Believe or Die (10 page)

Instead they were standing in battle array, shivering under intermittent rain showers amid a trampled field of rye. The afternoon wore on and nothing happened of note. Cavalry scouts and occasional troops of dragoons exchanged half-hearted shots, but all seemed content to wait for the morrow. In disgust, Rupert ordered his command to stand down. Clearly there was going to be no battle, and thus no glory this day. Tomorrow he would charge these damned rebels and defeat them in one fell swoop; that was the way he had always done it. Doubtless it would all be over before the pikes ever clashed. Rupert’s supremely confident horsemen dismounted, unbridled, and relaxed. Footsore pikemen and musketeers sat in huddles, filled their pipes and began preparing what meagre rations they had in their knapsacks. Cannon of both sides had begun exchanging shots earlier, but more as an irritant and as a means of keeping their guns warm and dry. Everyone expected them to quieten down soon.

Along the tree line on Rupert’s left flank, a concealed troop of Parliamentarian Horse observed their enemies. Tasked with being the eyes and ears of that flank, the troop commander, a Lieutenant acting on behalf of his gout-ridden Captain, noted the Royalists standing down and despatched a rider to advise his superiors. The nearest King’s deployment was a Regiment of Horse, dismounted and not yet even correctly positioned, separated from the main field as they were by a large piece of waterlogged ground. Muddied artillerymen were struggling to pull their guns on to a firmer stand of ground urging their exhausted teams of horses to ever-greater efforts. Assisting the gunners was a company of infantry, their pikemen doing most of the muscle work while the musketeers, anxious to keep their weapons dry, stood off to one side and yelled ‘helpful’ advice to their disgruntled colleagues. The Parliamentarian Lieutenant noted that although the cords of the matchlocks were glowing and smoking, the pikemen’s weapons were in a series of ‘stands’ and not immediately to hand. A tempting target indeed for a reckless cavalry officer. But Richard Mead did not consider himself reckless – then he saw a particular Royalist officer of Foot bellowing directions at the working parties.

Wil Pitkin slid in the mud yet again and cursed vehemently. Nearly there though, he consoled himself, one more heave and they would be on better ground. Then he realised that he was the only one still pulling on the ropes and tackles. All around him, men were fleeing back to their pikes or the cover of the musketeers. Spinning around he saw that a host of Parliamentarian horsemen were almost upon them. The cavalry hit the artillery wagons like a whirlwind slashing and shooting at all within reach. Desperately, Pitkin grabbed a sponge and flailed about him narrowly averting a well-aimed sword thrust and all the while screaming for his men to form up and advance. With a speed born of hard experience they did so, and a sparse hedge of pikes began blunting the cavalry’s inroads. Muskets began peppering the riders wounding both men and mounts. A distant trumpet sounded from the treeline and the Parliamentarians wheeled away. All except one who roared defiance and ventured one last foray, and it was aimed directly at Wil Pitkin who was struggling to retrieve a sword that someone had dropped in the sodden earth. Despite the adrenalin and the fear, Wil was aware of two balls glancing off the Roundhead’s equipment and part of his horse’s tack being split asunder by a frantically waved pole-arm. Then the rider was upon him with a mighty swing of his sword that split Wil’s crossbelt and drew a tear of flesh down his chest. The Roundhead snarled and hauled his panicking mount away. Then, with one last contemptuous gesture, he raised his visor and glared at Pitkin. Such was the ferocity of the attack, and yet the strangeness of the moment, that for an instant or two, no one made any move towards the Roundhead from the Royalist ranks and he simply turned and began to canter away. Then the shock that Pitkin had just experienced from both the fight and the recognition of his foe abated sufficiently for him to grab a sword in each hand and charge bellowing after Richard Mead. Pitkin’s men dithered for a moment then Captain Duvall was amongst them beating them back into line with the flat of his sword. Two of Rupert’s men, hurriedly mounted, raced after Pitkin, hefted him off his feet and dragged him back. As they did so they pointed out that Foot do not charge Horse – “It ain’t done don’t ye know!”

Cromwell pondered over the disturbance he could hear but not understand, then he moved his guns forward supported by two infantry regiments. The Royalists pushed two of their Regiments of Foot forward to counter as if a giant game of chess was being played and a brief exchange ensued. While this was occurring, both Mead and Pitkin were being berated by their respective superiors. Generals started battles they were told, there was a form to these things; Gentleman conformed to rules. Dedication to the cause was admirable but it must be controlled. Mead and Pitkin simmered. Both knew full well that, although Generals may very well
start
the thing, sometimes even agreeing on a time to do so, it was the common soldiers who did the fighting and dying. And that was what it was all about – kill your enemy. Upon being dismissed, both glared at the opposition, both seeking out their own, personal enemy.

Rupert gnawed on a chicken leg then tossed it aside. He leaned back against a tree and closed his eyes. He was vaguely aware of the noise of skirmishing, made to sound distant by undulating ground and mingled with occasional thunder; distant and, as far as he was concerned, irrelevant until the dawn.

But a ripple of firing now spread along the Parliamentarian ranks and it began to increase steadily in volume. Suddenly the Roundhead and Scots infantry shuffled forward then broke into a ‘running march’ down the slope. The Royalist skirmishers were caught completely unawares and were not helped in the slightest by a sudden downpour that doused virtually all their matchlock cords in a nonce. Further back, the Parliamentarian commanders looked askance at each other. Who had ordered this attack? It appeared nobody had.

Now, many were learning that battles have their own momentum and at certain times, battles don’t give a tinker’s cuss what Generals think! Black Tom Fairfax gaped at his now charging infantry and mentally tore up his carefully crafted battle plan. He immediately led four hundred Horse forward in a furious charge that shattered the Royalist cavalry facing him, sending them fleeing away towards York. But this was not good cavalry country and subsequent formations charging under Fairfax the Younger lost their cohesion and velocity amid the hedgerows and bracken. But now Rupert, rudely awakened from his dozing, leapt to his feet and took in the situation at a glance, or so he thought. The Parliamentarian Horse emerged from the broken ground under a steep embankment and suffered grievously from Royalist musketeers stationed thereupon. Then, a large force of Rupert’s cavalry appeared and utterly routed them. Up ahead, Black Tom had become detached from his command in the confusion, his men becoming misguidedly delirious with their first, albeit minor, triumph over the King’s Horse. Fairfax returned back up the hill alone.

On the other wing, Cromwell led his cavalry forward. His opponent was Lord Byron who responded immediately by counter-charging, he having declined the offer of a meal with Rupert and Newcastle and therefore being more quickly able to react. Rupert himself had now got over his initial dismay at having to fight so late in the day and added his own horsemen to the contest. Within minutes, the reserves of both parties had been committed and a huge cavalry melee ensued as rival troopers hacked and slashed at each other with no readily apparent theme or plan. Foot regiments on both sides were ordered forward in support and to fire into the flanks of the now almost static cavalry of their foes. Yet in doing so, they themselves rendered themselves vulnerable. David Leslie’s Scottish Horse slammed into an exposed Royalist Regiment of Foot stopping it dead in its tracks. He then regrouped, changed direction, and landed like a thunderbolt on the King’s horsemen battling with Cromwell’s Ironsides. Leslie’s actions tipped the scales and, seeing their comrades being savaged on all sides, the Royalist rear ranks turned and fled. Rupert was caught up in the rout, powerless to prevent it, and forced to hide in a field of beans to evade capture.

The fleeing Royalist Horse caused chaos amid their own Regiments of Foot on that flank with many units completely losing their cohesion and formations. Wil Pitkin attempted valiantly to maintain order but rain squalls and pitch black powder smoke made the task impossible. In very short order he realised that he had completely lost his own regiment in the murk. Battered, bloody and soaked, he crammed his sopping hat back on and, disgusted by the turn in events, headed for the nearest apparently intact unit occasionally visible in the gloom. He could only identify them by the colour of their coats: white - Newcastle’s men.

With both sides seemingly victorious on their respective left wings, the battle rotated. On Parliament’s left, Foot and Horse surged successfully forward, but in the centre, things had turned ill. The Royalist Infantry advanced with vigour and broke apart the formations of their enemies allowing cavalry through to savage the now disordered Scots and Roundheads. Yet one brigade, that of Lord Lindsey, stood resolute for Parliament and the Covenant. Order was restored and the holes in the line were plugged.

On the left of the King’s line, his victorious cavalry, having pushed Parliament’s Horse from the field, now made exactly the same error as they had at Edgehill two years previously. They promptly hurtled off in the pursuit of loot and of their apparently fleeing foes and in doing so threw away the chance of a decisive outcome. Only one of the King’s commanders, Sir Charles Lucas, kept his head and a tight rein on his men. He had been the only one to do so at Edgehill and he repeated his feat now at Marston Moor. Seeing Lindsey’s valiant efforts for the Covenant in the centre, he resolved to put an end to the troublesome Scot and led his command forward.

Lindsey was having warm work of it that day. He stood in his stirrups, wiped the sweat from his stinging eyes, and tried to make some sense of what was going on around him. To his front he had Newcastle’s Foot and now fast approaching on his flank, he could see Lucas coming against him. Warm work indeed! His Scots regiments were interlinked with pikes and muskets making them mutually supporting. His men were experienced and they were stalwart, hard men, and the King’s lackeys would have a deal of work to shift them from the field this day. And so it proved. Not only did they hold their ground for nearly an hour before being reinforced, but when Lucas’ third charge, with the noble Lord to the fore, abated, the Scots’ Foot broke out and charged the Royalist Cavalry. Lucas was unhorsed and captured and his cavalry were dispersed. But another of the King’s Generals had spotted an opening and now attacked successfully, reaching as far as the Parliamentarian baggage train. So effective was this assault in generating panic and confusion that all three of Parliament’s Generals fled the field. Leven and Fairfax Senior did not return to the fray at all that day being convinced by the chaos around them that the day was lost. Only Manchester, his conscience troubling him, came shame-facedly back. He managed to gather some five hundred stragglers and lost souls from all manner of units and these he led around towards the left wing, which seemed to be settling down somewhat.

Cromwell on the other wing was also gathering splintered detachments, including a single troop of Ketch’s Horse originally detached from Waller’s Army to advise Parliament’s Generals of the defeat at Croperdy Bridge earlier, then pressed into service as scouts. John Lambert arrived with half a dozen troops of varying strength and two squadrons of Belgonie’s Scots Horse also managed to fight clear and join the motley cavalry force. Cromwell now commanded the only relatively intact and functioning Parliamentarian force out of what had previously been no less than three armies.

After the wars, many tried to deride Cromwell’s ensuing actions that day, attributing success to others as toadying politicians are always want to do. To those who were there that day, the truth was plain regardless of what the man later became. To Cromwell this sudden weight of responsibility was a gift, a sign from the Almighty, a chance to do his work. His cornet said later that he seemed to beam with an inner light as he raised his eyes to heaven in grateful address. Ordering all to follow, he led the allied cavalry around to the rear of the Royalist Foot, issuing orders and making deployments as they rode.

“You Sir! What Regiment?” he bellowed at a nearby Lieutenant clutching a despatch.

“Ketch’s Horse my Lord. A rider brought these tidings for General Fairfax, only … ”

“Only you cannot find a single General upon the field at this moment, am I correct?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Very well, forget your task for the moment. Are your men true to the Cause and can they fight?”

“Aye to both my Lord.”

“So be it. See you yonder banner of red, green and gold. There you will find Major Lambert who is a truly God-fearing man. You will give him my respects and act under his orders. What are you gaping at boy?”

“Sir, you are wounded. Your neck … ”

“Bah! Nothing more than a passing ball!” laughed Cromwell with distinctly uncharacteristic humour. “Be about God’s work young man, we are in his hands now!”

Lieutenant Mead signalled his troop left and made for Lambert’s command carefully skirting Balgonie’s Scots who looked like they might murder anyone who crossed their path.

The rotating nature of the battle now brought Cromwell’s cavalry around in a wide arc to the exact spot where the Royalist Horse had begun the main cavalry fight. These worthies, fresh from their looting and pillaging of the baggage train, now returned to the field to find a sea of Parliamentarian Horse, close-packed and thundering towards them. The Royalist commanders, the hard drinking and even harder fighting Goring and his comrade Langdale, desperately tried to form up, but the ground was against them and their ranks were depleted by those still missing in their search for plunder. They were no match for the disciplined wrath of Cromwell’s God whose followers now assailed them and a single charge swept them from the field.