Rebels and traitors

Chapter Thirty-One — Newport Pagnell and Naseby: 1645

No open invitation had been issued for regular soldiers to transfer to the New Model. Unless Fairfax himself chose a particular troop or regiment, everyone was supposed to remain in situ. But among the public, agents were vocally calling for volunteers to present themselves at inns, while they rounded up the able-bodied from the streets, hauling in vagrants, sailors, prisoners, even captured Royalists who were willing to turn their coats. Some pressed men mutinied; others deserted. In this situation, Gideon hoped that the muster-master-general might look favourably on any trained man who presented himself. The army was supposed to reach twenty-one thousand strong, but so far was running at only two-thirds of that.

Gideon knew his way around at Brick Hill, which had been an old base used by the garrison's troops. He soon found a recruiting officer and begged for a place. He was welcomed, and assured that his transfer from the garrison would be squared with Sir Samuel Luke. He did not wait to find out.

He stood no chance of joining the cavalry; its standards would be those of Oliver Cromwell's rock-hard Ironsides, far above his capabilities as a rider. Since Gideon none the less owned his own horse — no longer the three-shilling Newport nag but the two-pounds mare his parents had bought him at New Year — he was instructed to present himself to Colonel John Okey in command of the New Model's thousand dragoons. He would remain 'mounted infantry'.

'First into the hot spots and last out,' the recruiting officer jeered.

'Dogsbodies,' agreed Gideon.

'Your task', continued the officer, looking cool at the interruption, 'will be to secure bridges in advance of the infantry and hold those bridgeheads during a retreat, to contain enclosures, line hedges and guard artillery, then when required to dismount and beef up the regular footmen. While dismounted, one man in ten will hold the horses.'

'Scouts, pickets and sentinels. Dogsbodies!' Gideon repeated.

He was ordered to the regimental stores to collect his equipment issue. The 'stores' were less permanent than they sounded; since the army was now mobile, kit was being doled out from the backs of carts. His existing threadbare uniform was rejected; replacements were available, which he must pay for by deductions from the wages he had yet to receive. Uniform coats were of good, pre-shrunk English cloth in Venice red, with grey britches that he was pleased to find had leather pockets. They were all the same size — too short for him in the sleeve and the leg. 'One size fits all.'

'Fits nobody!' Gideon fretted over the length of the coat, which at twenty-nine-and-a-quarter inches was supposed to cover his backside but failed on a long-bodied lank like him.

'Tell that to the committee.' The storesman tugged down hard on the coat; he was a wiry, bandy-legged, square-jawed Kentishman who had lost an arm in some hedge skirmish and been relegated to the commissariat. 'Lengthen your tape-strings.'

'Thereby admitting a gale around the midriff — ' Gideon fiddled halfheartedly with the flat tapes that were supposed to fasten his coat to his britches. Ever since the spurts of growth in his teens, he had had a problem with gaps; his wedding suit had been specially tailored. A long shirt would help, though it would billow through his clothes around his waist like a cavalier's fancy costume. 'It's a bum-starver… Do I not receive a buff jerkin?'

'Dragoons ride light.'

'Helmet?'

'Hat.' A grey Dutch felt was handed over, with a round crown and broad brim to keep off the weather.

Setting the hat at a jaunty angle, Gideon growled, 'I shall not even ask about armour.'

The storesman bared his teeth in a sickly grin.

A cheap dragoon saddle was offered, to Gideon's continued disgust, and he was told he could take a pair of two-and-threepenny shoes (sized ten, eleven, twelve or thirteen) or buy his own riding boots. He possessed his own buckskin gloves, bandolier with twelve powder apostles, and swordbelt for the long, cheap sword that was the best dragoons were thought to need. A new ninepenny snapsack was allowed him, a canvas bag in which he would stow rations, knife and spoon, handkerchief, fire-lighting kit, candle end, spare stockings and shirt, and his pocket Bible.

The storesman then turned to his assistant, a sleepy, small-eyed younger man with round ears like buttons, who looked as if he had trouble remembering his name. They held an intense conversation about exactly what firearm to issue. Gideon had honestly mentioned his lost fingertips. His hands were grabbed and pored over. His ability to manipulate the stricken fingers became the subject of surprisingly intelligent discussion. He posed a challenge. Gideon had learned that most men regarded any challenge as an excuse to say no, but these two seemed to welcome it positively, as a chance to devise a solution.

'He qualifies for a flintlock.' Gideon pricked up his ears.

No longer so dopey, the assistant eagerly agreed. 'Readier in use, and safer.'

From deep within the wagon, a brand-new flintlock musket, with a slightly shorter barrel than Gideon was used to, was placed gently in his grasp; he was encouraged to get the feel. Its light weight astonished him.

Flintlocks were much handier weapons than matchlocks, since although their mechanism was more complex they could be made ready to fire in one or two movements instead of the long sequence of actions required with lighted matchcord; flints were safer too. Flintlocks used no match, they were not at the mercy of the weather which, in the lightest shower, could render infantrymen's match unusable. Gideon badly wanted a flintlock.

'This is a snaphance!' announced the storesman, excitedly. 'We have two hundred, fresh in, just for the dragoons.'

Gideon brightened. He kept himself up-to-date. He knew that the snaphance musket had been developed from German fowling pieces. Hunters' guns were very fast to reload, and especially good for shooting while on the move; in theory, dragoons might have to fire from horseback.

The piece was whisked off him and its mechanism demonstrated. 'The flint is held in the jaws of your cock, which is fixed back by a sear. This engages on its tail, until you wish to fire. Your pan-cover will be slid out of the way automatically when the cock falls; as the flint strikes your frizzle, the cover is pushed aside, allowing a stream of sparks to fall in upon your powder.'

Gideon played the expert too. 'The frizzle is one piece with the cover pan?'

'No; separate. I need not explain a frizzle to you?'

Innuendo was second nature to anyone who grew up among City apprentices. 'I hope I seem like a man who knows what his frizzle is for.'

The storesman glanced at his deputy. He replied in a low, dangerous voice, 'Oh you do, Sergeant!'

'But can he tell a cow from a field-gate?' mused the younger man cheekily, half under his breath. From his hayrick burr, he must be a country boy, a thresher or general labourer; he knew how to irritate Londoners.

Gideon was suddenly startled. 'I am not a sergeant.'

The storesman made much of consulting the recruitment docket. 'Do I read this aright?' He flashed the paper in front of the assistant, who peered at it even though he was probably illiterate. They had honed their act as stooge and showman. '"Sergeant Jukes." Are you denying yourself, Sergeant?'

Gideon shrugged and shook his head. Perhaps a testimonial had been given for him by Sir Samuel Luke after all. He was amazed, not least because it was rumoured that some sergeants from the old regiments had volunteered to be reduced to privates, in order to serve in the New Model.

'Your halberd, monsignor!' sneered the storesman, handing the newly promoted Sergeant Jukes a staff weapon. The pole was eleven feet long, topped by a slim metal spike and a shaped flat blade like an axe-head or weathervane. In the English style, the blade was pierced by decorative heart-shaped holes. With this implement a sergeant would prise apart any of his men who were marching too close together and otherwise make much of himself. 'Do not lose this beauty.'

'No indeed,' replied Sergeant Jukes wholeheartedly. 'I can see it has exceptionally fine piercing on the flanges!'

Gideon found that John Okey, the dragoon commander, was to his liking: a fellow-Londoner, gaunt of cheek with a long nose and hair to his shoulders, parted centrally above a receding forehead. The colonel asked a few questions, concentrating on religious observance. He took the Baptist view that they were fighting for the Lord, who would give them victory if their righteousness was pleasing. Concealing any reservations on this point, Gideon was confirmed as a member of Okey's regiment. An enthusiastic conversation about the virtues of the snaphance musket may have been material. John Okey's God was a practical deity. The New Model Army contained plenty of Baptists; they were cheerful soldiers who prayed fervently and backed it up by shooting straight.

Gideon had already heard of this dragoon regiment. It was previously commanded by John Lilburne, the rabid pamphleteer whose wife Anne Jukes knew. Lilburne's place had fallen vacant because he declined to take the Covenant when that became compulsory.

Earlier, the Lilburne dragoons had been sent to protect the Isle of Ely against threats of invasion by Royalists from the north. Others with them there were infantry under Colonel Thomas Rainborough. Rainborough was tall and physically strapping; a man of great strength, he was a committed pikeman. By one of the quirks of war, when Gideon joined what was now Colonel Okey's regiment, he knew from a letter that his brother Lambert was already serving under Rainborough.

Their gifted colonels were to have a great influence on the Jukes brothers. The two commanders came from a similar milieu. Both their families had money, but had worked for it. Okey had been an East London ship's chandler with his own business. Rainborough came from a seagoing, shipowning family in Wapping. They were typical of the breed of officer Sir Thomas Fairfax had chosen for the new army: able, staunchly committed — in Rainborough's case almost too radical. Both men were to play significant parts in the war and its political aftermath.

While the New Model was waiting at Newport to go into action, Parliament gave Fairfax a free hand in military affairs. His council of war decided the primary object should be the destruction of the King's main army. That was wandering around the North Midlands. They also agreed to request urgently that command of the New Model cavalry should be given to Oliver Cromwell.

Fairfax moved out from Newport and just a day after Gideon joined them, the New Model Army came along the Great North Road to Stony Stratford. He had no time to remember the waif he once met here abandoning her baby. The King was at Daventry: only a few miles away.

After ransacking Leicester, the Royalists were in a high mood. They had been riding through the countryside, offending inhabitants with their fine clothes and the hordes of stolen cattle they were driving with them. When Fairfax caught up, they were taking their ease, foraging far and wide, with their horses out to grass, while the King himself casually hunted near Daventry. They had derided their opponents, calling Fairfax's army the New Noddle. When their complacent pickets were sent running helter-skelter by the Parliamentarian advance guard, it took the Royalists completely by surprise.

Relaxed as ever in the teeth of probable disaster, King Charles had written to his wife: 'My affairs were never in so fair or hopeful a way' But that position had been jeopardised by wrangling over strategy: whether to attack the remnants of the Scots' Covenanters' army in an attempt to retake the North, or to tackle the New Model Army. Either was a good objective if pursued with vigour, but in a feeble compromise, a reduced royal army was pottering northwards, seriously outnumbered, especially in cavalry. This was because Charles had let the dilettante Lord Goring take away three thousand cavalry to the West Country. It was to prove fatal. Prince Rupert tried to recall Goring. Fairfax's scouts intercepted a letter from Goring making excuses to remain where he was. At fractious Royalist war councils, tension grew between Prince Rupert and the King's civilian advisers; in contrast, the New Model Army had been devised precisely to place all authority in one command. This was the moment to strike, and Fairfax had been given a free hand. He only had to await the arrival of his own cavalry commander.

Leaving nothing to chance, Fairfax rode around his sentry posts in the dark, to satisfy himself there was no chance of being caught by a surprise attack. A sentry challenged him; Fairfax, brooding, had forgotten the password. While the captain of the guard was called, the general was forced to stand to in the wet while the soldier threatened to blow his head off if he moved. Fairfax rewarded the sentry for diligence.

Royalist troop movements and campfires suggested the enemy might be pulling out. At Fairfax's dawn council on the morning of Friday the 13th of June, it was decided to pursue. In the middle of that meeting, Oliver Cromwell and three thousand extra cavalry arrived, to a great shout of acclaim. Battle was now fully anticipated. Sir Philip Skippon, as field marshal, had been ordered to devise a battle array a full six days before.

On a fair evening at the height of the English summer, the royal army convened on a long east-west ridge and seemed ready to make a stand. Next morning, when Royalist scouts were unable to confirm the New Model's movements, Rupert went out in person to reconnoitre. Fairfax did not need to; he knew where the enemy were: seven miles away, before the fine shoemaking market town of Market Harborough which lay just over the county boundary in Leicestershire.

The battle would take place slightly to the south, in the Northamptonshire uplands. This was not beautiful, but honest open country where ancient woodlands still slumbered darkly around villages deserted in the Black Death. By a neat quirk of geography, the place was a watershed; streams on one side flowed to the south and west to the Bristol Channel, while barely a few miles away they flowed north and east to the Wash. Undulating ridges would help disguise troop movements in the early manoeuvres. The area was mainly unenclosed, with irregular stands of cultivated grain among ragged patches of gorse. Between the armies lay a valley with areas of soft ground, called Broad Moor. Fairfax had taken the New Model Army as far as a large fallow field, close to the ancient Saxon village of Naseby. A strong double line of hedges crossed this field at right angles, to the Parliamentarians' left. On the right hand was Naseby Warren. This was significant for their cavalry; it meant much more than a few rabbit-holes to cause stumbles. An ancient warren would have many miles of tunnelling and large underground caverns that could possibly collapse.

Bringing two armies into battle array and then into close contact could take a long time. For the commanders, this required care, in order to prevent their soldiers losing heart, while having them ready when needed. At Marston Moor the initial uncertainty had lasted many hours, which was tiring and dispiriting for the enormous forces involved. Naseby would be brisk by comparison.

Prince Rupert, the King's commander-in-chief, had ordered a battle array with his own cavalry on the Royalist right wing while Sir Marmaduke Langdale took the Royalist left, leading the experienced Northern and Newark horse. Behind their infantry in the centre, the King, resplendent in full black body armour, watched among his Lifeguard, five hundred men who served as the Royalist reserve.

For Parliament, Skippon was arraying the infantry in the Swedish style, six deep, as Gideon and Lambert Jukes had seen them at the first battle of Newbury. Cromwell's cavalry, on the right flank, would be negotiating the rabbit-holes. The left flank, at Cromwell's request, was led by his fixer son-in-law-to-be, Henry Ireton. The left were therefore facing the dreaded Prince Rupert, but they had better ground and Cromwell was planning further protection from dragoons.

During the first hours after dawn, Prince Rupert came in sight of the van of the New Model Army Signalling for the remainder of the King's army to follow him, he moved westwards, wanting to get upwind, so the Royalists would not be blinded by their opponents' gunsmoke. To the Parliamentarians, this looked like a flanking movement. It could mean Rupert had chosen not to give battle. He had, in fact, for once counselled against it, because of the enemy's superior numbers.

Fairfax finessed him. He moved his own men back a hundred paces from the higher ground they commanded. They could still see what the enemy were doing but while their dispositions for battle were being arranged, they were shielded by the crest of the ridge.

Thinking Fairfax might intend to withdraw, Prince Rupert was lured into action, even though his men would have to charge uphill against greater numbers. At about ten in the morning, even before his artillery had caught up, the prince ordered a general advance, while leading his cavalry into the start of a characteristic charge.

A Parliamentarian forlorn hope had been placed on the slope ahead of their army, to dissipate the force of the enemy's first attack. These musketeers fired off initial rounds. Classically, this was the signal that battle had been joined. The forlorn hope pulled back. The main body of the New Model Army then advanced in formation to the edge of their high ground, on what was named Mill Hill, and came into view of the Royalists.

The battle of which veterans would speak until their death-beds had begun.