Memoirs of a Cavalier<br />A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England.<br /> by Daniel Defoe (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📗

him; and accordingly he received 3000 foot from Somersetshire; and having battered the town for thirty-six hours, and made a fair breach, resolves upon an assault, if possible, to carry the town before the enemy came up. The assault was begun about seven in the evening, and the men boldly mounted the breach; but after a very obstinate and bloody dispute, were beaten out again by the besieged with great loss.

Being thus often repulsed, and the Earl of Essex's army approaching, the king calls a council of war, and proposed to fight Essex's army. The officers of the horse were for fighting; and without doubt we were superior to him both in number and goodness of our horse, but the foot were not in an equal condition; and the colonels of foot representing to the king the weakness of their regiments, and how their men had been balked and disheartened at this cursed siege, the graver counsel prevailed, and it was resolved to raise the siege, and retreat towards Bristol, till the army was recruited. Pursuant to this resolution, the 5th of September, the king, having before sent away his heavy cannon and baggage, raised the siege, and marched to Berkeley Castle. The Earl of Essex came the next day to Birdlip Hills; and understanding by messengers from Colonel Massey, that the siege was raised, sends a recruit of 2500 men into the city, and followed us himself with a great body of horse.

This body of horse showed themselves to us once in a large field fit to have entertained them in; and our scouts having assured us they were not above 4000, and had no foot with them, the king ordered a detachment of about the same number to face them. I desired his Majesty to let us have two regiments of dragoons with us, which was then 800 men in a regiment, lest there might be some dragoons among the enemy; which the king granted, and accordingly we marched, and drew up in view of them. They stood their ground, having, as they supposed, some advantage of the manner they were posted in, and expected we would charge them. The king, who did us the honour to command this party, finding they would not stir, calls me to him, and ordered me with the dragoons, and my own regiment, to take a circuit round by a village to a certain lane, where in their retreat they must have passed, and which opened to a small common on the flank; with orders, if they engaged, to advance and charge them in the flank. I marched immediately; but though the country about there was almost all enclosures, yet their scouts were so vigilant, that they discovered me, and gave notice to the body; upon which their whole party moved to the left, as if they intended to charge me, before the king with his body of horse could come. But the king was too vigilant to be circumvented so; and therefore his Majesty perceiving this, sends away three regiments of horse to second me, and a messenger before them, to order me to halt, and expect the enemy, for that he would follow with the whole body.

But before this order reached me, I had halted for some time; for finding myself discovered, and not judging it safe to be entirely cut off from the main body, I stopped at the village, and causing my dragoons to alight, and line a thick hedge on my left, I drew up my horse just at the entrance into the village opening to a common. The enemy came up on the trot to charge me, but were saluted with a terrible fire from the dragoons out of the hedge, which killed them near 100 men. This being a perfect surprise to them, they halted, and just at that moment they received orders from their main body to retreat; the king at the same time appearing upon some heights in their rear, which obliged them to think of retreating, or coming to a general battle, which was none of their design.

I had no occasion to follow them, not being in a condition to attack the whole body; but the dragoons coming out into the common, gave them another volley at a distance, which reached them effectually, for it killed about twenty of them, and wounded more; but they drew off, and never fired a shot at us, fearing to be enclosed between two parties, and so marched away to their general's quarters, leaving ten or twelve more of their fellows killed, and about 180 horses. Our men, after the country fashion, gave them a shout at parting, to let them see we knew they were afraid of us.

However, this relieving of Gloucester raised the spirits as well as the reputation of the Parliament forces, and was a great defeat to us; and from this time things began to look with a melancholy aspect, for the prosperous condition of the king's affairs began to decline. The opportunities he had let slip were never to be recovered, and the Parliament, in their former extremity, having voted an invitation to the Scots to march to their assistance, we had now new enemies to encounter; and, indeed, there began the ruin of his Majesty's affairs, for the Earl of Newcastle, not able to defend himself against the Scots on his rear, the Earl of Manchester in his front, and Sir Thomas Fairfax on his flank, was everywhere routed and defeated, and his forces obliged to quit the field to the enemy.

About this time it was that we first began to hear of one Oliver Cromwell, who, like a little cloud, rose out of the east, and spread first into the north, till it shed down a flood that overwhelmed the three kingdoms.

He first was a private captain of horse, but now commanded a regiment whom he armed cap-à-pie à la cuirassier; and, joining with the Earl of Manchester, the first action we heard of him that made him anything famous was about Grantham, where, with only his own regiment, he defeated twenty-four troops of horse and dragoons of the king's forces; then, at Gainsborough, with two regiments, his own of horse and one of dragoons, where he defeated near 3000 of the Earl of Newcastle's men, killed Lieutenant-General Cavendish, brother to the Earl of Devonshire, who commanded them, and relieved Gainsborough; and though the whole army came in to the rescue, he made good his retreat to Lincoln with little loss; and the next week he defeated Sir John Henderson at Winceby, near Horncastle, with sixteen regiments of horse and dragoons, himself having not half that number; killed the Lord Widdrington, Sir Ingram Hopton, and several gentlemen of quality. Thus this firebrand of war began to blaze, and he soon grew a terror to the north; for victory attended him like a page of honour, and he was scarce ever known to be beaten during the whole war.

Now we began to reflect again on the misfortune of our master's counsels. Had we marched to London, instead of besieging Gloucester, we had finished the war with a stroke. The Parliament's army was in a most despicable condition, and had never been recruited, had we not given them a month's time, which we lingered away at this fatal town of Gloucester. But 'twas too late to reflect; we were a disheartened army, but we were not beaten yet, nor broken. We had a large country to recruit in, and we lost no time but raised men apace. In the meantime his Majesty, after a short stay at Bristol, makes back again towards Oxford with a part of the foot and all the horse.

At Cirencester we had a brush again with Essex; that town owed us a shrewd turn for having handled them coarsely enough before, when Prince Rupert seized the county magazine. I happened to be in the town that night with Sir Nicholas Crisp, whose regiment of horse quartered there with Colonel Spencer and some foot; my own regiment was gone before to Oxford. About ten at night, a party of Essex's men beat up our quarters by surprise, just as we had served them before. They fell in with us, just as people were going to bed, and having beaten the out-guards, were gotten into the middle of the town before our men could get on horseback. Sir Nicholas Crisp, hearing the alarm, gets up, and with some of his clothes on, and some off, comes into my chamber. "We are all undone," says he, "the Roundheads are upon us." We had but little time to consult, but being in one of the principal inns in the town, we presently ordered the gates of the inn to be shut, and sent to all the inns where our men were quartered to do the like, with orders, if they had any back-doors, or ways to get out, to come to us. By this means, however, we got so much time as to get on horseback, and so many of our men came to us by back ways, that we had near 300 horse in the yards and places behind the house. And now we began to think of breaking out by a lane which led from the back side of the inn, but a new accident determined us another, though a worse way.

The enemy being entered, and our men cooped up in the yards of the inns, Colonel Spencer, the other colonel, whose regiment of horse lay also in the town, had got on horseback before us, and engaged with the enemy, but being overpowered, retreated fighting, and sends to Sir Nicholas Crisp for help. Sir Nicholas, moved to see the distress of his friend, turning to me, says he, "What can we do for him?" I told him I thought 'twas time to help him, if possible; upon which, opening the inn gates, we sallied out in very good order, about 300 horse. And several of the troops from other parts of the town joining us, we recovered Colonel Spencer, and charging home, beat back the enemy to their main body. But finding their foot drawn up in the churchyard, and several detachments moving to charge us, we retreated in as good order as we could. They did not think fit to pursue us, but they took all the carriages which were under the convoy of this party, and laden with provisions and ammunition, and above 500 of our horse, the foot shifted away as well as they could. Thus we made off in a shattered condition towards Farringdon, and so to Oxford, and I was very glad my regiment was not there.

We had small rest at Oxford, or indeed anywhere else; for the king was marched from thence, and we followed him. I was something uneasy at my absence from my regiment, and did not know how the king might resent it, which caused me to ride after them with all expedition. But the armies were engaged that very day at Newbury, and I came in too late. I had not behaved myself so as to be suspected of a wilful shunning the action; but a colonel of a regiment ought to avoid absence from his regiment in time of fight, be the excuse never so just, as carefully as he would a surprise in his quarters. The truth is, 'twas an error of my own, and owing to two day's stay I made at the Bath, where I met with some ladies who were my relations. And this is far from being an excuse; for if the king had been a Gustavus Adolphus, I had certainly received a check for it.

This fight was very obstinate, and could our horse have come to action as freely as the foot, the Parliament army had suffered much more; for we had here a much better body of horse than they, and we never failed beating them where the weight of the work lay upon the horse.

Here the city train-bands, of which there was two regiments, and whom we used to despise, fought very well. They lost one of their colonels, and several officers in the action; and I heard our men say, they behaved themselves as well as any forces the Parliament had.

The Parliament cried victory here too, as they always did; and indeed where the foot were concerned they had some advantage; but our horse defeated them evidently. The king drew up his army in battalia, in person, and faced them all the next day, inviting them to renew the fight; but they had no stomach to come on again.

It was a kind of a hedge fight, for neither army was drawn out in the field; if it had, 'twould never have held from six in