Rebels and traitors

Chapter Twenty-One — Gloucester, Newbury, London: 1643

The Earl of Essex, Old Robin, received insufficient credit for his cat-and-mouse Gloucester campaign. Getting there had caught the Royalists on the hop; extricating his army, if he could do it, would be an even greater feat.

First, leaving behind his artillery and baggage, he moved north to Tewkesbury. He ordered a classic bridge of boats over the River Severn. Villages on the west bank were scoured for food and fodder, while recalcitrant locals were swingeingly fined and the cash used to reprovision Gloucester. Then Essex sent across an advance unit as if he proposed to march on Worcester. The King immediately moved north, to block the way towards London via Evesham and Warwick.

Under cover of a dark night, Essex suddenly plunged his army south again. They travelled twenty miles across the Cotswolds and gained a day's advantage. Their rapid departure confused Royalist scouts and commanders, including Prince Rupert — though Rupert afterwards claimed he had warned what was happening but was disbelieved. At two o'clock in the morning, Essex reached Cirencester. There he captured forty wagon-loads of food intended for the King's troops and guarded only by newly raised recruits. These provisions crucially fortified his men for the perils ahead. Hunted by Prince Rupert's flying cavalry and pursued by the King with his infantry and ordnance, the Parliamentarians raced for home.

They almost made it. Prince Rupert had orders to find them and force them to make a stand at Newbury, where it was thought the superior numbers of Royalist cavalry could inflict mortal damage. He harried them at Aldbourne, trying to delay them while the main Royalist army caught up. The next day they slowed almost to a standstill as bad weather churned roads to a morass. They were hungry again, for although they had picked up a thousand sheep and sixty cattle as they marched, Londoners did not see themselves as shepherds so the animals had scattered while the soldiers gave their attention to an attack. By this night they were unsure where the enemy now was. As Essex's men approached Newbury their quartermasters rode in to establish billets, only to discover that Prince Rupert had occupied the town ahead of them. Forced to flee, they abandoned all the food they had collected. So the Parliamentarians faced yet another wretched night in wet, frosty fields, with nothing to eat or drink. Prince Rupert blocked their passage at Newbury; he and his men settled into the town in comfort and waited for the King. The royal infantry arrived. Out in the countryside, the Parliamentarian troops were fatigued and full of anxiety. The King had put himself ahead of them. They had to fight their way through. It would be the first time that the London Trained Bands experienced a pitched battle.

Gideon Jukes's experience that night was of utter misery. They had seemed so near to home, yet now they were once again trapped in filthy conditions, knowing that they had to batter past the Royalist army — assuming they could. The enemy were relaxing in town, snug and warm in friendly houses, with full bellies and good supplies of beer. Gideon had only eaten a handful of maggoty blackberries all day. He was wet through, yet thirsty, trying to catch rain in a pannikin to drink. They had left behind the towering clouds that scudded up the Bristol Channel, bloated with heavy Atlantic rain, but here in the interior they were still being soaked by incessant showers and tonight they had to endure a hard frost. He could feel that frost beating up from the ground while the evening air chilled him to the bone.

He had marched for a month; he remembered how the first bad weather had run off his clothes, then eventually runnels had trickled inside his shirt and over his collarbones, water dripping from his hat onto his face, water making his shoes squelch, drips hanging permanently from his nose and ears. Once he became wet through, weeks ago, there had never been any way to dry off, even when temporary fine weather gave some respite. The insides of his britches and his buff coat remained soggy; the oil sealing his oxhide buff coat could no longer resist water. His stockings were perpetually damp and his shoes sodden. Whenever he stood still, he shifted from leg to leg, arms slightly akimbo, trying to keep free space between his heavy clothes and his skin, which was now sore, reddened and peeling. One night he had found his left shoe full of blood, from a huge blister which then refused to heal. He had pushed his powder flasks and matchcord inside his clothes to try to keep them dry, but he had so little warmth in his body this was probably achieving little. If he had to fight for his life, would his musket even fire?

So another dark, wild night passed in the open. Essex, Skippon and a few other officers found refuge in a thatched cottage near Enborne where they snatched rest and prayer and planned for the day to come. Out in the fields their men huddled under hedges, silent and apprehensive. Rain bucketed down incessantly. Winds bowled over the lonely Berkshire uplands in long, mournful gusts. Neither weasel nor water-vole was stirring, and the owls stayed in the barn.

The apprehensive troops rubbed the sleep from their sticky eyes early. Essex had to tell them that the enemy possessed all the advantages: 'the hill, the town, hedges, lane and river'. Inspired to defiance, his men roared back that they would take them all. They put greenery in their hats for recognition purposes.

Realistically, their options were nil. They had nowhere to retreat. Outflanking the Royalists looked impossible. Their way forward through Newbury was blocked. The Royalists held the crucial bridge over the River Kennet. The only alternative route entailed a detour south across various small field enclosures and hazardous open areas of common-land; it was rough country through which they would have to march and drag their artillery while the enemy constantly attacked them.

Essex chose this south passage. He disguised his intentions as long as possible with a 'forlorn hope' that pretended to be advancing on Newbury. In a landscape still marked by inhabitants from before the Romans, ancient tumuli would cover their real march to some extent. At seven in the morning, in a flat valley between Enborne and Newbury, the Parliamentarians drew up their line. They were positioned along a narrow country lane, intending to move through as a body, then up and over Wash Common which lay to their right. Skippon's brigade occupied the centre, the Trained Bands behind him, acting as reserves and guarding another overgrown and rutted lane which was the only way their artillery train could come up to move onto the common. The guns had to be dragged up a steep incline and even before that could begin, they took three hours to arrive on the scene. But Skippon took early control of a deceptive high point called Round Hill, which fooled the Royalists into believing the Parliamentarians were siting a battery there, with a plan to assault the bridge at Newbury.

The London Trained Bands had been desperately trying to gather nuts and berries from hedgerows as a meagre breakfast, when they heard the sounds of cavalry fighting; Royalist Welshmen had attacked the Parliamentary left flank. 'We were in despair,' mused Gideon Jukes, in his head whimsically becoming the kind of correspondent Robert Allibone wanted, 'lest the enemy discovered we were so starved that if they but shouted "Toasted cheese!" we would straightway drop our weapons and rush to them, fainting…' Instead, the Trained Bands arrived at a running march and in a great sweat, afraid they would miss the fight. There was no chance of that.

It had stopped raining.

The Red and Blue regiments spent most of the day on their army's right flank. They were facing eight Royalist guns and a large body of cavalry, barely the length of two musket shots apart. Prince Rupert himself was about to charge them.

The Red Regiment had been attacked before, at Stow-on-the-Wold and again at Aldbourne Chase. Gideon had fired off his musket, though never before in the thick of fighting, where he knew for sure his bullets were bringing wounds and death. Still, he found himself calm here. He understood that he and his colleagues were dismissed as inept, even by their own side. But critically the Trained Bands had practised, unlike more recently recruited troops. They were inexperienced under fire but had repeated their drill every fortnight until it was second nature; also now they had a month of hardship on the road bonding them. Drawn from shops, workshops and the Customs House, they were clerks, dyers, distillers, confectioners, printers, drapers, tailors, woodmongers and vinegar-sellers. Nothing was expected of them, so they had it all to prove. Labour and business had made them strong and self-willed. Besides, they were Londoners. They wanted to go home.

Throughout that long day, the infantry had very little idea what was happening elsewhere. Frequently it was a formless battle, with the attacking Royalists slight on strategy. Bodies of men locked together and pushed pointlessly for hour after hour, neither side making ground. Afterwards Gideon learned that on the left flank, up against the River Kennet, Parliamentary cavalry fought back so hard they put their opponents to flight; in the centre Skippon's infantry brigade slogged it out for Round Hill against two of the Byron brothers' horse; on the right, Royalist cavalry tried to beat back the Parliamentarians from Wash Common, surrounding them in a desperate close struggle until many had died and the remainder were spent. The Trained Bands then bore the brunt of the enemy's attacks, holding their own as they fought furiously all day, to the astonishment of those who had previously disparaged them.

'No chance of missing,' murmured Gideon through the lead bullets he was holding in his teeth, as he set his musket on its rest. It was his last coherent thought all day.

The first time he fired, Gideon mentally followed all the twenty-four actions of musket drill. Just as Lambert had said to him on his wedding night, the motions often became reduced to: prepare, present and fire! Somehow — open, clear, prime, shut — he managed — powder, bullet, scouring stick, rest, coal, match — a smile at the old memory. Give fire!

For a very short time after the firing began, the white gunsmoke hanging low in the frost seemed no worse than a fine drift from an autumn bonfire. Soon Gideon's eyes were stinging. The powder smoke rapidly grew so thick it was impossible to see more than a few yards around, while the endless noise was wearying. A musket shot from the rank of men behind him was so loud against his head it temporarily deafened him, so he went through most of the battle in a weird world of his own. He could none the less hear the screams of wounded men and horses. He could see the terrible havoc wreaked when the Royalists fired their heavy guns. A whole file in the Red Regiment, six men deep, was beheaded together by a single cannon ball. Shocked soldiers wondered at dead men's bowels and brains flying up in their faces. Gideon smelled and was splattered by the organs and innards of men he had known. He gagged and fought on.

The fallen were left. Someone warned, 'If you're hurt, stay upright.' It was the best advice. As Gideon struggled forward or back, he stumbled and knew his feet were trampling the helpless. In the close fighting, wounded men and sometimes corpses were carried to and fro by the press of their colleagues.

They had learned that in the line of march, infantry were vulnerable to cavalry. They could be picked off into manageable groups. They could be routed and scattered. But cavalry were vulnerable to cannon. And here, with two Trained Bands regiments steadfast in a body, cavalry could fail. When the Royalists temporarily silenced their great artillery and Prince Rupert led his cavaliers in their expensive coats on their fine horses against the Reds and Blues, at first the Trained Bands were terrified. They then learned just what the prince's famous 'thunderbolt charge' meant. They saw the dark massed lines of horsemen advancing towards them at a walk, which turned to a canter, which turned to a full gallop, then the cavaliers in the ranks all fired their first pistols at once from close range.

They only fired once, hoping for a devastating effect. But gunshot from horseback was problematic. Cavalrymen had two pistols each and could usually afford the best, but they kept their second gun in reserve. It was impossible to hold the reins and reload unless they withdrew from the melee. While they fired, their aim was spoiled by their horses' movements. Cavalry manuals suggested they should not fire until they rode right in among the enemy and could place a weapon point-blank against an opponent's breast. Prince Rupert preferred his men to rely on swords and poleaxes — but that required close contact.

At Newbury the cavaliers could not get close. The Trained Bands stood firm and stopped them. First a storm of small-shot from the musketeers took some heat from the charge, then at close range the pikes showed their power. Horsemen could do little against heavy-set men in breastplates who were used to manhandling bales and barrels; shoulder to shoulder, the Red and Blue regiments stood up to Rupert's legendary cavalry as cheerfully as if they were engaged in a tug-of-war among the roast pigs at Bartholomew Fair. Setting their right feet sideways, to give purchase for their staves, they showed what 'push of pike' could mean. Their long ash pikes, armed with vicious eighteen-inch steel barbs, held the horsemen off. Prince Rupert charged them once, and twice, then he gave up a bad business after suffering enormous losses.

Once a group of Royalist cavalry approached with green boughs in their hats crying 'Friends! Friends!'

'I don't think so!' muttered Gideon, as he and his colleagues rammed home more bullets, then swung their muskets at these conniving rogues and let off an unfriendly reply.

By seven o'clock in the evening, after a full twelve hours of fighting, the light had gone. In the dark, fighting came close to a lull. More ammunition had been spent than in any engagement so far. Powder and shot had run low. The King held a council of war. As an intermittent flare of shots still burst overhead in the smog and darkness, his casualties were assessed. There were about three and a half thousand dead on the field. The King had lost perhaps a quarter of his men, including twenty-five aristocratic officers, one of them his Secretary of State. It was clear that the wretched, starving and exhausted enemy would not surrender. Though Prince Rupert urged fighting on, as the prince generally did, all the Royalist artillery was towed from the field and the King retreated by night to Oxford. At ten o'clock, Essex's men found themselves alone on the field. They had been pushed back from the common, though no further, and were still standing in their ranks. In real terms, since they held their ground despite all that was thrown at them, the Parliamentarians had won.

Next morning was for counting and collecting the dead and wounded. The hard-hearted called this the butcher's bill. The King wrote to the Mayor of Newbury, ordering him to give medical attention to both sides. Only the lightly wounded, those with slashes and cuts, ever stood much chance of recovery. The terrible burns and internal injuries caused by shot and gunpowder were almost impossible to treat. Even those who survived temporarily were doomed if infection had been carried into their bodies by soil or clothing scraps. Gideon learned that a musket ball, his weapon, made a wound no wider than a sixpence on entry, but its exit was the size of a dinner-plate. Even pikemen, who wore breastplates and helmets, could be physically shredded if musket shots struck their ash staves into giant splinters. He saw devastating damage: shattered bones, spilling organs, missing faces, sheared skin, split skulls, suppurating powder burns that were unbearably painful and hideous to see.

And Gideon witnessed the dead. The London regiments suffered heavy losses: men he knew and strangers — he tried not to look. The Royalists reportedly collected thirty cartloads of dead and wounded on the night of the battle, then twenty more the next day. The Earl of Essex had no choice but to bury his lost troops under mighty mounds of earth. These new tumuli would stand as memorials at Newbury for centuries. On both sides the notables who had been killed were listed.

The rest, stripped and jumbled into mass graves, would be anonymous. Many were trampled beyond recognition. Their relatives could only deduce their fates from silence; their resting places would remain unknown.

The subdued Parliamentarians regrouped and marched over Wash Common, as they had originally intended. Close to Aldermaston, Prince Rupert came up and harried them hard but despite much panic, they beat him off and successfully reached safety at their own garrison at Reading. There at last, for three days, they rested and were feted.

For Gideon Jukes, now suffering from deep shock as well as exhaustion, this period passed in a daze. Others succumbed to weakness, weariness, trauma and depression. Gideon at least stayed alive. His brother found him spent and dead-eyed, able only to sit with hunched shoulders, waiting for new orders. They both had red eyelids and choked lungs; their clothing was stiff with dried blood and other substances. They sat together in Reading, drinking ale. Neither spoke.

The London Brigade resumed its homeward march. Eight days after the battle of Newbury, the Trained Bands entered their home city via Southwark, crossing on London Bridge, that famous landmark lined with tight-packed old wooden houses where the mouldering heads of traitors were traditionally displayed. They marched through streets lined with cheering crowds and were welcomed by the Mayor and civic dignitaries at Temple Bar. They were led to Guildhall in triumph, but as the rest of London celebrated, gradually the shattered troops slipped away to their families.

Gideon and Lambert were brought to their parents' house by Robert Allibone. He had had the sense to commandeer a dray. First, to spare their family, he took them to the print shop, stripped off their disgusting outer clothes and ordered the apprentice Amyas to scrub Lambert's breastplate and burn whatever was too revolting to retrieve.

When the two soldiers limped indoors together, in their grey shirts and stockinged feet, they both managed smiles for their mother.

'Oh my heart, they are skin and bone!' gasped Parthenope faintly. Their father took one look at his boys' scarred and powder-burned faces and knew. Their faraway eyes told the story. They were home safe. But they had been among terror from which they would never entirely return to him. 'Gently' murmured John Jukes, more to his squealing womenfolk than his silent sons, as Lambert and Gideon hung their heads and Parthenope and Anne fell upon them, weeping.

Gideon's wife Lacy entered the parlour. He was startled how much more pregnant she looked. He had been away just a month. It felt like a lifetime. His wife — he had almost forgotten he had one — looked equally vacant. Lacy was still musing on her day's lesson: there were four types of almond, some sweet and some bitter, of which she could never distinguish between Jordans and Valencians…

Lacy wrinkled her nose. Then she burst out in high annoyance: 'They stink!'

Neither Gideon nor Lambert cared. They were asleep on their feet.