Some interesting local information during this war time is to be derived from the literary remains of an officer in the King’s Army, one Captain Symmonds, who amused himself on his marches by taking heraldic notes, and noticing monumental inscriptions. An entry in his Diary thus alludes to the foregoing facts:—
The rendezvous was near the King’s quarters. Began after 4 o’clock in the morning here. One soldier was hanged for mutiny.
The prince’s headquarters was at Wolverhampton. A handsome towne. One faire church in it.
The King lay at Bisbury. A private sweet village where Squire Grosvenor (as they call him) lives. Which name hath continued here 120 years. Before him lived Bisbury of Bisbury.
Our military diarist next writes:—
Satterday, May 17, 1645.—His Majestie marched from here to Tong—
and goes on to enumerate the garrisons in Staffordshire at that date, distinguishing by initials which were “Rebel” and which were the “King’s”; among them:—
K. Lichfield.—Colonel Bagott, governor.
R. Russell hall.—A taylor governor.
R. Mr. Gifford’s house at Chillington, three miles from Wolverhampton. Now slighted by themselves.
K. Dudley Castle.—Colonel Leveson, whose estate and habitation is at Wolverhampton, is governor.
“Slighted” signifies dismantled of its fortification; the allusion to “a tailor” being military governor of Rushall is, of course, a cavalier’s sneer at the Republican soldiery.
Coming now to the end of the war, when Charles II. was defeated at Worcester in 1651, the country round Willenhall became the scene of that fugitive monarch’s most romantic wanderings. Flying from the battlefield at the close of that fatal September day, Charles made his way through Stourbridge to Whiteladies and Boscobel. Then occurred the episode of his hiding in the “Royal Oak,” and his concealment inside the house, in the “priests’ hole” at the top of the stairs, by Mrs. Penderel.
Fearing discovery, the King was escorted by the brothers Penderel to Moseley Hall, near Bushbury, a timber-framed
mansion in the picturesque Elizabethan style, the home of the Whitgreates, where the hunted monarch was welcomed and immediately refreshed with some biscuits and a bottle of sack. Charles had scarcely departed from Boscobel ere a troop of Roundheads arrived to search it. And another narrow escape now occurred at Moseley, where again a cunningly contrived hiding place was brought into requisition. Even after the frustration of the search party, one Southall, a notorious “priest catcher,” called at the suspected house.