Returning from the pursuit, the exhausted cavalry rested for the night in the villages around Horncastle. The infantry occupied quarters in the town, where they found two hundred horses left by their fugitive enemy. Of the wounded, the Earl of Manchester ordered especial care to be taken, whilst the dead were hastily consigned to the nearest graves. The body of Sir Ingram Hopton was brought to Horncastle and buried in the church: for Cromwell, who did not permit his political resentment to render him callous or insensible to the generous feelings of a soldier, experienced some sympathy for the individual whose ardor in attempting his destruction, for what was deemed the welfare of his country, had cost the sacrifice of his own life: he therefore, upon his arrival in the town, commanded the inhabitants to fetch the body of Sir Ingram Hopton, and inter it with the honors due to his rank; observing, that though an enemy, he was a gentleman and a soldier. [20b]
Of those royalists who escaped the slaughter, there were scarce a thousand efficient for the field; and these were destined to sustain another overthrow at the battle of Lincoln close, which completed the warfare in this county. Bolingbroke castle had already yielded; and this with Tattershall, the principal places of defence in this neighbourhood, were soon after devoted to the dismantling policy of the parliament, which doomed them with the noble edifices of the country, to that destruction which left them but ruins in silent and lingering decay.
Although this victory afforded a cause for so much rejoicing to the friends of the parliament; yet were its consequences mightier for the interests which it strengthened, by the defeat, on the same day, [20c] of the Marquis of Newcastle before the fortress of Hull. The Lord Fairfax and Sir John Meldrum, making a desperate sortie, had completely overthrown the royalists with much slaughter; forcing them, though protected behind strong entrenchments, to abandon the siege with the loss of all their cannon. The impolicy of the royalist commander was now perceptible too late. This ruin of the affairs of the king seemed at once to have obliterated all the generous services which the faithful Newcastle had made in the cause of his sovereign; and shortly after these disasters, he retired to the continent, [21] where he spent a life of indigence, until the restoration gave again the royal authority to Britain. These actions, though inconsiderable in themselves, were yet great in their effects. The expectations of the royalists in Yorkshire were now nearly blasted: Lincolnshire, after the occupation of its city, escaped the further deluge of blood; and the defeats served to assist in hastening the fight of Marston Moor, where the hopes of Charles were reduced to that one gleam, which was finally extinguished at the battle of Naseby.
ANTIQUITIES.
Amongst the remains of antiquity at this place, the vestiges of the Roman fortress are the most worthy of attention; and although they are too small to give an adequate idea of the original structure, are yet sufficient to show the form and extent of the space enclosed, which appears to have been nearly a parallelogram, of about six hundred feet in length, and in breadth three hundred and fifty on the east, and three hundred on the west. [22] The wall by which this area was surrounded was fifteen or sixteen feet in thickness, and composed of small blocks of a loosely aggregated sand stone, dug from the neighbouring hills. It was formed with casing stones on the outside, the internal parts being filled up with courses laid diagonally, which according to the customary and substantial mode of building among the Romans, were run together by mortar disseminated through the interstices in a fluid state, forming a cement which has acquired by time an imperishable induration. Of the casing stones none are now to be seen, except in cellars which have been formed by the side of the wall. Where the fragments are sufficiently high, those portions of the Roman masonry, which remained after the destruction of the fortress, may be perceived rising to about six or seven feet above the ground, the diagonal courses of stone then ceasing. Above this the construction is marked by masses of larger dimensions than the lower parts; a circumstance evincing that another structure of a different period has been erected on the original foundation: this was probably a reparation which was made in the time of the Anglo-Saxons. At the north-east corner of the enclosure the remains of a circular turret are still visible; but of the towers or gateways no traces are left.
Near the junction of the two rivers, on the south-west of the town, was formerly one of those mazes common to Roman stations, called the Julian Bower. In these the youth were exercised in a martial game, called Troy Town, which in after years, though divested of its martial character, continued to be amongst the healthy pastimes of the young, in their evening assemblies of pleasure and sport. [23] Cultivation has long since effaced every vestige of the maze; but the piece of land on which it stood still retains the name of the Julian Bower Close.
A peculiar rustic ceremony, which used annually to be observed at this place, doubtless derived its origin from the Floral games of antiquity. On the morning of May-day, when the young of the neighbourhood assembled to partake in the amusements which ushered in the festivals of the month of flowers, a train of youths collected themselves at a place to this day called the May Bank. From thence, with wands enwreathed with cowslips, they walked in procession to the may-pole, situated at the west end of the town, and adorned on that morning with every variety in the gifts of Flora. Here, uniting in the wild joy of young enthusiasm, they struck together their wands, and scattering around the cowslips, testified their thankfulness for that bounty, which widely diffusing its riches, enabled them to return home rejoicing at the promises of the opening year. That innovation in the manners and customs of the country, which has swept away the ancient pastimes of rustic simplicity, obliterated about the year 1780 this peculiar vestige of the Roman Floralia.
In the fields on the south side of the town, the ground abounds with fragments of cinerary urns, and several perfect ones have also there been discovered. From these circumstances, together with the appearance of the soil, it seems certain that in this part the Romans used to burn their dead on the funeral pile. Of the urns found, only two are known to exist in the neighbourhood; one being in the collection of the late Right Honorable Sir Joseph Banks, at Revesby Abbey, the other in the possession of Mr. Crowder, an inhabitant of the town.
It is much to be regretted for the advancement of researches into local antiquities that the chief part of the urns, coins, fibulæ, and other Roman vestiges discovered at Horncastle, have been sold to strangers who have visited the town, or to dealers elsewhere. The coins which have been found here are numerous, and though chiefly of small brass and denarii ærei of the lower empire, yet they include many extremely fine and varied specimens of the earlier imperial coins, both of a larger size and of other metals, several of which are in the possession of different individuals of the town. Amongst these may be particularized the silver coins of Vespasian, L. Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus, and Volusianus; the large brass of Trajan; and the middle brass of Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Trajan, Hadrian, Domitian, Antoninus Pius, Faustina the elder, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and Faustina the younger. The small brass and denarii ærei form nearly a complete series of the emperors from Gallienus to Valentinianus the second, and include also within that period, coins of some of the tyrants of Britain and Gaul. Beside these are some others in the collection of the late Reverend Charles L’Oste, now possessed by his son, but unfortunately no memoranda exist by which they are to be distinguished from those obtained at other places. This gentleman also had in his collection several fibulæ and stiles which had been discovered here.