Cavaliers and Roundheads

At Lala's recent birthday, Margaret asked John Coffey, a senior lecturer in  History at Leicester University if the Horrible History series had affected the student populations interest in studying history?  John said yes, they now had to make show what they taught was exciting enough, with lots of blood gore and intrigue.  The Civil War fits the bill exactly.  I recently read Grandpa's book by Christopher Hibbert called 'Cavaliers and Roundheads'- The English Civil War from 1642 to 1649.  Interestingly, Scotland, and Ireland appear to have suffered far more greatly than England.  London got off the lightest I believe.

What I learned.
Charles and his new bride, Queen Henrietta lived in Somerset House on the Strand.  Nothing from the original building remains as it was rebuilt in 1775.  However it is the place both Inigo Jones, and Oliver Cromwell dead.  Queen Henrietta came back to live their after the restoration until the plague in 1665, when she left for France.  Charles the seconds wife, Catherine of Braganza lived there after the death of Charles.

Queen's Sconce Newark

Did the English war start in Scotland?  The Scots resented Charles trying to Anglicises the kirk.  First blood was said to be Richard Percival, a weaver in Manchester.  First war was said to be two sallies by the parliamentary defenders of Hull against the Royalist attackers.

London, Oxford and other towns and cities at the time were surrounded by earth embankments.  Not much can be seen of these except at Newark, where two earth defensive works are well preserved.  There are a few others around the place, but not many.  Cities like Read, Gloucester, Chester.

Oxford was royalist- though apparently 'town' were against the crown and tried to close the gates.  Cambridge were for parliament.  Hull gave the greatest indignity to the king.  When he arrived at the city gates they were charged to open the gate in the name oif the king.  The city elders ask for 15 minutes to think about it.

Sir Arthur Haselrig, from Leicester, provided his men with articulated armour.  They were nicknamed 'the lobsters'.  Leicester got a bit of a kicking before Naseby.  The city attempted to keep the gates closed, and couldn't hold out for long.

After the barbaric battle of Edgehill, bodies lay dying on the cold near subzero field.  Stripped by thieves, two men, Sir George Scrope one of them, were found the following morning to be alive.  His son rescued him and a surgeon commented that the cold night and keeping still had probably kept them alive, despite 16 wounds to the head and body.

Oxford, capital of England from 1942 to 1946, became a city full of rich people learning to live as average mortals.  The queen lodged in the warden of Merton College's rooms.  The King was in Christchurch.  The churches of Oxford were saved from being rid of their statues by Lord Fairfax, who took control of Oxford at the King's demise.  He ordered that all churches were to be respected.

The parliamentary siege of Basing Castle was an epic of the war.  Where is Basing House?  It's near Old Basing...and?  Oh yes, just outside Basingstoke.  Ah 'Basing House (as apposed to Bassing Castle.  What's left?  Not much, a deep moat, and steep banks and some crumbled ruins.

Naseby.  I've been there.  I read nothing about Cromwell not being there at the beginning of the fight because of the Self-Denying Ordinance.  He was General of the Horse after all.  Also nothing about the novice New Model Army firing muskets over the heads of the Royalists, because of the kick back on the guns.  The wounded cavaliers limped into Market Harborough parish church and lay dying on the church pews.

The siege of  Basing House

Aerial view of Basing House today

And what about Basing House?  On 15th October 1645 the outer walls of this nest of Romanists was broken down.  Priests were killed and a young woman who tried to defend her father.  Inigo Jones was found and stripped naked, and sent out with only a blanket.  He later went on to fulfil commissions for the restoration of Somerset House for the widow Queen Henrietta, when her son Charles II was brought to regain the throne in 1658.  And yes, he was collected from Holland in a ship named 'The Naseby'.