Bygone Berkshire

Had Charles maintained a purely defensive position, Essex would have been compelled to force the fighting. His inferiority in cavalry would have told heavily against him, and his infantry would probably have failed to force a passage through the Royal army. The ardour of the skirmishers in the first hours of the day probably drew him into the battle, which soon became general.

The London trained bands, under Skippon, received their baptism of blood in Newbury marsh and meadows, where they were drawn up, with the cavalry on the flanks. Rupert was seconded that day by some of the boldest and fiercest cavalrymen in the Royal armies; and he poured them again and again, a raging flood of foaming horse and men, upon the Parliamentarians. Pressing up to the very edge of flashing pike-points, with desperate stroke and thrust, and discharge of pistols, the gallant cavaliers strove to reach the sturdy Londoners; only to fall back from the fierce pike-thrust, while the snorting war-chargers reared and swerved from the iron front, and the grim musketeers poured in their heavy fire from the rear, emptying many a saddle, and sorely thinning the ranks of the King's bold riders.

Fighting under the King's eye, the cavaliers did all that could be expected from the most devoted loyalty; but Skippon's pikemen were beating back the repeated surges for their very life's sake; for the honour and safety of London, and for Essex's preservation. Once let that tide break in, and Rupert's revenge would be terrible. Three times, in quick succession, the London Blues were charged by two regiments of Royal horse, bent at all hazards to break in, but the musketeers plied their shot so thick and fast, and made such great havoc in the charging ranks, that the cavaliers drew off, after their third charge, and made no further attempt.

Triumphant as the Parliamentarians were in beating back the spirited charges of Rupert's gallant cavalry, the toil and strain of battle fell heavily upon them, and stung into sudden action by the galling fire of the Royal batteries, they made a somewhat disordered dash towards Donnington, with the intention of spiking the cannon, the Red London trained bands leading. Rupert saw the movement, and was quick to seize the only opportunity of victory that presented itself. In an instant he was upon them with "Byron's Blacks" and Colepepper's brigade; but as quickly the pikes were brought to bear, the musketeers poured in their shot, and the first charge was beaten back; before it could be renewed, Skippon had got the brave fellows ready, the front ranks kneeling, and a forest of long pikes presented to the plunging chargers. The utmost valour of the cavaliers could achieve nothing against the iron formation, while the regular and destructive fire of the musketeers swept the front, and strewed the field with dead and wounded men and horses.

Essex had had another tough encounter with a chosen band of Royalists, who, making a long detour, and adopting the broom and furze twigs which Essex's men wore to distinguish them from the King's men, fell furiously upon his ranks. The conflict that followed was to the death, for if the Royalists were incensed by the stubborn resistance that they met, and by their heavy losses, the Parliamentarians were not the less fiercely revengeful when, after the long strain of that terrible day, they rallied all their energies to beat back the perfidious attack of the Royalists. The desperate melée terminated in favour of Essex's troops, who beat off and chased the Royalists back.

The last scenes of the battle had taken place under the gathering glooms of the September night, and Skippon having succeeded in joining Essex's cavalry, nothing more could be effected until the morrow. The exhausted armies reluctantly parted, and silence settled over the field that had, during the long day, re-echoed the furious and dreadful sounds of war. Under the peaceful heavens lay 6,000 dead and wounded men, to be carted into the town by the humane burghers, when there was a great outcry for surgeons, always, alas, far too few in number to meet the requirements of war.

Both armies rested on the field, and stood to arms, ready to renew the battle, when the day broke again upon Newbury. Essex had secured his retreat, and could expect to achieve no more. Rupert could force the fighting with no greater skill and daring than he had already exercised, and with no greater prospect of penetrating the ranks of Skippon's pikemen. Essex drew off, unmolested, about noon, but Rupert fell upon his rear near Aldermaston, and inflicted some loss upon his troops. His march upon London was not, however, interrupted, and he entered the city in triumph, having fought a battle that was in all ways honourable to his army, whether nominally a victory or defeat. If the King claimed the honour of the field, it was indeed a barren honour. At every point he had been repulsed, although his cavalry had sacrificed itself with unmeasured devotion. He had not kept Essex out of Gloucester, and he had not cut off his retreat upon London.

During the battle Essex lost a trained band colonel and a few officers; but Charles lost many gallant and distinguished gentlemen, chief of whom were the Earls of Sunderland and Carnarvon, and the virtuous and talented Lord Falkland. The wounded included some of the first cavalry officers in the Royal army, Lords Chandos, Peterborough, Andover, and Carlisle, Sir Geo. Lisle, Sir Charles Lucas, and Colonels Gerrard, Constable, and Darcy.

In the pages of Clarendon will be found an elaborate account of the virtuous and unfortunate Falkland, who had a strong presentiment that he would perish in the conflict, and he accordingly put on clean linen, and arrayed himself in his richest apparel.

Essex, before marching off, issued orders for the burial "of the dead bodies lying in and about Enborne and Newbury Wash." Charles imposed similar duties upon the mayor of Newbury, expressly intimating that the wounded Parliamentarians were to receive every attention, and, on their recovery, be sent on to Oxford.

Essex carried with him into rejoicing London "many colours of the King's cornets;" and was there publicly thanked for what his party were disposed to regard as a victory over the King and his gallant cavaliers.

The Second Battle of Newbury, 1644

When the second battle of Newbury was fought, the great rebellion had received a decided impetus in favour of the Parliamentarians. Marston Moor had been fought and the greenest laurels of Rupert had withered in one summer's night before the walls of York. The glory of Essex waned before the brilliant achievements and solid successes of Cromwell and Fairfax. The period of drawn battles and disputed victories was passing away.

Some transient successes had attended the royal arms, and Essex had been defeated in Cornwall; but with his army reinforced and reorganised, he was prepared to try conclusions with His Majesty on their old battle ground. With Essex there marched the Earl of Manchester, Skippon, Waller, and Colonels Ludlow and Cromwell. In consequence of the sickness of Essex, the supreme command devolved upon Manchester.

Charles was on the qui vive from the 21st, to Saturday the 26th October; but being ill-informed of the movements of his dangerous adversaries, he was ultimately out-manœuvred, his communications with Oxford cut off, and his rear threatened.

Mr. P. Blundell, F.S.A., in his interesting paper on the "Two Battles of Newbury," thus describes the disposition of the opposing armies: —

"On the next day, Friday, and on Saturday, the 26th, Symond's diary records pithily 'noe action' – both sides, in fact, were busied with their deadly preparations, for all men knew that their next meeting would be a stern and bloody one. The King's horse burned to avenge their recent overthrow on Marston Moor, and Skippon's infantry were resolute to win back the credit they had lost in Cornwall.

"The beleaguered Cavaliers now exerted themselves to retrieve their error, by adding to the strength of their position, throwing up entrenchments and mounting extra batteries. The Earl of Manchester with his vanguard held the lower portion of the town, and Cromwell's Ironsides with some infantry who formed the right wing of the Parliamentarian army, lay still, but not inactive, upon the south side of the Kennett, near Ham Mill, and 'thence, as soon as it was day,' – says Symonds – 'they put a tertia of foot over a bridge which they had made in the night.'

King Charles again led the Cavaliers in person, the young Prince of Wales accompanying him, and the Earl of Brentford acting as Lieutenant-General. The royal standard waved upon Speen Moor, about a mile more northerly than its position during the previous battle, and the main body of the Cavaliers held Speen mainland and the upper town of Newbury, with their lines extending towards the Castle, while their extreme left rested a little below the present site of Donnington turnpike, and crossed the lane which intersects the meadows behind and round about Shaw House, then known as "Dolemans," occupied for the King, and fortified so strongly as to be, in military parlance, 'the key to the entire position.' The river Lambourn flowed along their front; Sir Bernard Astley's and Sir George Lisle's cavalry were stationed round about the fields betwixt the town and Shaw, and 'Dolemans' not only was well garrisoned by musketry and pikes, but had each hedge and hollow of its garden ground and pleasance, well lined with ambushed skirmishers and marksmen."

The burghers of Newbury maintained their accustomed neutrality, to the great disgust of the King, who, complaining that they rendered him no account of the movements of his enemies, stigmatised them as "wicked Roundheads."

The morning of the battle was spent in a distant cannonade, and the desultory skirmishing in which so much martial energy was usually expended. The royal forces made no movement to force the fighting, and Manchester held his hand in the expectation of reinforcements.

During the first movements of the battle, about mid-day, Charles and his son were in some danger of falling into Waller's hands. They were posted at Bagnor, with their guards in attendance, when the Parliamentarians, having seized Speen, made a rapid push for Bagnor. The danger of Charles was imminent, when Colonel Campfield came up on the spur with the Queen's Life Guards, charged furiously, broke the Parliamentarians, and followed them in headlong and vengeful pursuit. Shippon marked the fiery Cavaliers as they swept on in triumph, and threw out a strong body of infantry to check the pursuit, and afford Waller an opportunity of rallying; but as quickly the fierce Goring and the Earl of Cleveland burst upon the pikemen, threw them into confusion, and bore them sternly back, holding them in deadly play; but the pikemen and musketeers, whether fighting for king or Parliament, were seldom or never routed, and they bore nobly up, dressed their line, and made a stubborn stand; driving off the impetuous Goring with stinging pikes and hail of bullets. Again the persistent Cavaliers fell on, and the pikes trembled before the rushing tide of horse and men as they fell slowly back. Goring eagerly followed up his advantage, when the Parliamentarians opened their ranks, and allowed the assailants to pass through, then reformed to cut off their retreat, and opened a destructive fire. Thus entrapped the Cavaliers fought desperately, Goring cutting his way through with a handful of followers, but leaving Cleveland in the hands of the enemy.

Dolemans, the key of the position, was assailed by Manchester with 3,000 foot and 1,200 horse, a force by no means too powerful for the arduous task to be attempted. Astley and Lucas were not slow to meet the assailing forces, and the sonorous psalms of the Parliamentarians ceased as the battle surges closed. A stubborn and sanguinary conflict ensued, but Manchester could make no serious impression upon his enemies. Cromwell, holding his troops, ready to strike when the opportune moment arrived, beheld the setting of the sun and the closing shades of night, while the field was as stubbornly contested as ever. He accordingly prepared to strike with his cavalry.

Dividing his brigade, he sent one division to the assistance of Manchester, and with the other fell upon the King's left on Speen Moor. The king and the young prince fled on the spur to find safety beneath the cannon of Donnington, while the Life Guards threw themselves upon Cromwell's troopers, in a gallant attempt to arrest his advance. Vain was their devotion. The Ironsides smote them hip and thigh, shattered their formation, and drove them from the field in headlong flight.

"Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row,Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykesOur cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the accurst."

A harder fate befell the second division. Involved among the hedges and avenues of Dolmans, they were decimated by the fire of the royal musketeers, furiously charged by the cavalry, and driven off in the utmost disorder, after sustaining a loss of 500 men. Edmund Ludlow made a gallant attempt to relieve them, and cover their retreat.

With this last desperate conflict the battle ceased, not to be renewed. The King drew off, and Manchester showed no disposition to attempt any further operations against him. The second battle of Newbury was thus not less hardly fought nor indecisive in its results than was the first.

It is said that the disgust of Cromwell was so great, that it influenced him, to make his accusation against Manchester, with the resulting self-denying ordinance, and its remarkable and wide-extending results.

Mr. Blundell's paper has been closely followed, but the matter necessarily condensed in this sketch.

Binfield and Easthampstead, 1700-1716, and the Early Years of Alexander Pope

By Rev. C.W. Penny, m.a

There are few more pleasant and charming country villages in Berkshire than the two adjoining parishes, whose names stand at the head of this chapter. The undulating surface of the land, consisting for the most part of well-wooded and well-watered pastures, and a better soil than prevails in most of the surrounding heaths, must from the first have made an agreeable oasis in this part of the old Forest of Windsor. While their convenient situation, abutting north and south of the old high road, which ran from Reading past Wokingham to Windsor, and so to London, brought these secluded villages into touch, not only with the chief town of the county, but also with the busier life of the Metropolis. And thus, even two hundred years ago, they were an attractive place of residence for many old families that have long since died out and passed away.

The early history of almost every village centres round its church. And the church at Binfield is no exception to the rule. It lies embowered with trees at the further end of the village, nestling against the slope of a steepish hill. And although the ruthless hand of modern restoration has dealt somewhat hardly both outside and inside with the fabric itself, yet enough of hoar antiquity remains to attract the notice of even the most careless visitor. The venerable but somewhat dumpy tower is built, like those of Warfield and All Saints', Wokingham, of the conglomerate "puddingstone" of the district, and bears significant testimony to the scarceness of good building materials at the date of its erection. For these rugged irregular fragments must have been collected with infinite pains and labour when the "iron pan," as it is called, of the surrounding heath country was broken up, and the land first brought under cultivation.

As we approach the south door, the fine open timbered perpendicular porch, a feature which is characteristic of the churches of the neighbourhood, cannot fail to strike the eye. It is of unusual size, and the carved oak woodwork, black with age, is of superior workmanship.

The interior of the church is full of interest to the antiquary and the archæologist. For though the roof and arches are low, the pillars and windows poor, and the general architectural effect mean and disappointing, yet the floor and walls are crowded with inscribed and carved gravestones and memorial tablets of no ordinary character. These, as well as other relics of a bygone age, at once arrest attention.

To begin with the latter first; on a desk near the pillar as we enter is a black letter copy of Erasmus's Paraphrase of the Four Gospels, which at one time was ordered to be provided in every church at the cost of the parish. The copy is almost perfect, and has been carefully re-bound.

Then there is what the successive restorations have left of the fine Jacobean pulpit, with its date, "Ano. Dom. 1628," still upon it; and beside it, though unhappily upon the wrong side, is the elaborate hour-glass stand of hammered iron-work, consisting of oak leaves and acorns, alternately with vine leaves and bunches of grapes, together with three coats-of-arms, said to be those of the Smiths' and Farriers' Company. This is probably of the same date as the pulpit, if we may judge from the very similar iron frame-work which is attached to the pulpit in Hurst Church, and which bears the date 1636. The pulpit at Binfield has been sadly mutilated; its pedestal and staircase are gone; and its massive sounding-board has been relegated to the ignominious silence and seclusion of the vestry. But, in 1628, it must have been the handsomest pulpit of its kind in the neighbourhood.

On the floor of the sacrarium is a small brass, a half-length figure of a priest, represented with a stunted beard, and the apparels of the amice and albe ornamented with quatrefoils. Underneath is this inscription in Norman French: —

Water de Annesfordhe gist icy,

dieu de sa alme eit mercy.

It is one of the oldest brasses in the kingdom, for the said "Water" was rector of Binfield in 1361. Another remarkable fact about it is, that out of the seven inscriptions of this church recorded in 1664-6 by E. Ashmole in his "Antiquities of Berks," this is the only one which has survived the successive restorations. The other six have entirely gone.

Immediately in front of the altar the floor is composed of a row of six black marble gravestones, each of which has a coat-of-arms elaborately sculptured at the head. That nearest to the centre is to the memory of Henry, fifth and last Earl of Stirling, of whose family we shall have more to say presently. The remaining five are remarkable as being all of them apparently placed to the memory of Papists who lived in the reign of Charles the II. Indeed, one of them, that, namely, nearest the north aisle, in memory of William Blount, "who dyed in the 21st yeare of his Age on ye 9th of May, 1671," has the letters, "C.A.P.D." engraved at the bottom in large capitals, which stand for the well-known pre-Reformation prayer, "Cujus Animae Propicietur Deus." And it is clear from the names of those commemorated in the other inscriptions that towards the end of Charles the II.'s reign there was a little colony of Papists residing at Binfield.

One of the oldest of these Roman Catholic families was that of Dancastle or Dancaster. They had been lords of the Manor of Binfield since the time of Elizabeth; and a member of the family, John Dancaster, had been rector of Binfield as far back as 1435. The gravestone in the chancel is to the memory of another member, also John Dancaster, who died in 1680, aged eighty-four. And from the coat-of-arms at the head of it: Az., a ball of wild fire Or., impaling, Sa., three lions passant in bend Arg., between two double cottises of the last, we are able to identify him as the "John Doncastle of Welhouse" in Ashmole's "Pedigrees of Berks," who married Mary, daughter of the Hon. John Browne, younger brother of Anthony, second Viscount Montague. About five years before his death, he and his neighbour, Mr. Gabriel Yonge, with his wife Elizabeth, whose gravestone comes next, were excommunicated by the then rector of Binfield, most probably for the non-payment of tithes or other ecclesiastical dues.

In an "Alphabetical List of the Recusants in the County of Berks," who entered the annual value of their estates for the purpose of being double taxed, pursuant to an Act passed in 1715, John Dancastle, probably the son of the above John Dancastle, is assessed at £234 10s., and his son, Francis Dancastle, at £1 17s. per annum. While to the south wall of Binfield Church is affixed a tablet which records the final extinction of the race. It was erected in memory of yet another John Dancastle, "the last of a respectable and ancient family, who after patiently enduring the most excruciating pains of the Gout, without intermission for upwards of sixteen years, obtained a happy release, and passed to a country where grief, sorrow, and pain are no more, Jany 29th, 1780. Aged 53 years. R.I.P."

The chief interest in the Dancastle family for us lies in the fact that it was owing to them that the poet, Alexander Pope, came to live at Binfield. About the year 1700, the representatives of this family at Binfield were two brothers, named Thomas and John. Very little is known about them except what may be gathered incidentally from the correspondence of Pope. It is believed that they lived at the Manor House at Binfield, and that it was owing to the friendship between Alexander Pope the elder and John Dancastle that the former was induced to settle at Binfield in 1700, when his son, the future poet, was just twelve years of age. After the migration to Binfield, the similarity of their tastes, for both were passionately fond of gardening, no doubt increased the intimacy; and we find that John Dancastle was the first witness to the elder Pope's will.

Scarcely anything is known for certain of the family history of the Popes before the settlement at Binfield, except that Pope's grandfather was a clergyman of the Church of England, and that he placed his son, the poet's father, with a merchant at Lisbon, where he became a convert to the Church of Rome. On his return to England, he seems to have been unsuccessful in his business affairs. Hearne, the antiquary, speaks of him (Diary, July 18th, 1729) as a "poor ignorant man, a tanner;" and elsewhere as "a sort of broken merchant," who had been "said to be a mechanic, a hatter, a farmer, nay, a bankrupt." But these were probably the false libels which were levelled against the son in after years in revenge for his keen and bitter satire.

It is now generally agreed that Mr. Pope, senior, was a linen draper in London at the time his son was born; and whatever may have been his success or want of success in that business, we know that, in 1700, he bought a small estate and house at Binfield, where he resided for the next sixteen years. He had an income, so Hearne tells us, of between three and four hundred a year.

The house can now hardly be said to exist. Pope himself described it as: —

"My paternal cell,A little house with trees a-row,And like its master very low;"

where the retired merchant employed his time chiefly in the cultivation of his garden, and as his son said; —

"Plants cauliflowers, and boasts to rearThe earliest melons of the year."

But successive owners have so pulled down and rebuilt it, that nothing now remains of the original house except one room, which tradition says was the poet's study. There is an engraving of this in E. Jesse's "Favorite Haunts and Rural Studies," published by J. Murray in 1847 (p. 90). The present house, formerly known as Pope's Wood, is now called Arthurstone, and belongs to J.W. Macnabb, Esq.

There is no doubt that besides the Dancastles and the other Papist families at Binfield, there were numerous Roman Catholics settled in the neighbourhood. In particular we find that Pope often visited, and was intimate with, the Blounts, of Mapledurham; the Carylls, of Ladyholt; and the Englefields, of Whiteknights. At the house of the last, he used to meet Wycherly, who introduced him to London life, and Miss Arabella Fermor, the heroine of the "Rape of the Lock." But it is not a little remarkable that the Popes at Binfield appear to have associated exclusively with their Roman Catholic friends. Throughout the whole of Pope's letters there does not appear a single allusion to the other county families that were undoubtedly residing at Binfield at this time, and whose gravestones cover a goodly portion of the floor of the church; for instance, the two branches of the Lee family and the Alexanders, Earls of Stirling.