Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  It was a strong argument but other officers were now joining in the discussion, so Daniel backed away. It was nothing to him, for he himself had only five men to worry about. Instead of bleating with the rest of the sheep, he decided to go and sit with Haselrig and make sure that his barber seemed capable. He didn't want a repeat of Hampden's demise.

  "Broken arm, crushed ribs, horrific bruising, some concussion, some minor scratches and one shallow puncture made by a carbine ball," the barber told him. "That can all be fixed, so he should mend and live, that is, so long as nothing gets infected."

  "I have a special tincture that will stop any infection," boasted the apothecary, who like most apothecaries was pretending to be a physician.

  "I have my own tinctures for his wounds," Daniel hissed at the physician. "Put any of yours on the general's wounds and I'll cut your balls off. Aren't there other wounded that need your tinctures? I'll stay and help the barber."

  "Surgeon," the barber corrected him. "Today I am a surgeon."

  They were just finishing with Arthur and making him comfortable so he could rest, when his major came in to see how he was. "Can he be moved?" was the question he asked again and again of the barber, who did not want to say.

  "Carefully," the barber eventually replied. "If he is to be moved any distance he will need a sprung coach. Why?"

  "I am taking him to Bath within the hour," the major replied in a hushed voice.

  "What's happening up on the Downs?" the barber asked the major.

  "That's the problem," the major replied. "We don't rightly know. Lots of musket fire. Waller's infantry are still shooting, but it is sporadic. Infantry cannot attack cavalry except in ambush, whereas cavalry cannot attack a well drilled infantry without being shot to pieces. My guess is that the royalists are feigning charges to make them waste powder and keep them nervous."

  Daniel was listening but did not look up because he was cleaning another man's wounds. Small groups of mounted men, usually wounded, continued to brave the open fields now controlled by the royalist light cavalry, in order to reach the relative safety of the siege camp at Rowde. The man that Daniel was helping was a captain in Duett's reserve cavalry, a captain who had cut his teeth in the Dutch wars.

  "What is happening up on the Downs," Daniel asked him as he cleaned up his wounds so that the barber could have a proper look at them.

  The captain winced as the cleansing vinegar dripped into his cuts, but then sucked in his breath and said, "Confusion. Waller is waiting for his cavalry regiments to return to support his infantry, but I fear he is waiting in vain. He's formed the infantry into staggered squares and has them surrounding the three guns we still hold."

  "Only three? What happened to the rest?"

  "Well," the captain said between sucks of breath, "when Hungerford’s regiment made that mad dash to try to help the Lobsters, their two field guns were captured and dragged away. Behind the infantry there were five, but one blew up, and that destroyed the carriage of the gun beside it. That leaves Waller but three guns and it won't be long before the royalists begin using his own guns against him."

  "Do you know what Waller plans to do? He must have a plan. He always has a plan."

  "He did have a plan, but it didn't work. I suppose it was too obvious. When he first ordered the infantry into staggered squares his plan was to march them across the downs to the main camp at Bagnall Hill. That camp is still held by Hungerford’s light cavalry, and it controls the Bath coach road. Well of course the royalists couldn't allow that to happen, so they have been blocking any march towards that camp. Unfortunately they did not make any move to block Waller until he had already given up the high ground of Roundway Hill so now he is marooned on the downs between those two hills."

  Daniel had momentarily stopped mopping up blood with a bandage while he visualized the downs and the hills. The royalist cavalry had already done what they had come to do, relieve Devizes. There was nothing to stop them from riding into the town and joining and defending Hopton. That the royalist cavalry had not yet ridden into town could only mean one thing. That Waller's army was in dire straights. Of course the royalists would keep up their attacks.

  It would have been very different if Waller had been able to march his infantry from Roundway Hill to Bagnall Hill. That would not only have kept his main camp and supplies safe, but would re-join the infantry with the light cavalry. True he would have failed to stop the relief of Hopton in Devizes but at least his army would remain strong, and they would still control the Bath Coach road to Chippenham. Aye, but too obvious, so now he had given up one defendable position but had not gained the other. "So what is Waller going to do now?" Daniel asked.

  "The last I saw, it seemed like he was moving his pike squares towards the old hill fort."

  "Devil's Leap?" Daniel said aghast. "No, he mustn't. Not with those steep bluffs on three sides. If things go badly, he will be trapped."

  "His cavalry may be trapped," the captain explained, "but not the infantry. They can always retreat down the bluffs where the royalist cavalry can't follow. In any case, Waller has little chance of reaching the hill fort. If the royalists can stop them from reaching Bagnall Hill, then they can also stop them from reaching the hill fort. It's a stale mate, you know, like in chess. You do play chess don't you?"

  Daniel wasn't listening anymore. He wiped his hands on a rag and then dashed away from the captain to find the Lobster officers who were negotiating with Hopton. They must not agree to the terms. Not with this new intelligence. They must stop the Cornish infantry from leaving the town and wait for a chance to break the stale mate on the downs so that Waller could move his infantry to Bagnall Hill. When he found the Lobster officers he told them what the captain had said.

  "That is just one man's report and one man's opinion," the major told Daniel dismissively. "We cannot make such a change to our plans without facts and proof, and we don't have it. Not for a decision that could cost hundreds and hundreds of lives."

  Daniel stared at him in disbelief and then stormed away from him and the other officers. Let them explain their cowardice to their general. In order to cool his temper he walked up to the siege gun emplacement. The gunners were all sitting about watching the hills to the north and listening.

  "Oy," one of the gunners said, "look at that." He was pointing to the town. "Bloody Cornishmen are marching out." He saluted Daniel as the only officer present. "Permission to fire on them sir."

  With all of his heart Daniel wanted to give that order, but it was not his to give. "Best go and ask your own officer, lad. I'm just visiting.” The gunner ran off to find his officer, and Daniel immediately regretted not giving the order to fire. If he had, that would have stalled the negotiations with Hopton. Without the truce, surely the gunners, the dragoons, and the Lobsters could have put the run on the Cornishmen back into the town. At least that would give Waller more time. But then what? More time meant more killing. Perhaps a lot more killing. No, the order to open fire was not his to give.

  * * * * *

  One of the stipulations of the negotiations with Hopton were that sprung coaches were to be provided to carry any badly wounded Lobsters to Bath. The wounded and drugged Arthur Haselrig was carried from Devizes in the very same coach which had carried the blinded Hopton into Devizes. Daniel rode with the guard following the coach, but then the coach pulled over because Arthur was having some kind of fit. After that he tied Millie to the coach and traveled inside with Arthur and the other wounded to help keep them comfortable. Mostly that meant bracing them and repositioning them through the bounciest sections of the road.

  To keep their mind off their pain, Daniel had them take turns reading from a bible loaned to him by his sergeant Henry Foster. It was a soiled and well thumped bible, in which Henry had underlined his favourite verses. What Daniel didn't expect was for the readings to cause such mirth in the wounded men.

  "Here it is," one captain called out to the others in a brave humour. Brave because i
t was doubtful that the man would survive his gut wound. "Thou shalt commit adultery."

  "That can't be right," Daniel replied and moved about in the bouncing coach so he could read the words for himself. That was indeed what was printed. "I don't understand. That can't be right."

  Everyone else in the coach laughed at him, and Daniel was somewhat confused by their raucous humour. Not being a Christian he had only ever read bits of the bible, but even he recognized the Ten Commandments.

  "Calm yourself Daniel, they aren't laughing at you," Arthur called out weakly from his well padded corner. He motioned Daniel to come closer and sit on the floor boards beside him. "That bible is not old, yet it is already very rare. It was commissioned by King James but by the time the type was being set, James was dead and Charlie was king. At the time our Charlie was lopping the ears off typesetters who printed pamphlets that criticized him, so the typesetters working on James’s bible dropped a word here and there, to great effect."

  "And of course," another captain took up Arthur's story because Arthur was gasping for breath after loosing it to more gut wrenching laughter. "The first richly bound volumes of the new James Bible were given out personally by Charlie to his favourites at court. This at a time when there were many rumours about his wife Henrietta's fondness for some of those same courtiers. Thus the original King James version of the bible became known as the Wicked Bible. Supposedly they were all retrieved and burned. That one may well be the only surviving copy."

  Daniel joined in their laughter, not just because he loved a good story, but at the thought of how many wives Henry Foster may have seduced over the years simply by thumping his bible at them. The bible was passed on to the next reader, and Daniel went back to bracing Arthur as they bounced through a rough corner.

  "You were right to warn me that there were men on the battlefield who would want to kill me rather than capture me," Arthur sighed. "And you say that they did the same to John Hampden? Poor John. He was never meant to lead men into battle. Too moral by half, and too fair. You were with him when he was wounded. Did he give you any messages for the rest of us?" He meant the rest of the core members of the Reform Party.

  "He told me that he doubted that we would beat the royalists by force of arms. That he and you and the others were all men who believed in the rule of law, whereas the royalists believe that might is right. Since in war and battle and physical fighting the outcome is based on might-is-right and not the rule of law, then by logic the royalists must eventually win."

  "If he thought it so hopeless, then why was he leading men into battle?" Arthur asked.

  "In hopes of capturing the king and forcing a truce. He thought that if parliament could keep the entire royal family in solitude they would be able to remove the corruption from our laws. I suppose by that he meant the removal of the exceptions and privileges that have been planted in our laws over the centuries. He believed in the rule of law, but of reasonable and equitable laws. It sounds like right enough reason to fight to me."

  "He was such a dreamer," Arthur said wistfully. "I have heard this before from him. Years ago when we used to meet in secret as the Broughton Ring, he and William Fiennes kept making that same point."

  Daniel assumed that Arthur was speaking of Viscount Sale and Sele of Broughton Castle, a man he had met just briefly after the battle at Edgehill. "Waller has told me that he hates this war because there is no enemy. I suppose that is because every family is divided, so in any battle you may have a brother fighting a brother, or a father, or an uncle, or a cousin."

  "Ah, but he is wrong," Arthur replied between groans from the pain of being bounced. "There is an enemy. As Hampden pointed out, the enemy is our laws that allow the inheritance of authority and privilege, rather than demanding that such be well earned."

  "I think he meant people as enemies. It's not like we can say the Spanish are the enemy, is it? It's not like over in Ireland where Papists and Presbyterians can easily pick out their enemies."

  "Even in Ireland it is the inheritance laws that are the enemy, not the people," Arthur told him. "I don't consider the king my enemy. Not him personally. He is caught by the same corrupt laws as the rest of us. Laws that allow the inheritance trap. If the king dies, there will be a scramble by all of the branches of his family to replace him as king. For instance, Prince Rupert and his Bohemian knights will likely slaughter all of the king's immediate family, so that his elder brother can claim the throne."

  This was good. It was good to keep Arthur's mind off his pain, and off his failure to Waller, his failure on the battlefield that had cost Waller the battle. It was as if Arthur had read his thoughts for he than said, "I was insubordinate on the battlefield and it cost us the battle. I am the cause of what surely must be Waller's most terrible loss. I should have done as I was ordered, and kept an unbreachable wall across the Devizes Road."

  "You are talking to the wrong man if you want agreement on that," Daniel replied. "When you first moved your line forward you saved me and my dragoons. I saw more of the battle than you did, and I think the costliest error was when Hungerford ran across our own line of fire to help you, and then retreated back behind our lines. If he had run to help you by going behind our lines, or even if he had retreated back across the front of our lines, then our musketeers would have downed a lot of royalists. He just didn't think. It was as if he was fighting his last battle rather than this one."

  "It's kind of you to say so," Arthur grumbled, "but Hungerford should have had no reason to come to my help. No, the error was mine, and I will say that to Waller and to Hungerford when next I see them. I pray that will be soon and that neither of them have come to harm because of my error."

  Daniel held his lips tightly closed. In the way of battles led by English lords and gentlemen, the lords and gentlemen usually seemed to come to no harm. Likely because they had a habit of sacrificing the common men of their infantry so that they themselves could run away. He expected the outcome of this battle to be no different. Why would it be. Hopton would offer the officers and cavalry similar terms to those he had offered to these Lobsters. He fully expected to see both Hungerford and Waller and most of their cavalry waiting for them in Bath when they reached there.

  Not so the infantry. Those that were not killed or left for dead on the battlefield, would be pressed into the king's infantry or into a hungry slavery. Such was the way of it when lords and gentlemen were chosen to command the faceless, nameless infantrymen by other lords and gentlemen. A revelation came to Daniel, a revelation that he could have discussed with John Hampden, but not with Haselrig.

  The way that this war was being fought it didn't matter to common men such as he which side won, for in the peace that followed they would still be lorded over by those born to wealth and power. For him the solution was obvious - join his clan in Bermuda and start a new life far away from frigid winters and from lords who ruled for no other reason than they were born.

  THE END of Roundway Down => watch for Book Eight coming soon.

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  The Pistoleer - Roundway Down by Skye Smith Copyright 2014-15

  Chapter 32 - Appendix FAQ

  The reference material in this Appendix is organized like an FAQ. For an overview of the politics of the time, see the Appendix of Book One 'HellBurner'. Here is a list of the questions that are answered below.

  1. Where can I read about the non-fiction events and characters?

  2. How can I tell which characters are historic and which are fictional?

  3. What was a Pistoleer?

  4. What are the differences in dates between Julian and Gregorian calendars?

  5. Why was Lowestoft such an important port?

  6. Was there a plot to betray Bristol to Prince Rupert's flying army?

  7. Who were the Clubmen?

  8. Were Waller's marches against Malmesbury and Cirencester really a ruse?

  9. Was a great treasure captured on a ship at Chepstow?

/>   10. What was William Waller's connection to Robert Rich?

  11. Was there really so much looting and raping going on?

  12. Who were the Campdeners?

  13. Was the plague of 1643 Typhus?

  14. Was John Hampden killed by his own pistol?

  15. Did Hampden really save a payroll of 27,000 English pounds?

  16. So who won the battle of Lansdown Hill?

  17. Was General Hopton blinded by an explosion?

  18. Was cavalry loosing its key role in battles by 1643?

  19. Did Waller's cavalry really fall over a cliff at Roundway?

  20. Why was Waller's loss at Roundway Down so devastating?

  * * * * *

  1. Where can I read about the non-fiction events and characters?

  First try "bcw-project.org", the robust and well organized British Civil War website.

  If you can't find it at BCW, then do a keyword search on Google. If a relevant BCW or Wikipedia article is listed, then other articles in the list will also be relevant. If not, then add more keywords and search again.

  Note that a Google search will also find digitized versions of rare books and long out of print books, including memoirs from the era of the Civil War. What a wonderful world we live in, where it is so easy to reference the thoughts of the long past. Be warned that most old histories of the Civil War are heavily slanted to make the Royalists look like heroes and republicans look like villains. Blame that on Charles II and his decades long efforts to assassinate the truth and anyone who opposed his saintly father and his equally saintly cousin Prince Rupert.

  For maps and descriptions of the Battle of Roundway Down, see "devizesheritage.org.uk".

  2. How can I tell which characters are historic and which are fictional?

  As a rule of thumb, if the character is a Parliamentarian, has a title, or a military rank of captain or above, then they are historic and so are their families. Otherwise the character is likely fictional. I have kept the descriptions and actions of the non-fictional characters as close to historical accounts as possible.