With the King at Oxford: A Tale of the Great Rebellion

by Alfred John Church

Here Master Smith was questioned how he came to have a stick, which it is against rule and custom to carry. He said, "I was newly come out of town from the company of some friends, and by the way was jostled from the walk by two scholars, and having shortly to return, not knowing whether I might be abused again, took the stick under my gown."

Further, in answer to Master North, he said, "I do not absolutely know whether I did after strike him in his chamber, but might have so done, partly by heat of passion and ill-language that was given me, and partly defending myself."

There was no small discussion about this matter, but in the end Master Smith was commanded to pay ten pounds to Master North for the wrong done to him (of which sum Master North was persuaded to abate a third part), and to make a public submission and acknowledgment in the chapel in the face of all the society assembled. And these two things he did.

Such were the manners of the time, and afterwards, as will be seen, they grew worse rather than better.

CHAPTER VI.
OF THE KING'S GOING TO WORCESTER.

My father was well remembered by some of the older sort about the King's person, as also by the Prince Rupert, elder son of the Princess Elizabeth, and so nephew to the King, who, when he was a child, had greatly favoured him. Hence, without any delay, he obtained the commission of a captain of horse. Indeed, being a man of capacity and of some experience in military matters, while most of the King's officers were wholly raw and uninstructed in the art of war, he had more weight in council than of right belonged to his rank; nor do I doubt but that, had it not pleased God to order things otherwise, he would have been promoted to a principal command. Indeed he had, very soon after his first joining the army, the chief direction of his regiment, the colonel being a young gentleman of quality, that had none of the virtues belonging to a soldier save courage only, unless it is to be counted as a virtue that he knew his own ignorance, and gave a ready ear to the counsel of wiser men.

For myself, I gave my attention to things academical, and was a diligent student, exercising an industry which, I make bold to say, few others in the University excelled. This, it must be confessed, was not altogether of my own free choice; but my father would have it so. "Stick to your books," he would say, "son Philip, so long as you can. Thus for the present time you will serve your cause most effectually. If the need come for your hand, I shall not spare to call you; but remember that it is easier to take up the sword than to lay it down." Nevertheless, with my father's consent; that I might be ready for such occasion when soever it might come, I learnt my exercises, both as a foot-soldier and a trooper. (I had learnt to ride while yet a child, perfecting myself in the art during my long compelled absence from school in the time of the plague.) I had, through the bounty of my father, arms of my own, namely, a steel cap, a back and breast-piece and a pike, with the other appurtenances. We trained commonly in the quadrangle of New College, the warden whereof, Dr. Robert Pink, deputy vice-chancellor, was a zealous King's man. There was a school kept in the cloisters of New College, wherein were taught first the singing boys of the chapel (with which scarce any other in England can be compared), and also other youth of the town. And I remember what ado the ushers had with the lads on the training days. There was no holding them in their school on these occasions; neither tasks nor the terror of the lash could hinder them from seeing and following the soldiers.

As this year (1644) went on, it was more and more manifest that the King was in a great strait. My father would have it that he was ill served by his advisers, especially in their continual changing of their plans, which, when they had settled them after long and painful debate, they would often unsettle without sufficient cause. I have, indeed, heard him say, "If his Majesty would but trust his own judgment, which is indeed better than can be found in many of them that pretend to be his advisers, and having once come by a resolution would carry it out determinately, 'twould be well for him and for his kingdom." Whatever the cause, it came to pass that in the month of May the King's affairs were in such ill case that he was like to be besieged in Oxford. The forces that he had with him were scarce a third part as numerous as those that the Parliament had arrayed against him; nor could he look for any present help from elsewhere, Prince Rupert being on his march to relieve my Lord Derby (besieged in his castle of Lathom), and Prince Maurice having sat down before Lyme in the county of Dorset, a little fisher-town which he was not like to take, and which, if taken, had been but of small account. The King therefore had to retire his troops from Reading. Abingdon also, which is not more than five miles from Oxford, was abandoned, though this was against the King's desire and even command expressly given; so that all Berkshire now was in the hands of Parliament by their two commanders, the Earl of Essex and Sir William Waller, and the King was forced to draw his whole force of horse and foot on the north side of Oxford; nay more, the Parliament came into Oxfordshire, my Lord Essex getting over the Thames at Sandford Ferry (which is three miles away from Oxford), and halting on Bullingdon Green, whence he sent parties of horse up to the very gates of the city. This was on the twenty-ninth day of May. Meanwhile Sir William Waller also had crossed the Thames and was come as far as Eynsham, where he lay at my father's house, but did no damage, but was, on the contrary, cause of no small profit to John Vickers, and so through him to my father; the said John selling to him and his company poultry and eggs and the like at such a price as did, in a way, avenge the King's wrongs. Now, therefore, the King was well nigh surrounded, for some of my Lord Essex's horse had gone forward as far as Woodstock, so that there was but one vacant space left in the circle which the enemy had not yet occupied, to wit, between Eynsham and Woodstock, and this space was of not more than six miles.

So desperate indeed was the situation of affairs that there were many now who counselled the King that he should give himself up to the Earl of Essex, to which advice he gave this answer, as my father told me who heard the very words as they came from his mouth. "'Tis possible I shall be found in the hands of the Earl of Essex, but I shall be dead first."