1644-5. delusively professes in the title page to be published" according to order," obtrudes a glaring inaccuracy in the front of its communication. Lancaut was not Sir John Wintour's house; neither was his mansion ever stormed. Feb. 22-24. When the treaty of Uxbridge and the proffered mediation of the Dutch ambassadors had failed, [293] nothing seemed to remain but a last appeal to the sword. Charles was not insensible to the great probability of reverses; and, as a measure of security, he sent the Prince of Wales attended by Lord Clarendon, to keep his court at Bristol under the protection of the faithful and estimable Lord Hopton. They parted from the March 4. king at Oxford on the fourth of March, and neither of them ever saw him more. [294] Though the sinews of war were on all hands greatly exhausted, the parliament seemed in some respects to have the advantage. The excise was renewed; the system of confiscation was encreasingly productive; they had negotiated a loan in London; collections were made in the churches there, and a committee for receiving money sat in almost every hall in the city. [295] They were straining every nerve in the formation of a new army. For still the king was master of an ample force, had circumstances permitted him to concentrate it; but his troops were dispersed over a wide surface, and left in a great measure to shift for themselves. The spring found that portion of them that had been quartered upon Gloucestershire, ravaging as the progress of the season occasioned a diminution of supplies, [296] and invited them to roam abroad. The country exhibited a miserable scene of rapine and alarm. From Campden a party came down to Winchcomb, and plundered the whole town, the garrison of Sudley Castle having no horse to send out to oppose them. Between Gloucester and Cirencester they scarcely left either goods or cattle. But the forest of Dean sustained most injury; for they had immediate access to it from Herefordshire, which was entirely in their possession. Prince Rupert had there collected a strong body from the different garrisons, and with these he took his course into S ropshire watched and followed at a distance by Massey as far as Ledbury. While the latter was at this town, an insurrection of what the historians A pro 1645. of the war call" clubmen" took place in the county of Hereford. vocation they had received from the governor of Hereford was the cause of it; and they mustered as many as fifteen thousand. Some of their leaders made overtures to Massey; but looking with suspicion upon their professions of neutrality, he avoided entering into any engagement with them, and returned to Gloucester. The clubmen made peace with the governor of Hereford, disbanded and withdrew to their homes. [297] Scarcely was this ended when the prince came back into Herefordshire. He was at the head of a very formidable body. His brother Maurice, Colonel Gerrard, commander of the forces in South Wales, Lord Loughborough, Lord Astley and Sir Marmaduke Langdale acted under him. One of their designs was to encrease their army by new levies; and they imprisoned such as offered resistance. On Friday April the second, April 2. they re-entered the forest of Dean, exasperated by the disaffection of those half civilized parts, and leaving dreadful marks of their severity behind them. The Newsbooks present various reports of calamities. In two or three parishes they burned every building that could afford a soldier shelter, [298] houses, cottages, and barns full of corn. The affrighted population fled from before them; many hid themselves in the mines. Too feeble to afford them protection, the governor of Glouces ter was constrained to become a spectator of these ravages; though he was not afraid to march towards them and engage in such trifling bickerings with the skirts of their host as his slender ability would allow. A despatch upon this subject preserved in the "Mercurius Veridicus" is one of the few specimens we have to offer of his epistolary style. "Colonel Massey's letter is our Imprimis from Gloucester." "Sir,-In continuation of my duty, you may be pleased to receive "this account of the prince's army. On Friday last their army marched "into the forest of Deane out of Herefordshire, where they relieved Sir "John Winter's house, which I had blockt up, but I drew my men off "without losse, I praise God. They destroyed the country where they came, and plundered all parts, and fired some. The lower parts to "wards Severne side, I endeavoured to preserve, and did it; but by "reason of the great number of horse the enemy had there, I am not able 1645. "to shew myself in the forrest above hill. Their strength was Sir Mar"maduke Langdale's brigade of horse, consisting of 1500, and some of "Prince Rupert's horse, about 500 more, Major General Askley's foot, "three troopes, and the rest of the Lord Harbert's forces. I had not, "neither could I make, above two hundred horse and foot; I marched eighty shot, enough to have grappled with their infantry, besides the "assistance of the countrymen, now resolved (since all is gone) to make "the warre their living. I writ to Sir William Brereton and Sir William "Waller for assistance of a 1000 horse, but no relief. The Lord grant "that for the future things may be redressed. "I humbly take my leave, and rest, "Your humble and reall servant, "ED. MASSEY." "Postecript.-Sir Marmaduke Langdale was shot at Nash garrison, "a petty garrison of ours in the forest, and lyeth very ill of the same, now at Monmouth, and the enemy is retreated into Hereford"shire." [299] Another account represents him upon Huntley Hill, facing them with two hundred horse on their way to Ross. They halted and looked at him from an opposite eminence; but apprehending that his boldness could only arise from some ambuscade into which he wished to draw them they declined a nearer approach. [300] According to Corbet they entered and scourged the forest a second time. [301] Massey afterwards ascertaining that they were advancing northward, continued to observe their movements; and having received a reinforcement from Warwick and Northampton, though the whole number destined for him by the parliament had not arrived, hastened with four hundred horse and five hundred foot to take up his quarters at Ledbury. The importance of the ensuing event induces a particular mention of it, though it is not strictly attached to the county. Here by some negligence of scouts or outposts six thousand men were upon him before he April 22. was aware, and he was nearly cut off. On the twenty second of April, Prince Rupert having marched all night came unperceived within half a mile of the town. There was neither work nor barricado to stop him, and he thought to have surrounded the parliamentarians. Massey drew up his foot in haste and sent them forward on the Gloucester road: his horse, waiting to cover their retreat, were not so soon ready, and were in some disorder when the cavaliers arrived. Prince Rupert, with his habitual impetuosity, instantly charged. The officers that Massey had with him were Majors Harlow, Baytie, and Backhouse, Gifford, More and Kyrle who betrayed Monmouth to the parliament. These for the most part received the first brunt of the onset. Neither at Andover's ford, nor at Tainton, nor at Beachley had Massey been in greater peril. The prince sought a personal encounter with him and shot his horse. For once the governor of Gloucester fled from his enemies. How any of the party got off is quite inexplicable. Detachments pushed forward on the right and left tried to surround the foot. The road was probably more open than it now is; and there must have been a running fight along it for four miles out of Ledbury; but at last the royalists fell in upon the rearguard and took about two hundred prisoners, abandoned by the horse, who could not be brought up again to check the pursuers. In this affair Harlow was hurt, and Backhouse, Massey's long-tried and valuable comrade, mortally wounded. It is too curious a circumstance not to admit of a digression, that Lord Loughborough, brother to Ferdinando Earl of Huntingdon, who was engaged on the prince's side, never saw Massey from that hour till nearly three years after, when in February, 1648, they accidentally met in exile. As this nobleman, escaped from England, and on his way to the Hague, where the king then resided, was passing over the new bridge at Rotterdam, he was observed and accosted by Massey from recollection of his person at Ledbury fight. Massey acquainted him with his loyal intentions, for he had then forsaken the parliament; was courteously admitted to accompany him on his journey; and they were ushered together into the presence of the king. [302] The governor of Gloucester sent a full account of this affair at Ledbury to the commons. Two letters from him dated the twenty-fifth and 1645. twenty-sixth of April were read in the house on the first of May. May 1. Disregarding the manner of his surprise, they looked upon his retreat 1645. from so superior a force in such a favourable light, that they gave him additional tokens of their approbation. They settled upon him the iron works and mills that had belonged to Sir John Wintour; voting him two hundred pounds; and,-as it should seem in pointed compensation for the loss of his own horse, which he might not easily be able to replace,"six good horses of service, well appointed with saddles, pistols and "other furniture." [303] They had in the foregoing month voted two thousand pounds for the payment of his regiment to be sent down by Sir William Waller. Whether that general brought it to him is uncertain. Waller had of late been in Somersetshire, throwing relief into Taunton, and meditating the surprisal of Bristol: [304] but the famous selfdenying ordinance, which turned out of the army all the officers, Cromwell excepted, who were members of the parliament, was about to deprive him of his command. Fairfax had been appointed lord general, and Cromwell had new-modelled the army according to his own interest and pleasure. The campaign of this summer was most disastrous to the royal cause. In a letter of Charles to the queen he augured that it would prove the hottest of the war; [305] but he little imagined that it would reduce him so very low. Fairfax with the new-modelled army had marched into the west, and his majesty thought that a way was opened for him to go to the relief of Chester. He sent for Rupert to attend him. By levy and impressment, by draining garrisons, and by the aid of a detachment from Goring, that prince had concentrated at Worcester what Heath calls "a competent army." He obeyed the summons, and with his brother Maurice, the horse and a select body of foot repaired to Oxford. The committee of both kingdoms who now directed the military affairs of the parliament, had notice of this movement, and despatched orders to Cromwell to hinder it; but he did not leave Windsor in time. May 7. Charles took the field on the seventh of May with about eight thousand men, and thirty field-pieces in his train of artillery. On the eighth he quartered and passed the night at Stow. [306] There Goring left him, and was watched by Massey in his track over the hills to join Hopton and Greenvil in Somersetshire. Other detachments fell into the gross |