations.

26 July

Prince Rupert storms Bristol.

4 August

Royalist Council of War decides to besiege Gloucester.

10 August

Siege of Gloucester begins.

19 August

Parliament requests City of London to provide troops from London Trained Bands to reinforce Essex in relief march.

23 August

Trained Bands set out from London.

24 August

Essex begins relief march.

31 August

Skirmish between Sir Philip Stapleton and Royalist horse from Banbury.

1 September

General rendezvous of Essex’s army and London Brigade on Brackley Heath. Action between John Middleton and Royalist horse under Lord Wilmot at Deddington.

3 September

Parliamentarians reach Stow-on-the-Wold.

4 September

Rupert fails to check Essex at Stow-on-the-Wold.

5 September

Royalists raise siege at Gloucester.

8 September

Essex enters Gloucester; Royalists move to Evesham, blocking road to London.

10 September

Essex marches to Tewkesbury.

15 September

Essex begins return march to London.

16 September

Essex surprises Royalist convoy at Cirencester; Rupert and King begin pursuit of Essex.

17 September

Essex at Swindon; Rupert at Faringdon; King at Northleach.

18 September

Action at Aldbourne Chase; Rupert slows Essex’s march.

19 September

Royalists reach Newbury ahead of Essex, blocking road to London.

20 September

Battle of Newbury.

21 September

Essex resumes march and beats off attack on rearguard by Rupert at Aldermaston.

22 September

King returns to Oxford; Essex reaches Reading.

25 September

Essex reaches London; army quarters at Windsor.

28 September

Essex’s triumphal entry into London.

1

The Strategic Situation Summer 1643

By the early summer of 1643 the tide of military success in the English Civil War seemed to be flowing increasingly in favour of the Royalists. Nearly a year of conflict had brought varying fortunes for both sides. The autumn campaign of 1642, which many had expected to bring a quick decision to the war, had given King Charles I a narrow victory at Edgehill (23 October) in the first major engagement of the war. But, probably correctly, the King and his Council of War had vetoed a plan by Charles’ nephew and General of Horse, the twenty-three-year-old Prince Rupert, to make a dash for London with a flying column of cavalry and mounted musketeers. Instead the Royalists had opted for the safer course of a more methodical advance on the capital.

The outcome in early November was a stand-off between the opposing armies of King Charles and the Parliamentarian Captain-General, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, at Turnham Green on the approaches to London. Unwilling to risk an engagement with the strongly positioned Parliamentarians, the Royalists had fallen back, establishing their headquarters and temporary capital at Oxford, while both sides prepared for a prolonged war.

During the winter, most parts of England and Wales were caught up, to a greater or lesser extent, in the spreading conflict. The opening months of 1643 saw the honours of war distributed fairly evenly. The Parliamentarians held their own in the vital Thames Valley area, and gained ground in northwest England and the West Midlands. For their part the Cavaliers could gain satisfaction from holding their own in Cornwall and the north-east, and the King’s forces had expanded the area under their control around Oxford, where Rupert and his cavalry were burnishing their reputation with a number of minor successes.

The arrival of spring saw a stepping-up in the pace of operations. Although in the long term the Parliamentarians’ greater resources of men, money and materials would increasingly make themselves felt, in the spring and early summer of 1643, the Royalist armies, invigorated by new recruits and supplies of munitions imported from the Continent, enjoyed a steady stream of successes.

Prince Rupert, in a lightning operation in the West Midlands, sacked Birmingham and captured Lichfield, improving Royalist communications with the north. However in the Thames Valley, following an initial success in taking Reading, the Earl of Essex made slow progress. Intended operations against Oxford were crippled by Essex’s caution, the ravages of disease and desertion among his troops and the effective counter-strikes by the Royalist cavalry, climaxing in Rupert’s victory at Chalgrove (18 June).

Although the King’s opponents continued to gain ground in Lancashire and Cheshire, elsewhere in the north Royalist forces under the Earl of Newcastle, supplied with arms and ammunition from the Low Countries, increasingly gained the upper hand over the smaller northern Parliamentarian army led by Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas. On 30 June, Newcastle gained a crushing victory over the Fairfaxes at Adwalton Moor near Bradford. The remnants of the northern Parliamentarian forces were forced to seek refuge behind the strong defences of the port of Hull, apparently leaving the way open for Newcastle and his ‘Popish Army’ to drive on into the heartlands of the Parliamentarian Eastern Association.

In the south-west also, after initially fluctuating fortunes, the Cavaliers were meeting with increasing success. The largely Cornish Royalist army led by Sir Ralph Hopton advanced eastwards through Devon, and in June linked up in Somerset with troops from Oxford under the King’s Lieutenant-General in the west, the Marquis of Hertford, and Rupert’s younger brother, Prince Maurice. A closely contested duel with the Parliamentarian army of Sir William Waller followed. The opponents were well matched in skill and strength, and for some time the issue remained in doubt. Following cavalry skirmishes in the Mendip hills, the main armies clashed on 5 July on Lansdown Hill, outside Bath. In assaulting Waller’s strong defensive position the Cavaliers suffered heavy casualties, especially among their Cornish infantry. The contest ended at nightfall with no clear victor, but with the battered Royalists pulling back and heading eastwards towards the town of Devizes, hoping to gain assistance from Oxford.

Waller, dogging their footsteps, besieged the Royalist foot in Devizes, but their horse broke out and, linking up with reinforcements from Oxford under the King’s Lieutenant-General of Horse, Lord Wilmot, and Sir John Byron, returned to inflict a crushing defeat on Waller outside Devizes on Roundway Down (12 July).

The battle left the Parliamentarians without any effective field army in the west of England, and the Royalists were free to turn their attention to the great prize of the city of Bristol, England’s second port and an important trading and manufacturing centre. Rupert had been frustrated in an attempt to take control of Bristol by means of treachery earlier in the year, and this time was determined to make sure of success. He reinforced the Western Royalist forces with a major part of the Oxford Army and on 26 July, in a fiercely contested action, stormed Bristol.

England’s second city was now in the King’s hands, though Royalist casualties had been heavy, especially among the Cornish infantry, whose losses of 500 rank and file and many officers greatly reduced their effectiveness for a considerable time to come. Nonetheless, few doubted that the price had been worth paying. By the beginning of August 1643 the Royalists appeared clearly dominant in every strategically important theatre of the war, and, with the only remaining major opposing army, that of the Earl of Essex, still seriously under-strength and with sagging morale, it seemed that one more major defeat might be sufficient to bring down the Parliamentarian cause.

For the Royalists the overriding question was how to strike such a decisive blow. The Cavaliers were far from certain as to their best next course of action. It was clear that the war had entered a critical phase, and the resolutions which the King and his advisers now reached might well settle its outcome. Unfortunately, a number of weaknesses in the Royalist position presented problems at a time when speed and decisiveness were vital.

There were divisions and rivalry among the leadership on both sides and, unfortunately for the Royalists, the period immediately following the capture of Bristol was one of the occasions on which they made themselves apparent among the Royalist commanders. Losses at Bristol, totalling perhaps 1,000 men, as well as the large expenditure of powder and ammunition incurred in the storming, were themselves enough to cause a delay in operations, but the situation was exacerbated by disagreements in the Royalist high command. As was not unusual, much of the fault seems to lie with the tactless and highhanded behaviour of Prince Rupert, who without reference to the Marquis of Hertford, nominally the senior commander in the west, had written to the King asking to be appointed as Governor of Bristol. Hertford had already given the job to Hopton, and only after some haggling was the situation resolved when Hopton was made Lieutenant-Governor under Rupert, and in practice placed in day-to-day command at Bristol, with Hertford ‘honourably retired’ to the court at Oxford. The dispute apparently required the King’s personal presence in order to be resolved. However, other than demonstrating the divisions which dogged the Royalist leadership, it is unlikely that it actually did much to delay operations, as the Royalist army was in any case barely fit for immediate action because of the casualties it had incurred in storming Bristol and the large numbers of troops who had deserted with their booty.

On 1 August Charles called together those of his Council of War who were in Bristol to consider the Royalists’ next move. Among those present was Edward Hyde (later Earl of Clarendon), as Chancellor an influential civilian member of the Council. He described later the situation as it appeared after the capture of Bristol:

The King found it now high time to resolve to what action next to dispose his armies, and that their lying still so long there (for these agitations [the dispute between Rupert and Hertford] had kept the main work from going forward ten or twelve days, a time in that season unfortunately lost) had more weakened than refreshed them, having lost more men by storming the city than were afterwards by plundering it, those shoulders which had warmed themselves with the burden of pillage never quickly again submitting to the carriage of their arms.1

The foot regiments of the Oxford Army which had taken part in the assault on Bristol had been depleted by the same epidemic that had ravaged Essex’s men and, even before the fighting, were noted as being very much under-strength:

As Clarendon explained, the questions facing the Council of War were ‘first, whether the armies should be united, and march in one upon the next design? And then, what that design should be?’2

There were a number of arguments against keeping the Oxford and Western Armies together. Although Bristol had fallen, much of the west of England, notably Exeter, Plymouth and large areas of Devon and Dorset, still remained in enemy hands. The Cornish forces had been badly depleted by their losses at Lansdown and Bristol, and were unwilling to go any further eastwards until Plymouth, which in enemy hands threatened their homes, had been reduced. Any attempt to compel them was likely to result in large-scale desertion, especially as their natural unruliness and indiscipline had been increased by the loss of so many of their officers. If they were allowed to operate nearer to home, there was reason to hope that many deserters would return to the colours and that the ranks could be filled out with new recruits. In any case, as Clarendon admitted: ‘the truth is, their humours were not very gentle and agreeable, and apt to think that their prowess was not enough recompensed or valued.’3 There would in any case be major logistical problems in keeping the Royalist armies together; resources were barely sufficient to maintain the 6,000 horse of the Oxford Army in one place for long. If the Western forces were sent initially to mop up Parliamentarian resistance in Dorset, this would not only ease the supply situation but also neatly solve the touchy protocol question of how best to cater for Prince Maurice, who would lose his command in a united army. So it was quickly agreed that the Earl of Carnarvon be sent at once, with his horse and dragoons, to operate around Dorchester, followed next day by Maurice, as new commander of the Western Army, with its foot and artillery.4

More difficult to resolve was the next move for the Oxford Army. Much debate has centred on the existence or otherwise of a grand Royalist strategy for the 1643 campaign. It has been postulated that the intention was for a three-pronged advance on London by the Earl of Newcastle’s forces through the Eastern Association, the Western Army via the southern counties, and the Oxford Army retracing its march of 1642 along the Thames Valley, possibly with the ultimate objective of blockading the capital and starving it into surrender. There is in fact no firm evidence that such a strategy was ever formulated, and in any case its fulfilment would have met with virtually insuperable difficulties. We have seen already that the Western Royalist forces were neither willing nor able to advance much further eastwards until their home territories were secured, and similar considerations limited the options of the Earl of Newcastle. The Yorkshire contingent of his army, over whom he had only partial control, were unwilling to march any further south until Hull was reduced. This was, as Newcastle probably suspected from the outset, virtually impossible, with the Royalists faced by strong defences and an enemy kept constantly supplied, thanks to Parliamentarian supremacy at sea.

This left the Oxford Army. It had proved incapable of taking London in the autumn of 1642 and, though now more experienced, it was hardly stronger numerically, while the defences of the capital had unquestionably been greatly improved. Certainly for as long as Parliament’s principal army under the Earl of Essex remained intact, the capture of London was probably beyond the capability of the King’s main field army operating alone. Clarendon claimed that a number of military commanders favoured the London option, on the grounds that current Parliamentarian dissension there could be exploited, but he pointed out the serious problems facing the Royalists:

…in truth, it was a miserable army, lessened exceedingly by the losses it had sustained before Bristol; and when that part of it that was marched with prince Morice into the west, and which would not have marched any other way, the King had not much above six thousand foot to march with, though [if] he had left none at Bristol,… and that would have appeared a very small army to march towards London…5

So an alternative was sought after, and, as Clarendon explains, the Council’s attention quickly became focused on the town of Gloucester.

The next resolution to be taken concerned the King’s own motion with that army.

There was not a man who did not think the reducing of Gloster, a city within little more than twenty miles of Bristol, of mighty importance to the King, if it might be done without a great expense of time and loss of men. It was the only garrison the rebels had between Bristol and Lancashire in the north part of England; and if it could be recovered, he would have the river of Severn entirely within his command, whereby his garrisons of Worcester and Shrewsbury and all those parts, might be supplied from Bristol, and the trade of that city thereby so advanced that the customs and duties might bring a notable revenue to the King, and the wealth of the city increasing, it might bear the greater burden for the war, a rich and populous county, which hitherto had rather yielded convenience of quarter than a settled contribution (that strong garrison [Gloucester] holding not only the whole forest [of Dean] division, which is a fourth part of the county of Gloster, absolutely in obedience, but so alarmed all the other parts thereof that none of the gentry, who for the most part were well affected, durst stay at their own houses), might be wholly the King’s quarter, and by how much it had offended and disquieted the King more than other counties, by so much the more money might be raised upon them besides the general weekly contributions, the yeomanry, who had been most forward and seditious, being very wealthy, but able to redeem their delinquency at a high price. And these arguments were fully pressed by the well-affected gentry of the county, who had carried themselves honestly, and suffered very much by doing so, and undertook great levies of men if this work were first done. There was another argument of no less, if not greater, moment than all the rest: if Gloster were reduced, there would be need no forces to be left in Wales, and all those soldiers might then be drawn to the marching army, and the contributions and other taxes assigned to the payment of it. Indeed the King would have a glorious and entire part of his kingdom to have contended with the rest.6

Not everyone in the Royalist camp was happy with the decision. Lord Spencer, who may have commanded the artillery during the siege, told his wife on 9 August, ‘at sunset’, that:

…the King’s sudden resolution of going before Gloucester hath extremely disappointed me… The King’s going to Gloucester is in the opinion of most very unadvised. I find the Queen is unsatisfied with it; so is all the people of quality.7

The main disadvantage for the Royalists would arise if faced with prolonged and determined resistance by the defenders of Gloucester, which would afford a breathing space for the Parliamentarian cause as a whole to recover. With this in mind, the supposed attitude of the Governor of Gloucester, Colonel Edward Massey, played a key part in Royalist decision-making.

Born c. 1618 in Cheshire, Massey, described by Clarendon as ‘a wonderful vain and weak man, but very busy and undertaking’,8 had been a professional soldier and military engineer before the war, serving on the Continent and in the Scots Wars. He seems to have had a similarly fundamentally self-interested attitude towards the outbreak of civil war, as did many other career soldiers, and in the summer of 1642 he initially considered enlisting with the forces which the King was raising at York, before concluding that he had better opportunities for promotion with the Parliamentarians (though he claimed his motive to have been an unwillingness to serve with the Roman Catholics whom Charles was recruiting). Appointed in 1642 as Lieutenant-Colonel in the Earl of Stamford’s Regiment of Foot, early in the following year Massey was made Governor of Gloucester.

Even before the fall of Bristol, the Royalists had been pondering the best means of taking Gloucester. On 17 July, one of Rupert’s officers, Lord Grandison, wrote to the Prince:

Sir, I did forget to tell your Highness that the best way to enter the town of Gloucester will be by putting some of the garrison of Worcester into boats, to fall down the river to that side of Gloucester which lieth most open, and will be very easy to them to master, while we assault on this side, and Vavasour, with his force, come off the forest side from Hereford.9