Authors: Michael Arnold
‘Aye,’ Leven nodded. ‘We stand out here in the cursed rain, while the wolf strolls through our door.’
PART 3
AS STUBBLE TO OUR SWORDS
Chapter 17
York, 2 July 1644
‘We are to march!’ Captain Lancelot Forrester bellowed, hands cupped at his mouth. ‘Drummers! See to your drill!’
The beat struck up, softly at first, ragged and out of time, then building as the drummers found their rhythm. It became a crescendo that reverberated around the towering Micklegate Bar, joined with every passing second by the thrum from other companies as each unit practised the various calls that would articulate and spread orders while on the march or on the field of battle.
‘Eager, boy,’ Seek Wisdom and Fear the Lord Gardner muttered as Forrester came to stand at his side.
‘The men must hear the drums, Father, for it stirs the spirit.’
Gardner nodded. ‘Aye, it does. But there’s plenty o’ time to spare.’
‘Colonel Mowbray says the order was quite clear,’ Forrester said, straining to keep his voice calm amid rising frustration. ‘His Highness demanded we march at four of the clock.’
‘Yet here we all are, boy. Taking the air, such as it is, and pissin’ into the wind. Do you see any urgency from the high and mighty, hereabouts? I’ve seen no man with rank of colonel, let alone the likes of our esteemed leader.’
Forrester looked again at the gatehouse. It was open, its earth and rubble barricades torn away for the first time in weeks. He knew the army of Prince Rupert lay on the other side, mustering even now on a moor down on the Tockwith road, and he yearned to be with them. Instead the army of the Marquis of Newcastle was caged as it had ever been, this time by the inertia of its own leaders.
The city of York had been formally relieved the previous evening. George Goring, General of the Northern Horse, had been give the honour of leading his cavalrymen down from Rupert’s forest encampment and through Bootham Bar, to be greeted by a chorus of cheers. The beleaguered defenders had seen the empty trenches, abandoned and silent, and they had crept out to plunder what they could from the three Allied leaguers. But Goring’s was the official liberation, and the folk of York had turned out in their droves to welcome him.
Goring had given Newcastle a message from Rupert. The prince was to hunt the Army of Both Kingdoms. To that end, he would break camp before dawn, cross the bridge of boats at Poppleton, and push south and west to where the scouts reported a concentration of the three rebel armies. Goring brought with him the expectation that Newcastle’s four thousand men would sally forth at the same time, combining their strength before the sun had fully risen, yet here they were, formed into marching order, drums beating, weapons shouldered, and already the day was slipping by.
‘Christ,’ Forrester hissed through gritted teeth, ‘it is almost nine o’clock. We must move soon. What game does he play?’
‘Lord Eythin will not march,’ a new voice broke in at Forrester’s back, ‘until he is certain of his strength.’
Forrester spun on his heels. ‘I did not mean to gripe, Sir Edmund.’
Sir Edmund Mowbray was short, auburn-haired and fastidiously groomed. He wore a beautiful crimson coat to match – if only in colour – those worn by his regiment, with a large, silver gorget at his throat and lace at his sleeves. He tipped his feathered hat at Gardner. ‘Father.’
The preacher gave a mad-eyed grin. ‘The Lord tells me General King wishes to drop his dung on Prince Rupert’s shoes! Say it is not so Colonel!’
Mowbray struggled to keep his shrewish face taut. ‘Lord Eythin, to use his proper title, is not a friend of the Prince, that is no secret. But I’ll not have rumour of deliberate sabotage bandied around the ranks, Father, understood?’
Gardner affected an expression of hurt. ‘I merely relay what the Almighty whispers in my dreams, Colonel.’
Mowbray looked at Forrester. ‘Lord Newcastle has taken his new guardsmen to Long Marston, there to meet with the Prince. The Foot, under Eythin, will follow up behind.’ He patted Forrester’s shoulder. ‘It will not be long now. There has been some delay in rooting some of the troops from the empty siege-lines. One man came across almost five thousand pairs of shoes, would you believe?’
Forrester ran a hand over tired eyes. ‘We have four thousand men here, sir. Good men. The whitecoats too. The Prince needs us if he is to fight.’
‘Hold firm,’ Mowbray said, ‘and keep the men ready. The order will come. We will march. Of that, you have my word.’
Near Tadcaster, Yorkshire, 2 July 1644
‘Pray God they watch our backs,’ the Earl of Leven said as his grey mare splashed through the glittering stream.
‘The Horse are well fed and well led,’ a gruff tone sounded in reply.
Leven twisted in his saddle to regard the Earl of Manchester. ‘This campaign has taught us nothing if not the foolishness of complacency.’
The Army of Both Kingdoms had stood to arms all night beneath a sky grumbling with portent. On the ridge above Long Marston, the three generals discussed their next turn, aware that they had been utterly outmanoeuvred. At a single stroke Rupert had both liberated York and rendered the Allied position worthless. There was no point remaining on the ridge, but where should they go next? They suspected Rupert’s army to be much smaller than their own, but rumours were rife that he had somehow collected enough waifs and strays en route from Liverpool to bolster his force such that he could ably give battle. Moreover, his army was now free to amalgamate with that of the Marquis of Newcastle, the latter possessing some notoriously hardy fighters, chief of which were Newcastle’s personal regiment, his Lambs. But of utmost concern was the possibility that the prince would cut straight through York and appear on the road south, which was why, throughout the damp morning, the vast rebel horde had slipped away from the ridge. They would produce their own sleight of hand.
‘If we can hold Tadcaster,’ Leven said, gripping his wet saddle with aching thighs, ‘all will be well.’
The Scots Foot were in the van, Manchester’s in the rear, and the rest formed a bristling column that stretched all the way from Long Marston to Tadcaster. Leven had left three thousand horsemen on the ridge, made up of elements of all three armies, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Thomas Fairfax and David Leslie taking command. Those horsemen would provide a screen against any advance by the malignants, while the main bulk of the force would make haste to the rendezvous.
‘Hold?’ Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax, echoed from out in front. ‘The Prince may not approach it at all.’
‘He has York,’
Leven said, ‘and its bridges. If I were the Prince, I would cross the Ouse and march directly south.’
‘But you are not the Prince,’ Manchester answered wryly.
Leven ignored him. ‘The town is a crossroads. If he blocks us there, he will hem my army between Tadcaster and York, he will prevent your army retiring to East Anglia, and he will sever us from our reinforcements coming up from Cheshire.’
A rider interrupted them, careening through the stream and hitting the south bank at such pace that his mount overshot their position by some yards. The rider wrenched the animal back and brought her to a halt in front of the three generals. ‘My lords,’ he panted, without pause for pleasantry. ‘You are required at Long Marston.’
Manchester raised an eyebrow. ‘Required?’
‘Generals Leslie, Cromwell and Fairfax send for you. All of you.’
‘Well?’ Leven snapped. ‘What are they about, man?’
‘The enemy marches.’
Leven glanced back at Manchester. ‘What did I tell you? He makes for Tadcaster.’
‘No, my lord,’ the rider blurted. ‘He draws over a great number to the moor below the ridge. His whole force, mayhap. I am told to request you recall the armies in their entirety. Prince Robber marches not upon Tadcaster, my lord. He seeks battle.’
Marston Moor, five miles west of York, 2 July 1644
‘Christ knows where the rest of the bastards have scuttled off to.’ Sir Richard Crane, commander of Prince Rupert’s Lifeguard of Horse, scanned the high ridge through the tin tube. ‘What d’you make of it?’
‘Retreat?’ Stryker said hopefully, taking the perspective glass from the colonel. He drew it slowly, left to right, letting the detail of hedge and crop blur across his vision. He rested the glass at the western limit of the crest, the right-hand end as he looked at it. There were blocks of horsemen drawn up on the fields, bright cornets hanging limp in the thin drizzle. It was a strong body, perhaps as many as two or three thousand, but still a small fraction of the whole.
‘I doubt it,’ Crane said, holding out a hand for the return of the instrument. ‘They have twice our number. How to explain such craven behaviour to the Committee? They’ll come back, you mark my words. Their horse hold the ridge. Would have run by now if they had no intention of keeping it, which means they’ll fight. And why would they fight without the rest of their army?’
Stryker had no idea as to the whereabouts of the rebel foot and ordnance, but he supposed it mattered little. As Crane asserted, the horsemen on the ridge harboured apparently no intention of hightailing it away, which meant that blood would run. And that, he reflected, was precisely what Prince Rupert wanted. He had his order, the one he had read out in Liverpool, the one that demanded he engage the Scots and Parliamentarians if at all possible. Since then he had looked for battle in every move he had made. From wrong-footing the enemy at Denton and Knaresborough, to resisting the calls for his army to enter York, he had expedited the journey to this field; this moor. It had all been for this.
Now the Royalist army was gradually forming up in battle order in the expectation that, wherever they were, the Army of Both Kingdoms would soon return. Stryker had attached his troop to that of Crane, for no better reason than proximity of their respective camps, and Crane took up position in the rearmost line, his elite force of a hundred and fifty troopers forming the right wing of the reserve, Sir Edward Widdrington’s brigade completing the left. Now they waited as the opposing units stared at one other, Vos nuzzling Crane’s black mare as the beasts tore up the grass.
Stryker handed back the glass, observing the regiments of foot that shuffled before them into position. The battle-hardened units brought back from Ireland were there, moving to the centre around Tillier’s greencoats, while a brigade made up of Rupert’s own bluecoats and some men behind the red banner of Colonel Robert Bryon edged forwards to form a pike-fringed promontory at the very front. More were coming all the time, trudging on to the moor to the steady hammer of drums, the cries of sergeants and junior officers ringing out to mould them into order.
Prince Rupert stood in his stallion’s bright stirrups as he rode back and forth, issuing orders to whomever might catch his eye. He was ready for the fight, the bucket-shaped tops of his boots pulled back to his groin, his lean torso wrapped in buff hide and encased in black enamelled plate at spine and breast. He had foregone the typically flamboyant hat, choosing instead a lobster-tailed
Zischägge
helmet that was plain, practical and musket-proof. Rupert’s dog, Boye, ran at the stallion’s hooves, black eyes like coal pebbles against its matted white coat as it stared up at its master.
‘Talk of missing rebels,’ Crane was saying, ‘has me wondering about our own prodigal comrades.’
‘The Northern Foot,’ Stryker said, thinking the same. Newcastle’s cavalry, under Goring, were already to be seen at the moor’s edge, having ridden out after their triumphal liberation of the city, but the infantry, though summoned with the rest of the army, were conspicuous by their absence. ‘They will come, will they not?’
Crane laughed. ‘There will be some explanation required should they disappoint.’
If they disappoint, Stryker privately thought, there will be none left to hear the explanation. ‘Aye, sir.’
‘Which reminds me,’ Crane went on. ‘Are you willing to explain
your
self, Sergeant-Major?’
Stryker stared at him. ‘Sir?’
‘That filly you have riding with you. She is no ordinary camp follower, and I’d guess she is too young to be warming your bed at night.’
‘My niece, Sir Richard.’
Crane sighed. ‘If we survive the day, Major Stryker, you will try again, and you will keep your lies for one more dull-witted than I. Are we understood?’