November 9th.—We have notice of a consultation had "about the execution of the king's warrants," and on
November 17th.—"A tax is levied to pay those great charges which are now layed upon the borough concerning cloth, apparell, victualls, and other things for his Majestie's army." Then on
November 28th.—The king goes off to Oxford, and henceforth they are left to Sir Arthur's tender mercies: about this time we find a pathetic entry: "A noate of all such charges as have been disembursed, since the King's Majestie came first to Reading, for provisions, clothes for the soldiers, and for the king's own use;" being £6697, truly a prodigious sum for those times; but it is speedily followed by fresh requisitions. As the year opens it appears probable that Reading will be attacked, and so on 3rd March, 1543, a letter arrives from the king, ordering Sir Arthur to provision Reading for three months, to provision Greenlands a fortified country house just below Henley, to send out scouting parties to watch the enemy, and to prevent carriage of supplies to London. This rouses the Parliament. Essex is ordered to march on Oxford, taking Reading in his way; but the governor now is all ready for him. Mapledurham House and Cawsham have now been made into fortified out-posts, and, on the arrival of Essex's "trumpet," Colonel Codrington in his diary tells us the governor returned the stubborn answer that "he would either keep the town or die inside it!" There can be no doubt he would have made a resolute resistance; he was a brave and capable soldier, but, being wounded in the head by a tile dislodged by a cannon ball, on the third day of the siege, his place was taken by a Colonel R. Fielding, as next in seniority. The sad history of the gallant soldier is worth following further. At the capitulation he went to Oxford; there he managed to lose a leg, and presently turns up in Ireland, unluckily for him, at Drogheda. Cromwell storms, determined, after the inhuman massacres of Protestants, on making a harsh example of the Irish garrison, and Sir Arthur, now in command there, strange to say, has his brains knocked out with his own wooden leg, which the soldiers imagined was filled with gold pieces—they did find two hundred about his person—the very thing which Hood imagined long after of his unhappy heroine.
"Gold, still gold! hard, yellow, and cold,
For gold she had lived, and she died for gold,
For a golden weapon had killed her!
And the jury, its forman a gilder,
They brought it in a Felo di Se
Because her own leg had killed her!
Price of many a crime untold,
Good or bad, a thousand fold,
How widely gold's agencies vary!
To save, to curse, to ruin, to bless,
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a bloody Mary!"
There is a portrait of Sir A. Aston at the Reading Public Library, a middle aged man with a large square chin and most determined expression. Sir Jacob Astley, after governor here, and made Baron Reading, is also in the Library, a pleasant looking old gentleman.
The town was very strongly and securely fortified, I quote from the diary of Sir Samuel Luke, Scout Master for the parliament after the surrender, when he had just been over it: "They had only three ways out of the town, where they had built three sconces, one at Forbury, one at Harrison's Barn, and another at the end of Pangbourn lane; the Forts were very well wrought, and strong both with trenches and pallisades; the town entrenched round so that if any man of the Parliamentary side should have delivered up a place as this town, he would have deserved a halter."
"It would appear," writes Mr. Childs, "that earth works were thrown up in a rude square, extending from Grey Friars Church and the present prison on the north, to midway in Kendrick Road, and to Katesgrove Hill on the south; and from about the line of Kendrick Road on the east to Castle Hill on the west. Redoubts were thrown up at intervals, and on the top of Whitley Hill a strong fort known as 'Harrison's Barn.'"
This Sir Samuel appears to have been a stout and able soldier, but, unfortunately for him, he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Butler, who has pilloried him as the well-known Hudibras. Dr. Johnson says, writing of Butler, "The necessitudes of his condition placed him in the family of Sir S. Luke, one of Cromwell's officers, and a Presbyterian magistrate. Here he observed much of the character of the sectaries." Certainly he did, and recorded much; and though very much is gross caricature, still it is thus that Sir Samuel must be content to come down to us.
"When civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out they knew not why:
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a colonelling.
He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skilled in analytic;
He could distinguish and divide
A hair 'twixt south and south-west tide:
On either side he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute.
For his religion it was fit
To match his learning and his wit.
'Twas Presbyterian true blue,
For he was of the stubborn crew
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun:
And prove their doctrine or the dox
By apostolic blows and knocks.
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipped God for spite.
Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend plum-porridge.
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose."
On Sir Arthur's refusal to surrender, the town was at once assailed, the Royalist out-posts at Caversham being easily driven in, the bridge broken down, and batteries planted there commanding the town. This was April 15th. The Earl of Essex had at this time some 16,000 foot, and 300 horse, a force which in the course of a week was nearly doubled. His headquarters were at Southcote, leaving Colonel Skippon in charge of the siege works in the meadows at the N.W. of the town, on the old Battel Abbey estate, where was most of the fighting; whilst Lord Gray of Warwick sat down before the town, on the S.E. parts, with 7,000 horse and foot. Codrington tells us the Earl held a council of war, at which it was debated whether to storm or not. The cavalry were for attempting it, the infantry against, and this latter opinion prevailed, the garrison being supposed to be stronger than it really was. We read in the "Perfect Diurnal" of February 10th, "They are 4,000 strong in the town; some works are cast up as high as the houses; they have made use of all the clothier's wool in the town, and made wool-packs thereof." "There is nothing like leather," as is well known; but it may be doubted whether bales of cloth are benefited by a week's cannonading. No wonder the cloth-trade languished after that involuntary employment of the stock-in-trade.