To get answer: “No prisoners to be taken, no plundering. Soldiers, and all who have borne arms against the King, left free to march out and away. Citizens the same, if they wish it. Three days to be allowed the disaffected for clearing out of the city, and removal of household effects.” After that—ay, and before it, as the wise ones believed—it would be “’ware the pillager!”
On its face the bond was fair and reasonable enough, and many were rather surprised at its leniency. Certainly, to one unacquainted with the circumstances, such conditions of surrender might seem more than generous. But knowing the motives, all idea of generosity is at once eliminated. Around to Rupert had come the report of repulse on the southern side—Slanning killed, Trevannion, too; with slaughter all along the Cornish line, and a likelihood of utter rout there. Besides, two or three scores of distinguished prisoners inside Bristol had to be considered; these no longer on parole, but jailed, and still held as hostages. With, these guages against any attempt at cruel extortion, none could be safely made; and the keys of Bristol were handed over to Prince Rupert by Nathaniel Fiennes in a quiet, consenting, almost amicable way, as might the seals of office from a going-out mayor to his successor.
How the son of the Elector Palatinate honoured the trust, and kept faith with his word, is matter of history. He did neither one nor the other; instead, disregarded both, basely, infamously. Soon as his followers were well inside the gates, as had been predicted, there was pillage unrestrained; insult and outrage to every one they encountered on the streets, women not excepted. This was the way of the Cavaliers—the self-proclaimed gentlemen of England.
Chapter Thirty Eight.
Insulting a Fallen Foe.
A very saturnalia of riot and rapine followed the capture of Bristol. For the conditions of surrender were broken before the ink recording them was dry, and the soldiers fell to sacking, unrestrained. There were plenty of spiteful “malignants” to point out who should be the victims, though little recked the royal hirelings what house they entered, or whose goods appropriated. All was fish to their net; and so the plundering went on, with scenes of outrage indescribable.
Fiennes has left testimony that Rupert did his best to stay his ruffian followers, cuffing and striking them with the flat of his sword. Light blows they must have been, administered more in jest than earnest, with aim to throw dust in the eyes of the now ex-Governor and his staff standing by. The men on whose shoulders they fell paid little heed to them; for had they not been promised the sacking of Bristol? An intercepted letter from Byron, of massacre memory, to Rupert himself, puts this scandalous fact beyond the possibility of contradiction or denial.
That promise was kept faithfully enough, and the licence allowed in full. Every house of a Parliamentarian, noted or not, received a domiciliary visit, and was stripped of its valuables—all that could not be hidden away—while ladies of highest respectability were subjected to insult. It was Bristol’s first experience of victorious Cavalierism; and even they who had conspired to introduce the sweet thing had their surfeit of it ere long.