OLIVER CROMWELL - HERO OR VILLAIN? PART THREE
OLIVER CROMWELL – HERO OR VILLAIN? PART THREE
During that final period of peace, from the assembly of the Long Parliament to the outbreak of war, Oliver Cromwell was noted as one of the more industrious MPs. He was appointed to sit on numerous committees, including that to inquire into a petition presented by his own constituents in Ely and Huntingdon protesting against land enclosures carried out by Viscount Mandeville, later the Earl of Manchester. He was effective in debate, constantly harrying those loyal to the crown or those whom he considered to be closet Catholics. He spoke in favour of banning the playing of sport on Sundays; of forbidding bowing and making the sign of the cross at the name of Jesus; of denying Catholic peers the right to sit in the House of Lords and the compulsory preaching of sermons in all parish churches.
The final break came in March 1642 when Parliament passed the Militia Ordinance, which removed command of the Militia from the King and transferred it to Parliament. No longer would the Lords Lieutenant of the counties – royal appointees – be responsible for recruiting and training, but men appointed by Parliament. With the King in loyalist York in June 1642 Parliament now presented him with the ‘Nineteen Propositions’, the last chance to avoid war. These were demands that Charles could not possibly accept, and not only included the removal of bishops from the House of Lords and a root and branch reform of the church, with anti-Catholic laws strictly enforced, but also demanded that the education of the King’s children be supervised by Parliament and their marriages approved by that body. Privy Councillors and Governors of fortifications were to be appointed by Parliament as were generals and other senior military commanders. Charles rejected them, and if the monarchy was to retain any power at all he had no choice but to do so. Parliament now appointed the Earl of Essex as commander in chief of the army, such as it was, while Charles issued commissions of array ordering the raising of troops from the areas loyal to him.
There had not been a battle on English soil since Bosworth in 1485, and shortage of money to maintain a professional army when there seemed to be no need for it meant that by the 1640s there was no English army as such, with the King having the Yeomen of the Guard, more ceremonial than operational, and a personal bodyguard of gentlemen pensioners. The only other armed bodies were the garrisons of forts and the militia, or ‘Trained Bands’ which were part time units required only to serve within their own boundaries, usually, but not always, that of the county. As they had not been needed for many a year they were mostly scantily trained and equipped with obsolete weapons held in the town armoury. The exceptions were the London Trained Bands which were held to be well trained, competently led and well equipped, and the Cornwall Militia.
Although there was no inherent military experience in the population at large there was a supply of men who had served as mercenary soldiers in the armies of Holland, France and the German states, and these were very much in demand by both King and Parliament to train and lead their embryo armies. Although hostilities had not yet broken out the navy declared for Parliament, which meant that the King would have great difficulty in importing such supplies and weaponry that the queen was trying to buy in Europe, having pawned the crown jewels to do so. London was under the control of Parliament, with all the wealth and manpower that entailed, and in general the cities and towns declared for Parliament which gave them control of the arsenals. Rural areas and some cities, such as Oxford and York, declared for the King, but while Parliament could rely on funding from the merchants of London, the King was dependent on his supporters and such loans as he might raise abroad.
On 27 May 1642 Parliament announced that the King intended to make war on his people, and so effectively declared war on him. The King went to Nottingham and raised his standard there, declaring that Parliament and its supporters were traitors and calling for men to rally to his colours.
Parliament now appointed eighty ‘captains’, each with a warrant to raise a troop of cavalry and each given £1,200 to pay and equip the men and purchase the horses. Others were nominated to raise regiments of foot. Oliver was one of the cavalry captains and lost no time in encouraging his tenants and friends in Huntingdon to join. Unlike some captains, who enlisted anyone they could persuade to join, Oliver was more selective, accepting only ‘religious’ men, by which he meant men who were well behaved and of sober habits, most of whom he would have known or known about. A troop was then around 100 men and as horses cost between £5 and £10 there was little left over to pay the men and equip them. Cavalrymen of the period were, in theory at least, dressed in a helmet, a breastplate and a backplate, weighing around twenty-five pounds, and armed with a pistol and a sword, but initially many had only a helmet and a sword of whatever pattern could be obtained. At forty-three years of age and with no military experience whatever it is remarkable how swiftly Oliver learned how to train and lead soldiers. There were numerous tracts and manuals explaining tactics and training methods, and Oliver would have read those, but no amount of book learning can make a soldier, much less an officer, and one can only conclude that Oliver was one of those rare beings – a naturally gifted military leader.
Cavalry actions on the Continent had revolved around big men on big horses, who approached their opponents in a stately manner, fired their pistols, turned about and trotted away. Oliver was convinced that what was wanted was a tougher, smaller and more tractable horse and that after discharging their pistols the men should draw swords and charge. As a country farmer Oliver knew about horses and the ones he bought – or sequestered if the owner was royalist – were hairy heeled cobby types of around fourteen or fifteen hands high, well up to weight and not needing to be pampered. His training methods, initially applied only to his own troop and regarded with amusement and some disdain by other commanders, would eventually be applied to the whole army and be a major factor in Parliamentarian victories.
Despite the King’s shortage of funds he initially held a considerable military advantage. His cavalry, composed of gentlemen of the shires who had ridden before they could walk, were far better horsemen than the ploughboys and shopkeepers of the Parliamentary cavalry, and he had the added advantage of the presence of his two nephews, the Princes Rupert and Maurice, sons of his sister Elizabeth, the ex-queen of Bohemia, and her husband Frederick an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. Rupert, although only in his early twenties, was already an experienced soldier having led cavalry in the Thirty Years War. Charles appointed him as his cavalry commander, and to begin with his cavalry was far superior to anything Parliament could field.
Infantry of the period was divided into pikemen and musketeers. Such armour that was available for pikemen was soon discarded as being too heavy, and most pikemen on both sides went into battle with only a helmet for protection. The pike was sixteen feet long with a steel point. The pikemen formed up six ranks deep, levelled their pikes shoulder high, and charged, or more likely walked swiftly, towards their enemy in what was called ‘push of pike’. It was little different from the Greek phalanx or the medieval Scottish schiltron and as the enemy employed the same tactics it all depended upon who could push the hardest. Pikemen also carried a sword for use at close quarters. Musketeers were armed with a matchlock weighing fifteen pounds. It was twelve bore, that is the barrel was wide enough to fire a lead ball of one and a third ounces. Loading was a complex procedure entailing pouring a small amount of powder into the pan which was then closed, and then pouring the rest of the powder down the barrel, followed by the ball and finally a wad of paper, the purpose of which was to prevent the ball rolling out if the musket was pointed downwards. The whole was then rammed down with the rammer, or scouring stick, which was held alongside the barrel in metal bands. Firing was by a slow match, which was a length of cord soaked in saltpetre which burned very slowly. The musketeer would fix his slow match into the ‘serpent’, an S shaped piece of metal on a swivel behind the pan, would aim his weapon and pull the trigger, which would open the pan and lower the serpent into it, igniting the powder which would then flash through a hole into the breech of the musket and ignite the main charge. As the weapon was smooth bore it was highly inaccurate, with an effective range of only around seventy-five yards – indeed it was said that a man was perfectly safe from a musket provided that it was aimed at him. To ensure that fire was effective musketeers were lined up shoulder to shoulder and fired in volleys. They generally formed up six ranks deep, with the front rank firing and then turning to their right and moving to the rear to re-load, with each rank doing the same in turn. By the time the sixth rank had fired the original front rank had re-loaded and the process continued. Musketeers carried twelve cartridges, each in a wooden bottle shaped container, the whole carried on a bandolier. Originally musketeers were equipped with a pitchfork shaped rest, to take the weight of the barrel, but by the time hostilities opened in 1643 the musket being produced was lighter and rests were hardly ever used. As the war went on and muskets became more reliable the proportion of musketeers increased to about two thirds of an army, although in age before the invention of the bayonet, pikemen would still be needed to protect the musketeers from a cavalry charge.
Along with cavalry and infantry was the hybrid dragoon. He was essentially a mounted infantryman who moved on horseback but got off his horse to fight as a musketeer. Owing to the difficulty of managing a slow match on a horse, dragoons were armed with a flintlock musket, a much more expensive weapon, where a piece of iron pyrites on a spring ignited the powder in the pan. Pistols were usually wheel-locks, again using iron pyrites held in a clockwork mechanism. Both sides employed artillery, heavy siege guns designed to blow holes in city walls, and much lighter field pieces which could move with the army. Men had to be trained to operate as members of a team, rather than as individuals, and infantry had to learn to march, not necessarily in step but with a cadenced step, usually seventy paces to the minute, for only thus could blocks of men change frontage or direction without opening up gaps that would be exploited by enemy cavalry. To be effective a commander had to be able to combine and coordinate the actions of the cavalry, the infantry and the artillery so as to provide shock on the battlefield and kill or disperse the enemy force. To begin with not many on the Parliamentary side knew how to do this, and tactical deployment was very much trial and error. Most units, on both sides, were in the hands of enthusiastic amateurs and it was Oliver’s good fortune that he was not greatly involved in the opening skirmishes and battles of the war, and so was able to contemplate what had worked and what had not, and so draw the relevant lessons.
With the King’s army arrayed at Nottingham, after much deliberation and self-doubt Charles resolved to march on London. If he could take the capital then the rebellion would collapse and on 12 October 1643 he began his march. There had been little road building in England since Roman times, and roads were muddy rutted tracks. The first clash, when it came, was almost accidental. The Earl of Essex, commanding the main Parliamentary army, was at Worcester, his vanguard having received a very bloody nose from Prince Rupert’s cavalry, at this stage far superior to anything that Parliament could put in the field. It was impossible to conceal the movements of large armies and very soon Essex knew the King’s intention and on 19th October moved to block him. On the 22nd October the King’s army was bivouacked over a wide area west of Banbury, while Essex’s troops had reached Kineton. Neither side had reconnoitred properly and while they knew, from clashes between foraging parties, that each were in the area, they had no idea exactly where. The King took the advice of his nephew Rupert and ordered the royalist army of 2,800 cavalry, 800 dragons, 9,000 foot and twenty cannon of various types to assemble on Edgehill, a long ridge that dominated all approaches from the west and north west and from Kineton, where it was becoming more and more likely that the Parliamentary army were.
The Earl of Essex marched Parliament’s army, 2,200 cavalry, 700 dragoons, 12,000 foot and thirty guns including at least two twelve pounders, to the plain between Kineton and Radway, their every movement watched by the royalists on the high ground above them. It should have been the moment for the royalists to strike, while the Parliamentarians were forming up, but a childish row broke out among the King’s commanders. Charles had appointed the sixty-years-old Robert Bertie, first Earl of Lindsey, an experienced soldier who had fought in the Netherlands in the Dutch service, as Lord General, or commander in chief, of the army. Prince Rupert, on the other hand, insisted that he took orders only from the King and the result was a fractious and divided council of war. Lindsey advocated deploying in the traditional Dutch way, which he had experience of, while Rupert wanted to use the Swedish system in accordance with what he had learned. When Charles decided, after much discussion, that he would side with his nephew, Lindsey flounced out saying that he would no longer command the army but only his own regiment of infantry. Charles replaced him with Sir Jacob Astley, a sixty-three-years old veteran of the Dutch wars who had been the sergeant-major general, or second in command, of the army.
The delay in resolving the royalist command structure meant that the Parliamentarians were given time to sort out their alignment, but when Prince Rupert brought his cavalry down the slope and charged and routed the Parliamentarian cavalry on their left wing, followed by other Royalist cavalry doing the same to Parliament’s right wing, it looked as all was up for the roundheads. Unfortunately the royalist cavalry, instead of regrouping and attacking the now unprotected flanks of their enemy, galloped after the fleeing Parliamentarian cavalry as far as Kineton and then stopped to loot their baggage. Although some of Parliament’s infantry had run, and the ironically named Sir Faithful Fortescue had taken his regiment over to the King, what infantry that was left managed to push the royalist infantry back. Lindsey was killed and the King ’s standard taken and only the late but eventual return of Prince Rupert and his cavalry saved the day. As night fell the battle was inconclusive, leaving about 1500 dead, but as Essex withdrew the King was left in possession of the field. Parliament had failed to cut him off from the road to London.
Oliver was not present at Edgehill, although confusingly his twenty-years-old son, also Oliver was, as a cornet (second lieutenant) in another cavalry regiment (he would die of typhoid two years later). Oliver senior and his troops were marching to the battle, but by the time he got there it was all over. This was perhaps in Oliver’s favour, for it meant that he was not connected with the failures of Essex’s forces, and had time to ponder on the battle and draw the lessons from it – which were the need to train Parliament’s soldiers to work together, to rely on their faith in God and to be officered by men who knew their business rather than holding rank because of their social or political positions. He was particularly taken by the speed at which Rupert, before his men reverted to loot and pillage, was able to bring his cavalry into action, something that made a deep impression on the still learning cavalry commander to be.