They even sent a deputation to the King, who received the members graciously and promised a reply, which quickly followed. It is a very long document, in which the King pointed out the wickedness of fighting against him; and he ordered his loyal subjects to begin the cause of peace by arresting the Mayor.
On the 21st of November 1642, about a month after the battle of Edgehill, a suspicious-looking boat was discovered by the pinnace guarding the Thames for the City and Parliament. She was a Gravesend boat and should have put in at Billingsgate. Instead of this, the tide being favourable, she continued her course and shot the bridge. The pinnace gave chase, and presently caught up with her and seized her. The only passenger on board was a gentleman, who was carrying from Colonel Goring a letter—it is not stated to whom—containing lists of the supplies of men expected by the King from Holland and Denmark. Nothing could have been more opportune than such a capture; the City was still lukewarm in the cause; to afford them clear proof that the King intended to fight them with Danes and Dutchmen would fire their blood as nothing else would do, not even defeat and disaster. Pennington, who was Mayor and a Parliamentarian heart and soul, joyfully received the letter, ordered copies to be made and to be read in every church on Sunday, the very next day, and a subscription to be opened at once for carrying on the war. In the church of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, twenty-seven persons subscribed various sums, amounting in all to £290. In St. Margaret’s, Lothbury, about £350 were subscribed. Mr. Edwin Freshfield, who relates this story (Archæologia, xlv.), is of opinion that the whole business was invented by the Mayor. He wanted money, he wanted to rouse the citizens, he wanted them to be committed openly. In this he succeeded perfectly; he raised £30,000, he fired their passions, he made them commit themselves in writing. From this moment there was no looking back for the City of London.
In February 1643, as the attack upon London by the Royalist army seemed threatening, the Common Council passed an Act for the defence of the City by a line of redoubts and fortifications, which were taken in hand and executed without delay. It has been assumed that this work consisted of a wall with redoubts and bastions at intervals. A plan of the wall shows an enormous work, eleven miles long, running all round London. This view has been adopted by later writers. No one seems to have remarked on the impossibility of so colossal a fortification being constructed in the brief space of three or four weeks even if the whole population worked day and night; and no one seems to have discovered that it was absurd to construct such a wall where the enemy could not possibly attack it, or that it should have been thought desirable to construct a wall which it would have required at least 200,000 men to defend. The historian also might have thought it still more remarkable that such enormous earth-works, with stone bastions, entailing such enormous labour, should have been undertaken with so much zeal and unanimity; and, finally, he might have asked himself how it came to pass that not a vestige of the work should have remained, even though the greater part of the ground covered was free from buildings down to the beginning of this century.
Sharpe, however (London and the Kingdom, iii. 431), gives the actual “Resolution of the Common Council for putting the City and Suburbs into a posture of defence, 23rd February 1643:”—
“Journal 40, fo. 52.
That a small fort conteyning one bulwark and halfe and a battery in the reare of the flanck be made at Gravell lane end. A horne worke with two flanckers be placed at Whitechapell windmills. One redoubt with two flanckers betwixt Whitechapel Church and Shoreditch. Two redoubts with flanckers neere Shoreditch church with a battery. At the windmill in Islington way, a battery and brestwork round about. A small redoubt neere Islington pound. A battery and brestwork on the hill neere Clarkenwell towards Hampstead way. Two batteries and a brestworke at Southampton House. One redoubt with two flanckers by St. Giles in the Fields, another small worke neere the turning. A quadrant forte with fower halfe bulwarks crosse Tyborne highway at the second turning that goeth towards Westminster. At Hide parke corner a large forte with flanckers on all sides. At the corner of the lord Gorings brick wall next the fields a redoubt and a battery where the Court of Guard now is at the lower end of the lord Gorings wall, the brestwork to be made forwarder. In Tuttle fields a battery brestworke, and the ditches to be scowred. That at the end of every street which is left open to enter into the suburbs of this citty, defenceable brestworks be made or there already erected, repayred with turnepikes muskett proof, and that all the passages into the suburbs on the north side the river except five, viz.: the way from St. James towards Charing Crosse, the upper end of Saint Giles in Holborne, the further end of St. John Street towards Islington, Shoreditch church, and Whitechapell be stopped up. That the courtes of guard and the rayles or barrs at the utmost partes of the freedome be made defensible, and turnpikes placed there in lieu of the chaynes all muskett proof. And that all the shedds and buildings that joyne to the outside of the wall be taken downe. And that all the bulwarkes be fitted at the gates and walls soe that the flanckes of the wall and streets before the gates may be cleared and that the gates and bulwarkes be furnished with ordnance.”
It will be seen that there is not one word about a new wall round London. The so-called fortifications were simply small redoubts and bastions at certain fixed points.
How the London trained bands went out to fight, how well they stood their ground, in what actions they took their part, will be found in the many histories of that war which still claims its fierce adherents and still awakens the passions of a partisan, whoever relates it. The constancy of the City was rewarded by the stoppage of trade and the ruin of many merchants, while the soldiers in the trained bands were shopkeepers and skilled craftsmen, to whom long continuance in the field was ruin. In 1644 the disaffection of the men amounted almost to mutiny.
On the temper and discipline of the City trained bands Sharpe thus speaks:—
“That the city trained bands had done good service in their day no one will deny, but the time was fast approaching when it would be necessary to raise an army of men willing to devote themselves to the military life as a profession. For permanent service in the field the London trained bands were not to be relied on. ‘In these two days’ march,’ wrote Waller (2 July) to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, ‘I was extremely plagued with the mutinies of the City Brigade, who are grown to that height of disorder that I have no hope to retain them, being come to their old song of “Home! Home!”’ There was, he said, only one remedy for this, and that was a standing army, however small:—‘My lords, I write these particulars to let you know that an army compounded of these men will never go through with your service, and till you have an army merely your own, that you may command, it is in a manner impossible to do anything of importance.’ The junction of his forces with those under Browne, who had been despatched (23 June) to protect the country between London and the royalist army, served only to increase the general discontent. ‘My London regiments,’ he wrote (8 July), ‘immediately looked on his [i.e. Browne’s] forces as sent to relieve them, and without expectation of further orders, are most of them gone away; yesterday no less than 400 out of one regiment quitted their colours. On the other side, Major-General Browne’s men, being most of them trained band men of Essex and Hertfordshire, are so mutinous and uncommandable that there is no hope of their stay. They are likewise upon their march home again. Yesterday they were like to have killed their Major-General, and they have hurt him in the face.... I am confident that above 2000 Londoners ran away from their colours.’ The same spirit of insubordination manifested itself again when Waller threw himself (20 July) into Abingdon. Most of his troops were only too anxious to leave him, whilst the Londoners especially refused to stir ‘one foot further, except it be home.’”
