'To Walk in the Dark' E-Book

John Ellis

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

Seitenzahl: 501

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

During the bloody years of the First English Civil War, as the battles of Edgehill, Newbury and Naseby raged, another war was being fought. Its combatants fought with cunning and deceit in a hidden conflict that nevertheless would steer the course of history. The story of the spies and intelligence-gatherers of the Roundheads and Royalists is one that sheds new light on the birth of the Commonwealth. In 'To Walk in the Dark', intelligence specialist John Ellis presents the first comprehensive analysis of the First English Civil War intelligence services. He details the methods of the Roundhead spies who provided their commanders with a constant flow of information about the movements of the King's armies, describes the earliest use of code-breaking and mail interception and shows how the Cavalier intelligence forces were overcome. He also reveals the intelligence personnel themselves: the shadowy spymasters, agents and femme fatales. The descriptions of how intelligence information was used in the main battles are particularly fascinating and show how intelligence information played a decisive role in determining the outcome of the Civil War itself.

Leseprobe

‘TO WALK IN THE DARK’

‘TO WALK IN THE DARK’

Military Intelligence during the English Civil War 1642–1646

JOHN ELLIS

‘Who can love to walk in the dark? But Providence doth often so dispose.’ Oliver Cromwell

First published in 2011

by Spellmount, an imprint of The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2016

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© John Ellis, 2011

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

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 English Intelligence Gathering Before the War

2 Intelligence Sources and their Military Applications

3 The Strategic Direction and Integration of Military Intelligence

4 Establishing the Role of Intelligence – the Edgehill Campaign 1642

5 The War Expands – Intelligence Operations in 1643

6 The Tide Turns – Intelligence Operations in 1644

7 The Triumph of Intelligence Operations – The Campaigns of 1645

8 The Impact of Historical Perceptions On Our Understanding of Civil War Operations

9 Military Intelligence – A ‘Walk in the Dark’ or the Deciding Factor?

Appendix – Royalist and Parliamentarian Scoutmasters

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

As many people and organisations have assisted me with my research, it is invidious to place them in any particular order. I am particularly appreciative of the assistance provided so expertly by Nick Graffy and the other staff of the Southampton University library, along with the staffs of the British Library, the Bodleian Library and the National Archives, all of whom handled my requests quickly, cheerfully and efficiently. I am also extremely grateful to Professor Mark Stoyle of the University of Southampton for his supervision during my PhD.

As ever, I suspect, I am particularly appreciative of the help and guidance offered me by my editor, Miranda Jewess, and the other staff at The History Press. Without them, it is unlikely that this book would have seen the light of day!

I am especially grateful to Jo, my wife, not just for drawing up the maps and sketches and taking the photographs, but also for her patience and understanding. Indeed, the support of my family and friends has been a major factor and I am most appreciative not only of their interest in a subject that was not of their choosing, but also for their enthusiasm and encouragement during the writing of this book.

Introduction

Although much has been written about many of the aspects of the Civil War during the past 350 years, it is surprising that comparatively little information has been published about the conduct of intelligence operations during that conflict. This is even more remarkable when one considers just how many contemporary accounts of the Civil War provide strong and comprehensive evidence which reveals that a great deal of intelligence-gathering was carried out by both sides during the fighting.1 It is, therefore, reassuring to note that some of the more recently published accounts of the Civil War have begun to explore the impact that intelligence information had upon the conduct and outcome of a few of the more important Civil War campaigns and battles.2 As these more recent accounts have revealed that intelligence information did, in fact, play a significant role in the outcome of these battles, it seems that now is an appropriate time to evaluate the broader impact that intelligence operations had upon each campaign – and consequently upon the entire conflict. Accordingly ‘To Walk in the Dark’ aims to explore the contribution made by military intelligence-gathering operations to the outcome of the English Civil War fought between 1642 and 1646. Following an extensive exploration of the contemporary accounts of the fighting, this book will challenge the long-held perception that intelligence-gathering during the English Civil War was amateurish and imprecise, and will show just how much impact this intelligence information actually had upon the final outcome of the conflict.

The long-standing perception that military intelligence-gathering was ineffective has often been attributed to statements contained in the principal contemporary account of the English Civil War, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, written by the Royalist, Sir Edward Hyde, later ennobled as the Earl of Clarendon.3 (Hyde was made Earl of Clarendon following the Restoration, and it is by this title that he will be referred to from now on.) As a key adviser to both Charles I and Charles II, Clarendon’s account has been generally regarded as the most reliable contemporary record of the English Civil War. In the last century, however, its accuracy has been challenged by historians, such as the Victorian, Sir Charles Firth, and more recently Ronald Hutton. But, notwithstanding the concerns that they have raised, there appears to have been a marked reluctance to accept the validity of these criticisms – let alone act upon them. For example, even in the most recent account of intelligence operations during the Civil War and Interregnum, the author Julian Whitehead continued to cite The History of the Rebellion on numerous occasions, particularly when Clarendon described his perception of the effectiveness of Civil War intelligence-gathering.4 The most damning – and the most frequently cited – criticism made by Clarendon appears in his account of the Edgehill Campaign, when he described the intelligence-gathering conducted before the battle in the following terms:

The two armies, though they were but twenty miles asunder when they set forth, and both marched the same way, they gave not the least disquiet in ten days’ march to each other; and in truth, as it appeared afterwards, neither army knew where the other was.5

Although this perception is not supported by the evidence of other contemporary sources, Clarendon’s longstanding reputation as perhaps the greatest historian of the conflict has given his comments a credibility which has frequently led subsequent scholars to portray the military intelligence-gathering operations as ineffective and of no significance. For example, on the 350th anniversary of the English Civil War, historian Alan Marshall published an account of intelligence and espionage in the reign of Charles II, in which he affirmed that ‘It was clear that intelligence activities [of the First English Civil War] were on a primitive level and that most civil war battles were more often the result of armies meeting accidentally rather than as any intelligence coup.’6

As many other scholars continue to reflect this view,7 this book will try to show that the contemporary accounts do in fact provide conclusive evidence that military intelligence-gathering operations during the English Civil War were by no means as ineffectual as has so often been claimed. On the contrary, on the basis of the evidence presented, it will be suggested that the reverse is true, and that intelligence information made a decisive contribution to the outcome of the entire conflict.

In all that has been written about the English Civil War, most scholars have tended to focus their earlier research on the two great questions of why the War was fought and why people chose to support either Charles I or Parliament.8 Exploring the political and social rationale of the Civil War has thus been considered to be generally much more meaningful than conducting re-evaluations of the sparsely described military campaigns. Although, more recently, English Civil War historians such as Peter Young, Glenn Foard, Malcolm Wanklyn and Jon Day have concentrated their research on the military aspects of the campaigns – seeking to establish exactly where these battles were fought and what happened – even some of these scholars have spent relatively little time in reviewing the impact that military intelligence had upon the outcome of the campaigns.9 Although an exploration of the primary seventeenth-century sources shows that intelligence operations played a significant role in determining the outcome of so many of these campaigns, most historians have tended simply to echo the opinions of Clarendon. For example, Eliot Warburton, the nineteenth-century historian, writing in 1869, claimed that, at Edgehill, ‘such was the scarcity of information, or the want of skill in collecting it, that the two great armies were in total ignorance of each other’s movements.’10 Clarendon’s conclusions have also continued to be cited by more recent historians. In 1967, Peter Young cited Clarendon’s account of Edgehill to support his claim that Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Captain General and overall commander of the Parliamentarian forces, was ‘ill-served by his intelligence’.11 Yet, as the more recent assessments of Day and Foard now assert, the contemporary evidence reveals that a great deal of intelligence-gathering was being conducted.

In order to establish as many of the facts of what occurred as is possible so long after the conflict, ‘To Walk in the Dark’ sets out to review the subsequent historical assessments of these individual actions and to compare them with the primary and contemporary evidence of these battles. This evaluation should allow the reader to establish to what extent the outcome of the English Civil War was influenced by military intelligence operations. In order to assess the impact, this book will not only identify the wide variety of intelligence sources which were being used during the conflict, but it will also demonstrate just how effectively each side managed their intelligence-gathering – and how efficiently intelligence was subsequently integrated into each side’s decision-making processes. It will then establish just how the opposing sides gradually developed their intelligence-gathering operations and thereby prove that military intelligence information was widely used during the conflict, and that this intelligence information did have a significant impact upon the outcome of the war. In order to highlight the differences between the evidence of the contemporary accounts and the accounts of the subsequent historians, this book will also seek to provide a brief evaluation of the validity of what subsequent historians have written about Civil War intelligence operations by examining the evidence of the contemporary accounts which they may have cited to support their assertions.

As any exploration of seventeenth-century intelligence-gathering needs to recognise that the word ‘intelligence’ had a number of different usages at that time, it is sensible to avoid any possible confusion by clarifying a few definitions of contemporary terms as early as possible. In contemporary accounts of the Civil War, the word ‘intelligence’ was used to describe many forms of information. For example, intelligence operations would have included what is now understood to be ‘investigative journalism’ as well as military scouting. During this period, the distinction between information and intelligence was often indistinct, the result being that the word ‘intelligence’ was used to describe the activities and the people who were engaged in all aspects of intelligence-gathering, ranging from spy to messenger. Thus ‘intelligencers were pamphlets as well as people, [and] intelligence was the stuff of both the newshound and the spy.’12 An example of this ambivalent meaning is provided by the fact that some of these early news pamphlets were called The Spie and The Parliament Scout. Further potential misunderstandings arise from the fact that contemporary accounts often used the word ‘advertisements’ to describe specific intelligence reports; on 22 March 1645, the Parliamentarian commander in the North West, Sir William Brereton, wrote to David Leslie, his ally in the Solemn League and Covenant and the Scottish General commanding the invading Scottish Army, describing how ‘by several advertisements that came into my hand since I left you, I am further certified that both Princes and their forces are marched away.’13 One final point of clarification of the military terms in use during the seventeenth-century should be included here: the words ‘designes’ and ‘grand designes’ were often used to describe what we would now term tactical and strategic plans.14

This book seeks to explore how intelligence information was gathered and used to inform commanding officers during the various campaigns of the First Civil War. It also seeks to demonstrate that intelligence information played a more significant part in determining the outcome of the battles – and hence the war itself – than has been acknowledged by subsequent historians. It therefore explores just what has been said about Civil War intelligence-gathering in contemporary and subsequent historical publications, examining primary evidence to ascertain exactly what intelligence information was available to the respective commanders during each campaign and considers the objectivity of each account.

Because intelligence is such a large subject, this book will only explore the impact of intelligence information on the main military actions fought in England between 1642 and 1646, considering the collection, assessment and use of information relating to the strengths, location, capability and intentions of the Royalist and Parliamentarian military forces. The gathering of international strategic or political intelligence will therefore not be explored, nor will the gathering of politico-economic intelligence by either side (except insofar as that intelligence had a military application as defined above). However, the content of news pamphlets (the number of which grew a great deal during the time period) will be assessed in order to establish the impact that their reports of the military situation may have had upon intelligence-gathering during the conflict. As there are so many contemporary descriptions of a comprehensive range of intelligence-gathering operations conducted during the First English Civil War, ‘To Walk in the Dark’ will concentrate on the major actions and campaigns only.

Notes

1 See, for example, T. May, A Breviary of the History of the Parliament of England (London, 1655), pp.250–252, 319, and 343–346; and J. Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva. England’s Recovery (London, 1647, reprinted Oxford 1854), p.27.

2 See, for example, G. Foard, Naseby: The Decisive Battle (Kent, 1995), pp.154–159 and 202; C. Scott, A. Turton and E. Gruber von Arni Edgehill: The Battle Reinterpreted (Barnsley, 2004), p.5; J. Day, Gloucester and Newbury 1643: The Turning Point of the Civil War (Barnsley, 2007), pp.142–145 and 217–218; B. Donagan, War in England: 1642 – 1649 (Oxford, 2008), pp.100–106, 110 and 113; and J. Whitehead, Cavalier and Roundhead Spies Intelligence in the Civil War and Commonwealth (Barnsley, 2009).

3 E. Hyde, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, together with an Historical View of the Affairs of Ireland (sixteen books, London, 1703–4), Book VI, p.79.

4 Whitehead, Cavalier and Roundhead Spies, p.235.

5 Clarendon, History, Book VI, p.81.

6 A. Marshall, Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660–1685 (Cambridge, 1994), p.18.

7 See, for example, B. Worden, The English Civil Wars 1640–1660 (London, 2009), p.69.

8 See, for example, R.H. Parry, The English Civil War and After: 1642–1658 (London, 1970), pp.22–24; C. Hill, The Century of Revolution: 1603–1714 (London, 1975), pp.110–114; M. Stoyle, Loyalty and Locality. Popular Allegiance in Devon during the English Civil War (Exeter, 1994), p.255; and J. Kenyon, The Civil Wars of England (London, 1996), pp.30–32.

9 See, for example, Austin Woolrych, Battles of the English Civil War (London, 1961), pp.63–80;P. Young and R. Holmes, The English Civil War: A Military History of the Three Civil Wars 1642 - 1651 (London, 1974), pp.72–83; G. Foard, Naseby The Decisive Campaign (Barnsley, 1995), pp.329–343; S. Reid, All the King’s Armies: A Military History of the English Civil War 1642 – 1651 (Kent, 1998), pp.121–149; M. Wanklyn, Decisive Battles of the English Civil War (Barnsley, 2006), pp.35–42, 57–67, 136, 145 and 161–172; and J. Day, Gloucester and Newbury 1643 The Turning Point of the War (Barnsley, 2007), pp.140–145.

10 E.G.B. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert, and the Cavaliers (three volumes, London, 1869), Volume II, p.10.

11 P. Young, Edgehill 1642 (first printed 1967, first reprinted Moreton-in-Marsh, 1995), p.70.

12 M. Nevitt, Women and the Pamphlet Culture of Revolutionary England, 1640–1660 (Aldershot, 2006), pp.104–105.

13 R.N. Dore, The Letter Books of Sir William Brereton (two volumes, The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1984 and 1990), Volume 1, pp.106–107.

14 See, for example, Clarendon, History, Book IX, p.11 and R. Bell (ed.), The Fairfax Correspondence (two volumes, London, 1849), Volume 1, p.218.

1

English Intelligence Gathering Before the War

Although the recent ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland may help us to envisage a situation where perceived threats to religious, social and political rights have led to a form of armed insurrection, it is nonetheless difficult for us to fully comprehend the political, military and social landscape of the early 1640s. During this time Charles I’s determination to uphold the ‘divine right’ of the monarchy was opposed with increasing popularity and success by John Pym, the Tavistock MP and unofficial leader of the Parliamentarian party with followers in both the House of Commons as well as the House of Lords. Pym’s single-minded ambition to give Parliament a greater role in the governance of England, coupled with a combination of regal ineptitude and duplicity from Charles, had split the country and had made some form of military resolution increasingly inevitable. Thus, as England moved inexorably towards civil war at the beginning of 1642, it is helpful to establish just what military expertise was available to the commanders of the opposing Cavalier and Roundhead forces and, consequently, just how effective would be their generals’ understanding of the role to be played by military intelligence in any future conflict. There had been no major fighting on English soil for generations and, although some of the more restless spirits were involved in the Thirty Years’ War in northern Europe, the recent Bishops’ Wars fought against Scotland had shown with embarrassing clarity that England’s military expertise was extremely limited. Accordingly, this chapter seeks to ‘set the scene’ so that we may better understand which events influenced English military thinking in the early years of Charles I’s reign – and thereby understand how military intelligence-gathering operations contributed to the conduct and eventual outcome of the First English Civil War.

Before the Bishops’ Wars and the Civil War, there had been no large-scale internal disturbances in England since the Tudor rebellions of 1535–36, 1549 and 1569. Although parallels with the English Civil War are difficult to draw as these earlier insurrections were not full-blown nation-wide conflicts, contemporary accounts of these rebellions provide evidence that both national and local intelligence-gathering operations nonetheless played a significant part in their suppression. During the Tudor period, the responsibility for the provision of intelligence lay with the monarch’s chief ministers; thus, in 1535–36, Thomas Cromwell – as Henry VIII’s chief minister – had directed an unrivalled intelligence network which had enabled him to send spies into the rebel-held areas. Cromwell had also gathered further intelligence from the interception of mail.1 During the later uprising called the Pilgrimage of Grace, some of Henry VIII’s commanders had used their own intelligence-gathering networks; for example, it was recounted how one of Henry VIII’s commanders, called Davey, ‘had many friends who acted as spies for him’.2 At the same time, the rebel commanders had established their own ‘scoutwatch’ system to ensure continuity of reporting; we are told that the rebel commanders waited ‘to hear the reports of the scouts and spies as they came in’.3

The central direction of intelligence networks continued after the death of Cromwell and Henry VIII, for whilst commanders had continued to rely upon scouts and local informants during the 1549 rebellion, the Privy Council had also undertaken to keep the local commanders informed of any intelligence information they could get their hands on. For example, in 1549 it was reported that the Lord Privy Seal (Russell) was ‘undelayedly (sic) advertised from us [the Privy Council] of all occurrences of importance’.4 Both sides made full use of spies and scouts to gather intelligence, and ‘the rebels freely sent spies into Russell’s camp’ just as he ‘was to send trusting men into theirs.’5 The rebels also made effective use of local intelligence and were able to use this information to launch a number of delaying attacks on Russell’s army as it moved to attack Exeter in the summer of 1549.6 The importance of intelligence-gathering continued to be recognised during Elizabeth’s reign; in 1569, one George Bowes was appointed ‘to provide intelligence of the [rebel] Earles [Northumberland and Westmoreland] setting out’.7 Bowes reported that the rebels had also established an effective intelligence-gathering system, recording that, although ‘I keep as good spyall as I can, but not so good, I feare, as they have of me, for I am therebye watched.’8 The rebels proved to be active gatherers of intelligence, intercepting mail so frequently that Bowes requested that senders should tell him of any messages sent ‘least some of them be intercepted’.9 Contemporary accounts of the rebellions show very clearly that, as intelligence-gathering was recognised as a priority task by the Tudor monarchs, a variety of intelligence networks were established by the ruler’s senior ministers. Any possible means of obtaining intelligence were used and the deployment of spies and scouts, along with the opening of intercepted letters, was commonplace. Locally provided intelligence proved to be both accurate and timely in all of the major rebellions of the Tudor era.10

Similarly, the threat from Spain which had manifested itself during the later years of Elizabeth I’s reign had led to the continued deployment – and development – of a nationwide intelligence service. Headed by Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State, England’s intelligence network had been instrumental in protecting the life of the monarch and preserving the internal stability of the country at a time when the threat from Spain and fanatical Roman Catholics was substantial.11 During his time in office, Walsingham obtained intelligence information from a wide variety of sources including the interception of mail, the breaking of codes and the use of spies. Perhaps his most sophisticated intelligence-gathering coup was the so-called Babington Plot of 1586, which, as it was a major factor in the decision to execute Mary Queen of Scots, is also his most well-known operation.12 However, as the events of Charles I’s reign were to show, much of this expertise had been allowed to waste away during the early years of the Stuart dynasty.

Because there had been no fighting on English soil since the Tudor rebellions, the fighting that took place on the Continent during the Thirty Years’ War provided an ideal opportunity for both the English (and Scots) to gain experience of current military tactics and to rekindle their knowledge of intelligence-gathering. By authorising ‘unofficial’ English forces to fight in Europe, James I devised not just a cost effective and convenient way of satisfying public expectations and supporting the Protestant cause, but also a means of allowing the more passionate supporters of English and European Protestantism to participate in the fighting. The experience that those English and Scottish soldiers gained during the Thirty Years’ War varied enormously. For the majority, who served as foot soldiers, their experience was limited to a series of interminable sieges as they became members of Protestant garrisons such as at Mannheim and Frankenthal. Their garrison duties did not appear to offer the majority of them many opportunities to understand – let alone develop – the military advantages of obtaining superior intelligence information.

Whilst it is evident that the number and expertise of the veterans returning from the European wars was used to swell and train the ranks of the newly formed Parliamentarian and Royalist armies, there is little contemporary evidence that this fresh expertise was subsequently used to improve the quality of intelligence-gathering on either side. Even though an estimated 6,000–8,000 Scots served with the Swedish army (until 1632 trained and organised by their inspirational monarch, Gustavus Adolphus), and although some 10,000–15,000 Englishmen and up to 25,000 Scots fought in the Thirty Years’ War, very few of them gained any experience at the senior command level.13 (Patrick Ruthven – a Scot who was knighted by Gustavus Adolphus and made a full general in the Swedish forces – is an obvious exception.14) For most young soldiers, their transferable experience of continental warfare was limited mainly to the training, forming and deployment of bodies of horse and foot which was not particularly relevant to military intelligence operations. Although historical accounts of the Battle of the White Mountain make no references to innovative intelligence-gathering by either side, as it was the standard reports of sentries and scouts that provided the intelligence prior to the battle,15 later battles of the Thirty Years’ War, such as that fought at Lützen (16 November 1632) reveal a greater use of intelligence information by both sides.16 Whilst the few British soldiers who served with the regiments of horse would probably have picked up some experience of military intelligence, this would almost certainly have been limited to the duties of scouting.17 Therefore, despite the relatively large numbers of English and Scottish soldiers who served on the continent in the years prior to the Civil War, few returned home with any significant expertise in intelligence-gathering.

Charles I’s attempt to impose religious conformity on the Scots, which led to the outbreak of the so-called Bishops’ Wars of 1639–1640, had the unexpected and indirect consequence of offering an opportunity for the English commanders to gain experience of conducting modern warfare. The fighting also served to remind them of the benefits of obtaining superior military intelligence – and the chance to update their intelligence-gathering skills. An evaluation of the conduct of military actions during the conflict therefore supplies us with some clues about the effectiveness of English military intelligence-gathering some two years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Although no major battles were fought, the Bishops’ Wars required the deployment of substantial English sea and land forces along the Scottish borders. The complexity of these operations revealed the major difficulties associated with recruiting, training and deploying English soldiers after such a prolonged period of peace.18 Of particular relevance to this book was the failure of the English intelligence and scouting operations; the ineptitude of the English scouting had become apparent to all when, in the first week of June 1639, the Scottish army was able to deploy, without warning, substantially superior forces against a major English cross-border probe by 4,000 horse and foot. So effective was the Scottish deployment that the English commander decided he had no option but to order an ignominious retreat – a retreat that was witnessed (and mocked) by the whole Scottish army. This humiliation was so keenly felt by both the King and his soldiers that Charles, in harmony with his army on this issue at least, complained that the Scottish forces were able to close within striking distance unnoticed and unreported by the English scouts. ‘Have not I good intelligence’, lamented the King, ‘that the rebels can march with their army and encamp within sight of mine, and I not have a word of it till the Body of their Army give the alarm?’19

Although the military inexperience and ineptitude of the commander of the advanced force, Lord Holland, had clearly been a significant factor in this humiliating episode, the scouting and intelligence had also been considered to be much at fault. As the English intelligence-gathering organisation had been led by a man named Roger Widdrington who was appointed as scoutmaster, it was inevitable that the humiliation was believed to have been entirely his fault. The Parliamentarian historian, John Rushworth, was later to summarise the popular view very well when he reported that ‘In conclusion this business was hushed up, but great was the murmuring of the Private Souldiers in the Camp.’20 His view was shared by Sir Edmund Verney, one of the King’s captains of foot who was to lose his life carrying the Royal standard at the Battle of Edgehill a few years later, when he wrote ‘the truth is we are betrayed in all our intelligence.’21 These views were also shared and reflected in personal diaries and the accounts presented in the State Papers.22 Sir Bevil Grenville, another of the English officers (who was later to lead a regiment of Cornish foot soldiers in the Royalist Western Army) reflected the prevailing mood in the English camp when he reported that:

The Scoutmaster was much exclaimed against, and he complained as much of the Souldiers who were sent out as Scouts, and gave him no timely intelligence. But in the Opinion of the Court and Commanders, the Scoutmaster-General bore the blame; and his Crime was aggravated, because he was a Papist.23

Of even greater significance were the comments of the English army’s commander, the Earl of Arundel, in his defence of his appointment of Widdrington as scoutmaster. Arundel provided some interesting insights into the sort of skills that were considered to have been most relevant when appointing a Scoutmaster-General. The Earl of Arundel opined that the scoutmaster had been

… the fittest Man in England for the Office of Scoutmaster, being born in the County of Northumberland, and one of the best acquainted with all the Highlandmen upon the Borders of Scotland, and who was best able, of any man he knew in England, to gain intelligence from thence; and that it was notoriously known, he was a Gentleman who ever bore a perfect hatred to the Scots, and was a stout active man upon Border-Service in the time of Queen Elizabeth; that he was a person of quality, and he doubted not of his Integrity, and that he would justify himself.24

The selection of Widdrington as scoutmaster thus seems a perfectly reasonable choice particularly because he had useful local knowledge as well as relevant and recent experience of operations along the border. It therefore seems rather odd that, despite Widdrington’s evident expertise, his claim that the scouts themselves had failed in their duties appears to have been dismissed and set aside as unworthy of further investigation. Indeed Widdrington’s claim gains credibility when it is recalled that the failure of the scouting parties to detect the approach of an opposing army was to become a feature of some of the Civil War campaigns conducted between 1642 and 1646.

Despite these humiliating experiences, there is no evidence that any consequent changes were made to improve the effectiveness of English military intelligence-gathering. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the evidence of the First Bishops’ War provides a pretty damning indictment of the state of military intelligence at the start of the Civil War, leading us to believe that the English intelligence-gathering organisation was largely ineffective and lacked credibility. Although a comparatively limited campaign, the events of the war in Scotland nevertheless provide some historical basis to Clarendon’s later claims about the conduct and effectiveness of English military intelligence operations at the beginning of the Civil War just two years later.

The injurious experiences of intelligence-gathering during the Bishops’ Wars had demonstrated that, as England had been at peace for so long, few men had any experience of conducting effective military operations – let alone of fighting their own people in their own streets and fields. However, many Englishmen, painfully aware of their lack of military experience and very conscious of the increasing probability of some form of conflict, sought to improve their military knowledge by consulting the wide variety of contemporary military publications which explained the theory and practice of seventeenth-century warfare.25 The publication that provided most information about the gathering of intelligence was Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie written by the Cambridge graduate, John Cruso.26 As the collection of intelligence was traditionally a responsibility of the mounted soldiers – the ‘cavalry’ or ‘horse’ of the seventeenth-century army – Cruso’s work provided a great deal of practical advice for commanders of horse, especially when he advised them that:

Every good commander must have these two grounds for his actions, 1. The knowledge of his own forces, and wants … [and] 2. The assurance of the condition and estate of the enemy, his commodities, and necessities, his councils and designes; thereby begetting divers occasions, which afterward bring forth victories.27

Cruso’s elegant and sophisticated work has been well described by one modern writer as being ‘so excellent that it held the field undisputed for nearly thirty years’.28 So it is not surprising that later seventeenth-century works on warfare (for example, Roger Boyle’s A Treatise of the Art of War, published in 1677, and subsequently Sir James Turner’s Pallas Armata, published in 168329) merely referred their readers to Cruso’s work for advice on the conduct of mounted operations, including intelligence-gathering and scouting.

Even in the final months of peace, the military and political benefits of accurate intelligence began to emerge. As the differences between Charles and his people divided the country at all levels of society, the Parliamentarian leaders had well-placed supporters who had access to the confidences of the members of the Court. Unbeknown to Charles, these Parliamentarian supporters were able to provide Pym with the most useful intelligence about the King’s strategies and intentions. Perhaps one of the earliest and most important examples of intelligence-gathering related to Charles’ attempt to arrest the ‘Five Members’ in January 1642. The failure of Charles’s plan to nip his troubles in the bud was caused primarily by the timely intelligence reports John Pym received from a Parliamentarian supporter and spy who was not only a member of the Royalist court, but also a confidante of Queen Henrietta Maria. The spy in question was perhaps one of the earlier examples of what we might now call a ‘Bond girl’, Lucy Percy, the Countess of Carlisle, allegedly the mistress of John Pym, who provided him with intelligence reports describing Charles’s most confidential intentions.30 Her reports not only warned Pym about what the King was planning to do, but also, as her reports were so up-to-date and accurate, enabled him to time his flight from the Commons to perfection. When Charles set out to arrest Pym, he knew that the four MPs were still in the Commons but by the time Charles arrived at the House, his ‘birds had flown’. The intelligence that Pym received – and the actions he took in response to that intelligence – ensured that Charles’ discomfiture was as complete as was the damage done to the credibility of his cause. Not only did Charles’ very public failure to arrest his key opponents lead to a major collapse of public belief in the credibility of his compromise proposals for a peaceful settlement with Parliament; but the public outrage that followed Charles’ assault on the privileges of Parliament increased dramatically. Hardly surprisingly, Charles considered that his family’s personal safety was now under serious threat from the Roundhead mob – a perceived threat which caused him to gather his family and flee from London. At this critical moment, his flight thus surrendered the capital – with all its political and financial advantages – to his opponents. The next time Charles entered London, he was a prisoner and facing trial for his life.

This was not the only occasion when the Parliamentarian commanders received vital intelligence which enabled them to publicly thwart the King’s plans and disrupt his preparations for war. Intelligence information continued to flow into the Parliamentarian camp during the first six months of 1642 as the gulf between the two sides steadily widened. Later in the spring of 1642, the Parliamentarian commanders received intelligence confirming their assessment that the Royalists’ shortage of weapons dictated that their immediate priority was to take control of any stockpiles of military stores and ammunition. This intelligence enabled the Committee of Safety, established by Parliament to coordinate measures to ensure their victory, to thwart Charles’ plans to seize these arms, which he needed to equip his recruits.31 Intelligence information, gleaned from the interception of a letter from Lord Digby, one of the King’s more hopelessly optimistic and carefree advisers, gave Parliament early warning of Charles’ intention to enter Hull and to seize the weapons and munitions which had been stored there since the Bishops’ Wars.32 This intelligence enabled Parliament to pre-empt the King’s plan by sending Peregrine Pelham, a supporter of Pym and MP for Hull, with reinforcements to strengthen the resolve of Sir John Hotham, another Parliamentarian supporter and Hull’s garrison commander, a few days before the King appeared before the walls of the city. The ‘Refusal before Hull’ was another intelligence victory for the Parliamentarians that also had a significant nationwide impact because, as well as strengthening the resolve of those opposing the King, it also helped persuade those hitherto uncommitted citizens to take up the Parliamentarian cause. These two events must also have given the Parliamentarian leaders a salutary lesson in the advantages to be gained from accurate and timely military intelligence.

Equally important perhaps was the consequent lesson in the dangers of inadequate or late intelligence-gathering, which was forcefully demonstrated to the members of the Committee of Safety. Without any intelligence warning, the Parliamentarian leadership was caught completely by surprise on 2 August 1642, when Colonel George Goring, the self-professed Parliamentarian supporter whom they had appointed to be the Governor of Portsmouth, had turned coat and seized the city, along with its important magazine, for the King. The declaration of Portsmouth for the King was an embarrassing surprise to Parliament and the subsequent re-capture of the city had required a substantial diversion of both sea and land forces at a time when these resources could have been better used elsewhere.33

In conclusion, it seems reasonable to suggest that, although Thomas Cromwell and Sir Francis Walsingham had developed an extensive intelligence services during the reigns of the Tudor monarchs, the experience of the Bishops’ Wars had proved that the intelligence-gathering organisation established by the Tudors had been allowed to languish during the reigns of the early Stuart monarchs, James I and his son Charles I.34 Consequently, when England was engulfed by the turmoil of the Civil War in 1642, the structures for obtaining intelligence had to be resurrected quickly if intelligence-gathering was to make any meaningful contribution to the conduct of the war. From the contemporary evidence, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Parliamentarian sympathisers were quicker to appreciate the importance of intelligence-gathering and were thus able to provide some extremely important information from the very early days of Parliament’s confrontation with the King. It was this intelligence that enabled them to forestall Charles’ attempts to regain the political and military initiative from Parliament. After all this time, it is difficult to envisage just how significant, on the day, were the political consequences of the failures of the King to arrest the Five Members – followed by his rebuff at Hull. The direct consequences not only drove Charles out of his capital and surrendered the seat of government to his opponents, but they also exposed – and exacerbated – his military weakness and political status. It is thus even more surprising perhaps that Charles seems not to have appreciated the impact that this Parliamentarian intelligence information had had upon his military plans and his political credibility. Even before Charles raised the Royal Standard at Nottingham in August 1642, the Roundheads were receiving accurate and up-to-date intelligence information. As there is no evidence that the military advantages this intelligence gave the Roundheads were appreciated by the Cavaliers, they appear to have not seen the need to establish their own intelligence network. This relative weakness made it much easier for Parliament to seize the upper hand.35

Notes

1 M. and R. Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Exeter Conspiracy (two volumes, London, 1915), Volume I, pp.4, 109, 111and 214; and Volume II, p.190.

2 Ibid, p.169.

3 Ibid, p.256.

4 F. Rose-Troup, The Western Rebellion of 1549 (London, 1913), p.142.

5 Ibid, pp.245–246.

6 Ibid, pp.296–297. See also, A. Fletcher and D. MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions (fourth edition, London, 1997), pp.55–56.

7 C. Sharp (ed.), The Rising in the North: The 1569 Rebellion (Ilkley, 1975), p.24.

8 Ibid, p.63.

9 Ibid, p.64.

10 Rose-Troup, Western Rebellion, pp.266–267.

11 R. Hutchinson, Elizabeth’s Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England (London, 2006), pp.59–62.

12 Ibid, pp.116–145.

13 S.D.M. Carpenter, Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642–1651 (London & New York, 2005), p.54.

14 S. Reid, Patrick Ruthven, Earl of Forth and Earl of Brentford (DNB).

15 C.V. Wedgwood, The Thirty Years’ War (London, 1938), pp.105–107.

16 Ibid, pp.284–287.

17 Ibid, p.239.

18CSPD, 1638–9, pp.566 and 593–594.

19 D. Parsons, The Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, (Longman, London, 1836), pp.34–36. See also J. Rushworth, Historical Collections (London, 1659–99), Volume II, Part 2, pp.935–945.

20 Rushworth, Historical Collections, Volume II, Part II, p.939.

21 F.P. Verney, Memoirs of the Verney Family during the Civil War (London, 1892), p.53.

22 See, for example, Parsons, Slingsby Diaries, p.35; and CSPD, 1639, pp.272, and 281–283.

23 Rushworth, Historical Collections, Vol. II, Part II, p.938; See also J. Stucley, Sir Bevil Grenville and his times (Sussex, 1983), p.84. Quite why a Papist would assist the Presbyterian Covenanting Scots army was never satisfactorily explained.

24 Rushworth, Historical Collections, p.939. See also CSPD, 1639, pp.272 and 281–283. There is no relevant source material for the Second Bishops’ War.

25 See, for example, E. Davies, The Art of War, and Englands Traynings (London, 1619); Anon, Instructions for Musters and Armes: and the use thereof (London, 1631); W. Barriffe, Military Discipline: or the Yong Artillery Man (London, 1635); and H. Hexham, The Principles of the Art Militarie: Practised in the Warres of the United Netherlands (London, 1637).

26 J. Cruso, Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie (Cambridge, 1632).

27 Cruso, Militarie Instructions, Part II, Chapter II, p.57.

28 T. M. Spaulding, ‘Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie’, Journal of the American Military History Foundation (Vol.2, No.2, 1938), p.106.

29 R. Boyle, Earl of Orrery, A treatise on the art of war (London, 1677); and Sir James Turner, Pallas Armata (London, 1683).

30 See, for example, T. May, A Breviary of the History of the Parliament of England (London, 1655), p.27; J. T. Rutt (ed.) The Diary of Thomas Burton (4 volumes, London, 1828), pp.91–102 (which cited a speech of Sir Arthur Haselrig in Parliament, 7 February 1659); E. Ludlow, Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow (two volumes, Bern, 1698), Volume 1, pp.24–25; Warburton, Memoirs, Volume 1, pp.220, 348; and D. Purkiss, The English Civil War: A People’s History (London, 2006), pp.123–124.

31 See, for example, Clarendon, History, Book V, pp.139–140; and CSPD, 1641–43, pp.389–390.

32 T. May, A History of the Parliament of England (London, 1647), p.57; and Clarendon, History, Book V, pp.53 and 89–91.

33 Clarendon, History, Book V, p.442.

34 R. Hutchinson, Elizabeth’s Spy Master (London, 2006), p.260.

35 Clarendon, History, Book IX, p.38.

2

Intelligence Sources and their Military Applications

Before exploring the impact that intelligence information had upon the outcome of the key Civil War battles, it is important to identify and evaluate the very extensive range of intelligence-gathering sources that were available to each side during the conflict. It is also important to appreciate that, unlike a conflict fought overseas where the citizenry was likely to be unfriendly and uncommunicative, during the Civil War there was a greater possibility that the opposing armies would be able to obtain useful intelligence from the local population. Furthermore, the steady improvements in the reliability and speed of the messenger and postal services soon revealed that written reports from sympathisers living around the country were an invaluable source of military intelligence. Accordingly, as the fighting spread and the number of marching armies increased, so too did the demand for – and the supply of – more comprehensive and timely military information. This resulted in the development, not only of a growing number of innovative ways of gathering and communicating intelligence, but also of increasing staff numbers within each military headquarters to verify and promulgate the large number of reports. Nor was the growing demand for information restricted to purely military matters – the growing public desire for news about the conflict led to a dramatic increase in the demand for this information to be included in news pamphlets. At the start of the Civil War, however, when neither side readily seemed to appreciate the advantages of seeking military information from the local people, commanders tended to rely more upon the traditional and readily understood methods for gathering intelligence, such as scouting reports provided by horse patrols.

Scouts and scouting patrols provided the most well-established sources of military information upon which commanders had long relied for the delivery of accurate and timely intelligence about the enemy’s position and strength. In his widely read publication about the role of the cavalry, Cruso recommended that these scouts ‘must be choice men, valiant, vigilant and discreet’ who must ‘see that with their own eyes which they inform’. He evidently considered that scouts had an important role to play.

An expert officer, with 20 or 25 of the best-mounted and hardiest Harquebusiers (or mix of Cuirassiers and Harquebusiers) with two trumpets are to be employed. These are to carry with them some refreshment for themselves and their horses, to that purpose retiring themselves into some wood, or shadie place, placing good Centinells upon trees.1

This advice was certainly taken to heart by the Parliamentarians for, when Sir Samuel Luke, the MP for Bedford and captain of horse in Essex’s army, was appointed Scoutmaster-General by Essex in January 1643, he was given funding for ‘fouer and twenty men and horses who were imploied daily as spies into the enemyes armyes and garrisons’.2 The size of Luke’s scouting team evidently proved to be both practical and successful for it was used as a model throughout the war; later during the conflict, when Mr Samuel Bedford was appointed as scoutmaster to the Committee of Both Kingdoms on 10 June 1645, he was given Parliamentary approval for the establishment of a spying and scouting team of 28 people.3 The associated requirement to communicate any intelligence information obtained was acknowledged as equally important by the Committee, for they also approved Bedford’s accompanying request for ‘£120 for buying horses, ten men for watching the King’s army at 5s a day, one agent for Lincolnshire, one for Oxford and one for the west; each agent to have one spy and 4 messengers at 3s a day.’4

The responsibility for scouting was usually assigned to the Lieutenant-General of the Horse.5 Scouting was recognised as a difficult and dangerous job which required each scout to demonstrate courage, initiative and determination. Apart from being able to ride well, and preferably provide his own mount, the scout also needed to be numerate and literate. The role of the scout – or ‘discoverer’ as he was also called in some pre-war publications – was described by Cruso in some detail, who wrote that the scout would need to be brave, quick-thinking and intelligent in order to deliver an accurate and well-judged report that would be accepted as reliable by his commander.6

Seventeenth-century commanders realised that to find all these characteristics in one person was always going to be difficult, especially as the need to be able to ride narrowed the selection of scouts to the ranks of each side’s cavalry; thus the quality of the scout was largely determined by the quality of the cavalry troopers on each side. At the beginning of the Civil War the Royalist horse was probably of superior quality overall, although the Parliamentarian horse did contain some equally good officers and troopers, men such as Edmund Ludlow, Nathaniel Fiennes and Charles Fleetwood who joined as junior ranks and steadily won promotion as the war progressed and their worth was recognised.7 Later in the war, Parliamentarian commanders appreciated the need to counter the enemy’s scouting and deprive their commanders of information; Colonel Massey, the Parliamentarian commander of the garrison at Gloucester, informed the Committee how he had been ‘lodging my forces in a thicket of the forest, and so preventing the enemy’s discovery of us by their scouts’.8

Luke had recruited and led a troop of horse in the early part of the war. He obviously knew and trusted these men as he took them with him as the core of his scouting parties when he was appointed as Essex’s Scoutmaster-General. Having to recruit scouts from cavalry of somewhat variable quality was possibly one of the reasons why Parliamentary scouting was not particularly effective in the early campaigns.9 In the later years, when the training and professionalism of Cromwell’s Ironsides had begun to permeate through the ranks of the New Model Army, the quality of Parliamentarian scouting improved significantly and so did the quality of the intelligence being received by the commanders. The improved standard of Parliamentarian scouting was certainly acknowledged by the Royalists; for, in January 1644, a Royalist commander reported to Rupert that the reason for his inactivity was because ‘their [Parliamentarian] scouts are so frequent abroad, we might be discovered by them’.10

Interestingly, the initially higher quality of the Royalist horse did not necessarily mean that their scouting was any better. Royalist scouting patrols were equally likely to miss detection opportunities, but it is possible that the reasons for any weaknesses reflected social rather than military considerations.11 Contemporary accounts reveal that, at the beginning of the war, many of the Royalist horse troopers considered themselves to be an elite force of volunteers who were superior to the rest of the army.12 It may well be that, in the view of these Royalist troopers, recognition of their excellence was more surely to be achieved by charging headlong into battle, where courage would prevail even in the most complex situation. If this was indeed the case, it is unlikely that the perceived tedium of patrolling to gain intelligence information would have inspired them. As the early engagements of the Civil War proved, many young Royalists believed that feats of gallantry far outweighed other military considerations – and the skirmish at Powick Bridge served to justify and reinforce this opinion.13 Scouting and intelligence-gathering could be seen as a monotonous ‘business’ and the need to display guile and patience was unlikely to be appreciated by the more impetuous Cavaliers. Thus it is hard to imagine Royalist troopers wishing to become scouts or to have anything to do with the mundane routine of intelligence-gathering.14

In the absence of timely and accurate intelligence reports from either their military scouts or other sources, some senior officers were quite prepared to conduct their own intelligence-gathering operations in order to find out what their enemies were up to. Early examples of the scouting and intelligence-gathering operations carried out personally by Prince Rupert are given in a pamphlet which described the various disguises adopted by the prince when he was spying on his opponents.15 Although these stories may well be apocryphal, Rupert’s energy and determination to ‘see for himself’ attracted comment from friend and foe alike.16 His activity rate was extraordinarily high as his many responsibilities, coupled with a small staff, required him to supervise or carry out a large number of operations himself.17 Rupert’s successful intelligence-gathering forays were attributed by some Parliamentarians to supernatural powers because his energy and rapidity of movement allowed him to visit so many places that, in their view, no-one could do so much without some form of satanic help.18

There were a number of practical implications of providing effective scouting which each commander had to recognise. As intelligence was of little value unless it was received in time to influence the subsequent deployment of troops, Civil War commanders needed early warning of the presence of the enemy so that they could prepare and position their forces prior to any engagement. For example, it took around six hours for the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies to prepare for battle at Edgehill even though both forces were ‘in the field’ and on the march for London.19 Failure to provide timely warning normally resulted in one side being caught at a substantial disadvantage. Because such a warning was best provided by a screen of scouts deployed around a force, scouting was seen by Civil War commanders as being the most responsive form of intelligence-gathering – and one under their direct control – even though commanders often had other sources of intelligence available to them.

The main limitation of scouting was that it was difficult for a seventeenth-century army to provide enough scouts to cover the ground effectively. Even a dedicated body of 28 scouts would only be able to offer limited coverage, especially as providing the all-round scouting cover needed to provide reliably adequate warning of the enemy’s approach would require the allocation of several hundred troopers. To provide an all round scouting screen (at a distance of 20 miles around the main body with a pair of scouts every half-mile) would require the deployment of over 500 scouts. Deploying that screen of scouts would take at least two hours and recalling them would take over four hours. Few Civil War commanders had that number of horsemen to spare. The reality was that the assignment of scouting forces of hundreds of men was not a feasible option for either Royalist or Parliamentarian Army commanders as they did not have enough horsemen; consequently the assigned scouting forces were invariably inadequate to cover the area they were assigned to patrol. It seems reasonable to assume that, when assigning smaller than ideal scouting forces, commanders were accepting the operational risk that they might be disadvantaged by receiving short notice of the enemy’s approach. Although targeting scouting patrols to cover specific areas – or lines of approach – likely to be used by an approaching enemy increased the chances of successful interception, this clearly required the commander to have some reliable intelligence about the direction from which the enemy was believed to be advancing in the first place.

From a commander’s point of view, the intelligence reports received from scouts had several advantages over reports received from civilian sources. Because scouts tended to operate reasonably close to their own army, their reports were received relatively quickly and therefore provided the commander with a better idea of the location of his opponent. Equally important was the fact that the reports were often more relevant and reliable as the scout’s military experience would have made him aware of what he needed to report and how accurately. As reports from civilians would not necessarily have been perceived to have the same level of reliability, it was likely for this reason that Cruso recommended all intelligence-gatherers should have military experience. The thinking was that scouts would recognise the significance of what they saw, and would thus be able to make informed estimates of the fighting capability of the enemy forces. A good example of this form of intelligence was the locating of the Parliamentarian Army by Rupert’s troopers before Edgehill, as their report was accurate enough to allow the effective deployment of the Royalist Army at first light.20

In addition to scouts, trumpeters also supplied another traditional form of intelligence-gathering. Like the medieval heralds they replaced, trumpeters provided the official communications between opposing army commanders, and also reported on military activity they observed while doing so. Generals selected their trumpeters carefully for these tasks, again advised by Cruso:

The trumpeter must be discreet and judicious; not only to be fit to deliver embassies and messages as they ought, but (at his return) to report what he hath observed concerning the enemies works and guards, and what he hath further gathered and espied.21

Commanders on either side were well acquainted with the trumpeter’s unofficial intelligence-gathering role and sometimes deliberately delayed the return of enemy trumpeters so that any intelligence information they had discovered would be reported too late for it to be of any immediate value.22 Trumpeters were often sent into the opposing camp under the pretext of negotiating the exchange of prisoners – a pretext for their main task of bringing back the most recent information about the enemy’s position and strength. Richard Symonds, the Royalist trooper and diarist, described how Fairfax, the Parliamentarian Northern Army general and later the commander of the New Model Army, used trumpeters in this role just before the Battle of Naseby, when ‘a trumpet came from Fairfax for exchange of prisoners from Newport Pagnell’.23

Another traditional form of intelligence was provided by deserters, mainly because these deserters were well aware that the warmth of their reception was likely to depend upon the value of the information they could offer. Depending upon the rank of the deserter, these reports could be of major significance; for example, when Sir Richard Grenville, an experienced Cornish general and brother to Sir Bevil Grenville, deserted to the King in 1644, he provided the Royalists with full details of a plot to betray the garrison of Basing House along with Waller’s plans for the Roundhead invasion of southwest England in the spring.24 On one of the occasions when Sir John Hurry (or Urry), an experienced Scottish soldier, changed sides (a fairly regular event during the war), he brought details of a Parliamentarian money shipment which, when Rupert set out to intercept it, led to the skirmish at Chalgrove Field and the mortal wounding of John Hampden, John Pym’s deputy and right hand man.25

Not all information garnered from deserters was important in and of itself, but an intelligence picture is a jigsaw built up from many pieces of different sizes. The importance of the reports varied considerably; Symonds described how the Royalists were able to monitor the growing weakness of the surrounded Parliamentarian forces when two of Essex’s men deserted to the Royalists during the Lostwithiel campaign of 1644 ‘and told us that provisions were very scarce with Essex’.26 As the war progressed and the difficulties of recruiting soldiers grew, it became an increasingly popular ruse to gain access to the enemy’s plans by posing as a deserter and then joining up with the opposite side. As John Hodgson, a Parliamentarian Captain of Horse, recalled in his Memoirs: ‘We had spies sent out amongst them into [Sir Marmaduke] Langdale’s party, pretending to run away from us, and they were coming in continually with intelligence.’27 This became a well-established and accepted means of gathering intelligence and continued well into the later phases of the conflict. For example, during the Second Civil War in Cornwall in 1648, a Parliamentarian commander suggested that ‘a soldier of the Mount … may pretend to run away to them [the Royalists], and to stay with them till he can learne their strength and resolucions.’28 Although deserters were a potentially attractive source of trained manpower as the war went on, commanders became increasingly aware of the danger that enemy spies might be masquerading as deserters in order to gain access to military information.

The interrogation of prisoners revealed much useful information, for the questioning of such men could provide key military intelligence. It was soon realised that the personal papers and letters carried by prisoners when they were captured could also provide intelligence about the enemy’s plans and problems. In May 1643, the Parliamentarian Committee of Safety had ordered that all prisoners should be searched and any letters and papers thereby found should be examined for possible military intelligence.29 In his book, Cruso also emphasised the importance of taking prisoners in order to supplement intelligence sources: