22

Prince Rupert takes Lichfield.

[VII. 34. 1643 he would not have engaged before it; for his strength consisted, upon the matter, wholly in horse; his foot and dragoons being an inconsiderable force for such an attempt. But whether the difficulties were not throughly discerned and weighed at first, or whether the importance of the place was thought so great that it was worth an equal hazard and adventure, he resolved not to move till he had tried the uttermost; and to that purpose drew what addition of force he could out of the country, to strengthen his handful of foot; and persuaded many officers and volunteers of the horse to alight, and bear their parts in the duty, with which they cheerfully and gallantly complied; and in less than ten days he had drawn the moat dry, and prepared two bridges for the graff. The besieged omitted nothing that could be performed by vigilant and bold men, and killed and wounded many of the besiegers, and disappointed and spoiled one mine they had prepared. In the end, early in the morning, the prince having prepared all things in readiness for the assault, he sprung another mine, which succeeded according to wish, and made a breach of twenty foot in the wall, in a place least suspected by those within; yet they defended it with all possible courage and resolution, and killed and hurt very many; whereof some, officers of prime quality, whereof the lord Digby, colonel Gerard, colonel Wagstaffe, and major Legg, were the chief of the wounded; and when they had entered the breach, they continued the dispute so fiercely within, (the narrowness of the breach, and the ascent, not suffering many to enter together, and no horse being able to get over,) that, after they had killed colonel Usher and some other good officers, and taken others prisoners, (for both colonel Wagstaffe and April 21. William Legg were in their hands,) they compelled the prince. to consent to very honourable conditions; which he readily yielded to, as thinking himself a gainer by the bargain. And so the garrison marched out with fair respect, and a princely testimony of having made a courageous defence; his highness being very glad of his conquest, though the purchase had shrewdly shaken his troops, and robbed him of many officers and soldiers he much valued. At this time, either the day

VII. 35.] The King marches to relieve Reading.

23

before or the day after this action, prince Rupert received a 1643 positive order from the King to make all possible haste, with all the strength he had and all he could draw together from those parts, to the relief of Reading: which was in the danger we but now left it. Upon which his highness, committing the government of Litchfield to colonel Baggott, a son of a good and powerful family in that county, and appointing his troops to make what haste was possible after him, himself with a few servants came to Oxford to attend the King, whom he found gone towards Reading.

35. The importunity from that garrison for relief was so peremptory, and the concernment so great in their preservation, that the King found it would not bear the necessary delay of prince Rupert's returning with his forces; and therefore his majesty in person, with those horse and foot which he could speedily draw together, leaving very few behind him in Oxford or in any other garrison, advanced towards Reading; hoping April 24. (and that was the utmost of his hope) that he might with the assistance of the garrison be able to force one quarter, and so draw out his men, and, by the advantage of those rivers which divided the enemy and the passes, to be able to retire to Oxford; for, being joined, he would not have near one half of the enemy's army. When he drew near the town, the day being passed whereon they had been promised, or had promised themselves, relief, he was encountered by a party of the enemy, April 25. which defended their post, and being quickly seconded by supplies of horse and foot from all their quarters, after a very sharp conflict, in which many fell on both sides, the King's party, commanded by the earl of Forth himself, the general, consisting of near one thousand musketeers, was forced to retire to their body; which they did the sooner, because those of the town made no semblance of endeavouring to join with them; which was that they principally relied upon. The reason of that was, the garrison, not seeing their relief coming, sent for a parley to the enemy, which was agreed to, with a truce for so many hours, upon which hostages were delivered, and a treaty begun, when the King came to relieve it. Upon the view of

24

Reading surrendered.

[VII. 35. 1643 the enemy's strength and intrenchment, all were of opinion that the small forces of the King would not be able to raise the siege, or to join with those in the town; and in this melancholic conclusion his majesty retired for the present, resolving to make any other reasonable attempt the next day. In the mean time, some soldiers found means to escape out of the town, and colonel Feilding himself in the night came to the King, and told him the state they were in, and that they were in treaty, and he believed might have very good conditions, and liberty to march away with all their arms and baggage; which was so welcome news, that the King bade him, (prince Rupert being then present,) that if he could procure such conditions he should accept them: for indeed the men and the arms were all that the King desired, and the loss of either of which was like to prove fatal to him. The King continued still at Nettlebedd, a village seven or eight miles 1 distant from Reading, to attend the success of the treaty; resolving, if it succeeded not, to try the utmost again for their redemption; but all men heartily praying for liberty to march off upon the treaty. The next day these April 27. articles were agreed on :

36. 1. 'That the governor, commanders, and soldiers, both horse and foot, might march out with flying colours, arms, and four pieces of ordnance, ammunition, bag and baggage, light match, bullet in mouth, drums beating, and trumpets sounding.

2. That they might have free passage to his majesty's city of Oxford, without interruption of any of the forces under the command of his excellency the earl of Essex; provided the said governor, commanders, and soldiers use no hostility until they come to Oxford.

3. That what persons were accidentally come to the town, and shut up by the siege, might have liberty to pass without interruption; such persons only excepted as had run away from the army under the command of the earl of Essex.

4. That they should have fifty carriages for baggage, sick, and hurt men. 5. That the inhabitants of the town of Reading should not be prejudiced in their estates or persons, either by plundering or imprisonment; and that they who would leave the town might have free leave and passage safely to go to what place they would, with their goods, within the space of six weeks after the surrender of the town.

6. That the garrison should quit the town by twelve of the clock the next morning; and that the earl of Essex should provide a guard for the security of the garrison soldiers when they began to march.'

VII. 38.]

Reading surrendered.

25

37. Upon these articles, signed by the earl of Essex, the 1643 town was delivered on the 27th day of April, (being within a fortnight after the siege began,) and the garrison marched to the King, who stayed for them, and with him to Oxford. But at their coming out of the town, and passing through the enemy's guards, the soldiers were not only reviled and reproachfully used, but many of them disarmed, and most of the waggons plundered, in the presence of the earl of Essex himself and the chief officers, who seemed to be offended at it, and not to be able to prevent it; the unruliness of their common men being so great. And as this breach of the articles was very notorious and inexcusable, so it was made the rise, foundation, and excuse for barbarous injustice of the same kind throughout the greatest part of the war; insomuch as the King's soldiers afterwards, when it was their part to be precise in the observations of agreements, mutinously remembered the violation at Reading, and thereupon exercised the same license; and from thence, either side having somewhat to object to the other, that requisite honesty and justice of observing conditions was mutually, as it were by agreement, for a long time after violated.

381. There had been, in the secret committee for the carrying on the war, forming those designs, and administering to the expenses thereof, a long debate, with great difference of opinion, whether they should not march directly with their army to besiege Oxford, where the King and the Court was, rather than Reading; and if they had taken that resolution, as Mr. Hambden, and all they who desired still to strike at the root, very earnestly insisted upon, without doubt they had put the King's affairs into great confusion. For, besides that the town was not tolerably fortified, nor the garrison well provided for, the Court, and multitude of nobility and ladies and gentry with which it was inhabited, bore any kind of alarum very ill. But others, who did not yet think their army well enough composed to resist all temptations, nor enough subdued in their inclinations to loyalty and reverence towards the person of the King, had no mind it should besiege the very place where the 1 [This section is taken from the Life, p. 223.]

26

The King returns to Oxford.

[VII. 38. 1643 King himself was; and the earl of Essex himself, who was yet the soul of the army, had no mind to that enterprise and so the army marched, as hath been said, directly to Reading, with the success that is mentioned1.

39. Though, at the instant, the Parliament was highly pleased with the getting the town, and the King as well contented when he saw his entire garrison safely joined to the rest of his army, (for it cannot be denied the joy was universal through the King's quarters, upon the assurance that they had recovered full four thousand good men, whom they had given for lost,) yet, according to the vicissitude in war when accounts are cast up, either party grew quickly unsatisfied with its success. The King was no sooner returned to Oxford but upon conference between the officers and soldiers there grew a whisper that there had not been fair carriage, and that Reading had been betrayed, and from thence made a noise through Oxford; and the very next day, and at the same time, colonel Feilding,

1 [The last six words are interlined, and the following passage is here struck out in the MS.-' where sir Arthur Aston (a man of a much greater reputation in war than he deserved) was governor, with three thousand good foot and a regiment of horse; and if that body of foot (which should have been drawn out within less than a month, which was as soon as it was imagined that the enemy would take the field) had been cut off, the King would have been deprived of the best part of his infantry; which was well enough known to the enemy, and was the principal cause of their engagement. The works were rather a trench cast up to secure a winter quarter than any fortification to endure a siege, the purpose having been always to throw in all the works in the spring, and to leave the town open, his majesty having not men enough to supply garrisons, and retaining still the old unhappy opinion that another action in the field would determine the contest. However, the earl of Essex, thinking it to be stronger than it was, or willing that others should think it so, quartered his army round about it, to keep it from supply, and disposed all things for a formal siege. The several transactions within and without the town during that siege; the hurt of the governor, whether real or pretended; the treaty about the surrender, and the King's endeavour to relieve it during that treaty and after it was begun, and the garrison's refusing to draw out because of the treaty; the surrender of the town thereupon, and the secure march of the garrison to Oxford; the disorders and jealousies which happened there about that surrender; the earl of Essex his march towards Oxford, and drawing up his whole army in sight thereof, and the consternation there, and his making his headquarter at Thame, are all fitter subjects for the history of that time than for this narration,' (namely, the author's Life).]