1643. "to continue Colonel Massie as Governor of Gloucester, and that the Oct. 19. "gentlemen of the county would take care that the post should be "worth his service and employment." [221] He applied repeatedly to them, representing the destitute condition of his affairs, and his letters were as often referred to their committee, who were to devise a method of giving him satisfaction, but as yet afforded him no relief. A private anecdote attached to this period shews the distraction of the times. Sir Robert Cooke of Highnam, who had been member of the house, and a colonel in the service of the parliament, was deceased; and Massey, with whom he had so lately acted, seems to have interested himself for the benefit of his widow and the younger branches of the family. But as William Cooke, esquire, the eldest son, who was also a member of the commons, was in the king's service, he was of course proclaimed delinquent, and his estate subjected to sequestration. He had sent his servant, William Rowle, probably to make some effort for him at Gloucester; but an order is despatched after Rowle by which he is told that "he is not thought fit to inhabit in the city, the same being a gar"rison for the parliament;" and the lady Cooke is as summarily informed that she may more conveniently dwell in some other place, "than in Gloucester now in garrison, and therefore that she be required "to dwell somewhere else." Allowances and portions were granted to the younger children out of the estate; and the widow petitioned to be exonerated from rates and taxes, and asked for the payment of her husband's arrears; the first of these requests was refused, and the second referred to the committee. Since the house at Highnam had been besieged and pillaged, Sir Robert Cooke had resided in the city in a house belonging to Sir Henry Anderson; but his widow and her children were compelled to make way for Colonel Devereux : whither they retired does not appear. [222] While matters continued in this state the royalists were gradually contracting the circle and closing up on every side. Sir William Vavasour marched into Tewkesbury about the latter end of October. Two regiments under colonels Mynne and Saint Leger, a brigade of the army that had served in Ireland, landed at Bristol, and advanced north ward. [223] Berkeley castle was held for the king by a Scotch captain ; 1643. Sudley castle by a governor for Lord Chandos; and Sir John Wintour had the entire command in the forest of Dean. Detachments under different officers swarmed between Bristol and Tewkesbury during the winter season, and wasted the resources of the markets. Six thousand royalists kept this parliamentary county in perpetual alarm. There were times during which, in some directions, the garrison could not march three miles, and in the most open quarter not more than seven, without meeting an enemy. [224] Both parties established themselves in every eligible spot where a castle or defensible house could be found. Whereever the king's troops had placed a garrison, there, as near to it as possible, the governor planted another; and the state of the country may be more easily imagined than described, when each of these pillaged the houses and estates around it : [225] small as his means were, Massey still kept his adversaries upon the alert; he was continually skirmishing with them, and in general with good success and trifling loss. In every thing that he undertook he exhibited a rare combination of prudence and resolution, and proved himself a most able partisan. Had his resources been equal to his talents, he seemed as if he could have coped with them all. First, he made a dash at Vavasour, and drove him out of Tewkesbury. [226] In the space of five months there was fighting at Berkeley, Beverstone, Brockthorp, Cheltenham, Chepstow, [227] Hartpury, Highleden, Huntley, Marshfield, Newent, Painswick, Tainton, Tetbury, and Wotton-underedge. The governor, seconded by a handful of discontented soldiers, often exposed his person in these encounters. At Tainton he was in extreme peril, where his horse by the critical breaking of the curb became ungovernable, and carried him headlong into a party of the enemy. The cavaliers, recognising him, shouted, "the governor, the governor ;" and for a moment he was in their hands. But one of his troopers, who had not hitherto been distinguished for courage, rushed in after him, pistoled the cavalier who had seized him, and brought him off in safety. [228] By the treachery of an officer he lost two posts at Westbury and Huntley, delivered up to Sir John Wintour, his most acute, and long most formidable enemy; who, in his absence upon one of these expeditions, had nearly surprised the city. Nov. 1643. Sir John Wintour, a nephew of the marquess of Worcester, and a catholic, was a zealous assertor of the royal cause. He had been secretary to the queen, [229] and had so irritated the parliament, that there was hardly any man whom they looked upon with more settled aversion. In 1639, he had been engaged in collecting money for his majesty among the recusants upon a letter addressed to them by the queen. In 1641 he was specified by the houses as one of those dangerous counsellors who ought to be removed from the royal presence, and verge of the court; and, afterwards in 1646, when propositions of peace were framed, he was inserted in that list of the king's unwearied friends, against whom they excepted in one of their qualifications, as persons to be proceeded against for treason. [230] He had received from the crown an extensive grant of coppices, waste land, quarries and mines in the forest of Dean, and was engaged in iron works there. [231] His exertions for the king kept pace with his obligations. Before the siege of Gloucester he began to make preparations, and had fortified his mansion at Lidney, [232] and stored it with arms, ammunition and soldiers. At first he concealed his intentions; but after the raising of the siege, from the time that he openly declared himself, almost up to the period of the governor's removal, he proved himself a thorn in his side. Yet the rest of the royalists were rather content to hem in the garrison and waste the country; and Massey, from necessity, was more commonly the assailant. Vavasour acted with a caution that was blamed by his friends and sneered at by his opponents. It was said that his supineness and ill-executed projects hindered his future promotion; but he might have sufficient reason for declining to waste his men in fruitless conflicts with a few desperadoes, whom he might think it easier to distress than to subdue; and he might be still further encouraged in this system of forbearance, while he had hopes of obtaining by stratagem what he could not acquire by arms. It could not be difficult, and, perhaps, he had found means to ascertain the internal condition of Gloucester, [233] where distress for want of money and ammunition was daily encreasing. They borrowed of one another, till they were mutually exhausted. The corporation and private individuals lent sums for the payment of the troops, and the governor 1643. for some time billeted sixty soldiers and a troop of horse at his own cost. Then, as it has not unfrequently happened in cases of this kind, and most disastrously among the royalists at the close of the war, the managers of affairs fell into disputes. Massey had only heard of his present of a thousand pounds, till the middle of November, when a payment of half the sum was directed to be made. [234] During these difficulties the cavaliers opened a communication with Captain Backhouse, and attempted to induce him by a bribe to let them into the place. The negociation began on the nineteenth of November, and was continued for Nov. 19. ten weeks, in the whole of which time Backhouse behaved with such consummate dissimulation that he entirely blinded the promoters of the plot, and even induced suspicions as to his own fidelity among those of his party who were imperfectly acquainted with his real intention. [235] Were the truth of Butler's observation admissible, that "The pleasure is as great "In being cheated as to cheat," the royalists could have had no ground to complain of their disappointment; but they had a better cause for satisfaction in the issue of the event; for though, while it lasted, never was delusion more complete, yet never was danger more happily averted. A providential circumstance saved Vavasour's entire detachment from ruin; and the attitude that the garrison had assumed on his approach, of which that commander seems to have been afterwards aware, blasted the farther prosecution of the design. The details may be seen in a tract which Backhouse published in his own vindication to meet unfavourable reports that might have been circulated. The question, upon which it turns, forms no part of our subject, and belongs rather to the province of the casuist than the historian; but the parliament were so well satisfied with his narrative that it was sent into the world under the sanction of their authority. Had Backhouse at once rejected the overtures of Stanford, he had earned unqualified approbation, and needed no defence. But it is among the moral evils of a state of warfare, that it suspends the principles which form the basis of social intercourse, and overturns for a season the barriers of right and wrong. 1648-4. 66 The fortifications of Gloucester which had suffered from the artillery of the besiegers were now under repair, [236] and the works constructed by the king's army had been levelled by the military, the citizens, and people who came in from the country to their aid. [237] That nothing might be wanting to promote the future security of the city, the governor constructed new sconces in the Frier's orchard, and at two of the gates. [238] As to operations upon any decisive scale, his inclinations were cramped by want of money and warlike stores. Disheartened by the prospect before him, and in a moment of depression referring the house of commons to the many fruitless appeals that he had made, he told them, that " if he had not present help sent him, his distress was such that he should be forced to deli"ver up the city to the enemy." [239] The parliament were no less perplexed. Demands for their armies poured in upon them from all quarters; men of industry and ability abounded among them; but the task was not an easy one. They applied to the service of Gloucester sequestrations of Captain Ashfield [240] and Sir Francis Willoughby; and the excise upon currants was directed to be appropriated to their use; yet all that could be devised or executed in this way fell far short of what was required. And when the military preparations were in a state to proceed, the powder and ball lingered for a long time at Warwick for want of sufficient escorts to protect it through the king's quarters. The defeat of Lord Hopton at Alresford by Sir William Waller had, indeed, drawn off Vavasour's brigade; but while Colonel Washington lay at Evesham; while Sudley castle was held by a royal garrison, and Prince Rupert was said to be advancing from Shrewsbury with a view to intercept it, the only road by which it could arrive was so beset, that they calculated it would require a convoy of five thousand men, [241] which at this season could not be spared. Attempts to proceed with it were frustrated, and their fears obliged them to return. When on a sudden, contrary to all expectation, a part of it slipped through the royalists in small March, quantities, upon pack-horses, about the middle or latter end of March, [242] and it was followed by three troops of horse under Commissary General Beher with another portion; Lieutenant Colonel Ferrer next appeared, 1644. |