Believe or Die (6 page)

The Parliamentary Commander, the Earl of Essex, fought that day on foot with a short pike in hand. He too had spotted the King’s standard and ordered his own Regiment of Foot plus another to support Stapleton’s Horse in a renewed assault. Still the Royalist Foot, now identifiable as Sir Nicholas Byron’s brigade, held firm beset as they were now on both front and flank by both Horse and Foot. Then Balfour’s Roundheads returned from their destruction of the Royalist Artillery and charged the rear of the King’s valiant soldiers. It was too much. Byron’s men broke and ran. One of the most courageous yet tragic figures on the field that day did not flee with his comrades but fought on until cut down. It was he who carried the King’s standard; his name was Sir Edmund Verney. Verney’s tormented loyalties had torn him apart when war broke out. Conscience or duty? But honour was everything to Verney. Before the onset of hostilities, he wrote:
I have eaten his (the King’s) bread and served him near thirty year and could not do so base a thing as to forsake him.”
Verney chose to
lose my life, as I am sure to do, to preserve and defend those things which are against my conscience to preserve.

He wore no armour that day, not even a buff coat. He was calm and collected. He had made his decision to die. When the Royalist Infantry at the centre began to crumble, Verney stormed forward into the thick of the fray bearing aloft the King’s standard to encourage his comrades. A desperate melee developed around the standard with Verney wielding it like a huge battleaxe laying stunned and skewered Parliamentarians all about him like a creature possessed. He was last seen in the midst of a confused muddle of horsemen and then the standard disappeared from view. Sir Edmund’s body was never discovered though his hand, hacked off as it still clasped his sovereign’s standard was later recovered. On it was a ring with a miniature portrait of King Charles set in it. This was subsequently returned to his devastated wife.

But the standard itself had not yet seen the end of its adventures that day. Bloody and with most of its pole missing, it was brought before the Earl of Essex who commanded it to be taken to the rear for safekeeping.

As this order was being effected, one of the few Royalist Cavaliers who had not disappeared from the field, a Captain John Smith, came across a boy perched in a tree. The boy, reporting from his grandstand view, said the ‘Rebels’ were carrying off the King’s ‘Flag’ and pointed Smith in the appropriate direction. The Captain, with a single follower in tow, set off in pursuit. He shortly came upon six exhausted Roundhead cavalrymen escorting a seventh man on foot with the precious standard grasped tightly in his arms. The headstrong Smith considered the odds reasonable for a ‘Gentleman’ and promptly charged. He crashed into his enemies immediately wounding the possessor of the standard. As he lent forward to deliver the killing thrust, a Roundhead landed a glancing blow from a poleaxe on Smith’s neck. Simultaneously, other Parliamentarians fired their pistols at the raging Cavalier but all missed. Smith span his mount and ran the man with the poleaxe straight through the belly. As he toppled from his horse, the other cavalrymen fled. The Captain watched them go then turned back to the quivering foot soldier. He held out his hand and received the standard from its bearer who had now lost control of his bladder and was praying hard to any Deity that might be listening. Smith thanked him politely and departed. On his way back to Royalist lines, this audacious officer also managed to free the luckless Richard Fielding who had been taken prisoner when his brigade had been put to flight; Captain Smith was knighted by his grateful liege the following day.

While these momentous events were taking place in the centre of the battlefield with the action spinning and swaying this way and that across the furrows of the plough, the far right of the Royalist Foot had had its own problems. When the Parliamentarians had begun falling back towards Kineton, dispersed by Rupert’s Horsemen, the King’s Foot had advanced to finish the job only to be confronted by a determined display of resistance from a rallied foe which rendered one brigade wavering and inactive and a second stalled by heavy casualties. The only infantry to remain firm and resolute in its purpose was that of Charles Gerrard on the extreme right of the Royalist line. He held the weakened Parliamentarians of Ballard and Holles at bay while he calmly assessed the situation. Seeing the way of things in the centre, he began to pull his Blue Coats back to both protect his own flank and cover the possible retreat of his neighbouring Royalist units. Exhaustion was beginning to effect the men and soldiers were now starting to drop out of the ranks, many quite literally.

But retiring under fire is always a hazardous undertaking and despite Gerrard’s iron grip, some of his formations began losing cohesion almost immediately. Amid the blinding powder smoke and deafening clamour, units were unsure as to whether they should stand, retire, or just flee. The two Parliamentarian commanders facing Gerrard, Holles and Ballard, saw the Royalists waver in confusion and determined to seize the moment, drums thundered with renewed vigour and with a loud
Halleluiah!
the Roundheads stormed forward. Denzil Holles’ Regiment had been depleted by the detaching of a large number of musketeers to fight in the hedgerows on the flanks, only for them then to be swept away by Rupert’s rampaging Horse. A bare handful had managed to find their way back to the Colours, but Holles’ main strength, such as it was, was now almost entirely based on his Pikes. They crashed into Gerrard’s brigade and the terrible noise accompanying the savagery of a ‘Push’ began. Holles urged his men on. The King’s men were not, however, as disorganised as he’d thought. Would his Pikes be enough? The Pikes, a handful of musketeers … and a solitary dismounted dragoon.

Earlier in the battle, Colonel John Brown commanding a body of Parliamentarian dragoons amid the hedgerows facing the King’s left flank, had sent a rider to Thomas Ballard on the other side of the field. He was requesting more musketeers, as he could now see no less than five Regiments of Royalist Horse to his front. The messenger set off on his lumbering mount thudding heavily through the enclosures. He circled around and behind the Parliamentarian Foot, paused, seeking out Ballard’s Colour in the acrid atmosphere and, having located it, plodded on. Then his world exploded. Cannon fire had been exchanged for nearly an hour with varying degrees of success, but now a single errant round whirred away from its intended target - whether for King or Parliament it was impossible to say - bounced upon the hard ground and completely decapitated the messenger’s horse. The beast stood still for a second, its rider frozen in horror and covered in gore, then it collapsed on its side. Partially trapped by the weight of the unfortunate animal, the man was frantically struggling to free himself when a thunderous vibration shook the ground and a torrent of Royalist cavalry swept by and over him. Not one gave him so much as a second glance covered as he was with blood and deceased horse. At length the ground finally stopped shaking, or perhaps he did. He wriggled free, retrieved his weapons and set off towards Ballard’s Colour. It had gone! Frantically he looked around but could see nothing in the smoke drifting over the field from dozens of opposing cannon and countless muskets. Occasional breaks in the opaque curtain revealed bodies of men, but to which side they belonged was impossible to tell.

He stumbled off in what he thought was the most likely direction but soon found himself amid hedges strewn with dead Parliamentarian musketeers. Recovering his breath he realised two things: he had come too far and was now on the opposite flank, and Parliament’s left was routed. He turned back tripping and tumbling repeatedly across the furrows trying to make some sense of what was going on. A deafening tattoo of drumbeats came from his left and an eddy in the powder smoke revealed Royalist Foot, rank upon rank of it marching steadily towards him. With an involuntary yelp he turned to run and suddenly detected more, different drums, and there to his right and emerging from the gloom came the Parliamentarian Foot. Off set the messenger scampering around the wall of Roundhead pikes pointing at him and heading for the Regiment’s Colour. It wasn’t Ballard’s and it was too smoke stained to be immediately identified, but at least it definitely belonged to Parliament. Breathlessly he made his way towards a tall, heavyset man thoughtfully hefting a partisan.

“What Regiment my Lord?” wheezed the messenger.

The man looked him up and down with evident distaste.

“Mine young Sir,” he snarled and the colour bearer behind him grinned. A preacher suddenly appeared Bible in one hand, sword in the other.

“Are you come from my Lord Essex boy?” demanded the preacher.

“No Sir, from Colonel Brown on the right. I am to give Colonel Ballard a message,” said the messenger groping in his sash and withdrawing a note. It was covered in blood and horse innards and was totally unreadable. The colour bearer grinned again. The big man glared down at the messenger then gestured with his partisan narrowly missing the messenger’s nose with the weapon.

“Thomas Ballard is over yonder somewhere boy. You will not make it in one piece, not if you had the Archangel Michael at your side.”

The preacher frowned as if he suspected the officer was about to blaspheme, but as if to confirm the big man’s observation, a tremendous crashing advised all in earshot that Pike had met Pike. The officer glared in the direction of this noisy intrusion.

“I am Denzil Holles young man. And I have already sent your good Colonel more men than I should have. I take it he was asking for more?” The messenger nodded and Holles shook his head. “None have I to give, the Lord knows I shall be missing those already sent ere long. Anyways, your Colonel and your comrades appear to have been dispersed, as have my own skirmishers, those that are not laying dead even as we speak that is. But for now we have other distractions and the Lord’s will has yet to be done on this cursed day. Charge your pieces and loosen your sword boy, there will be warm work afoot here anon. Captain Clerkin!” he bellowed and an officer appeared, a sword in each hand.

“Captain, kindly get this lost soul of a dragoon over with that motley of musketeers you have assembled. I will have need of their lead soon methinks.”

The dragoon messenger hesitated for a moment.

“Why do you tarry boy?” demanded the preacher, “God’s work will not be delayed!”

“I wouldn’t want my comrades to think I’d run Sir.”

“Very well. But the Lord knows all and I have a remarkable memory for names. What then is yours that I may commit it to mind and declare you true to the cause?”

“Meade Sir, Richard Meade.”

Wil Pitkin spat out a mouthful of blood and mucus and renewed his heaving forward. The man next to him took a pike thrust full in the face and fell back with a gargled scream. Withdrawing his weapon briefly, Wil tried to overhand it into the Parliamentarian throng. His muscles felt like they were on fire, his arms felt like lead, and his legs had turned to jelly. The pike he’d thrust wouldn’t return. Was it stuck in a body or was it being held? A Roundhead officer suddenly heaved himself up using his comrades for purchase and hacked furiously down with his sword forcing a couple of Royalist pikemen to let go of their trapped weapons and duck away. Then a King’s officer appeared and swung a halberd in a mighty arc. It clanged off the Roundhead’s helmet and the man fell back and disappeared. Pitkin despaired now of ever getting his pike free and let it go. He bent down to retrieve another from a fallen comrade and someone discharged a pistol close to his head. His ears rang and he could hear nothing. He thus did not hear the order to pull back and the stinging of powder in his eyes meant he likewise did not immediately see his comrades shuffling rearwards. Even as this was occurring, the order to retire was being mirrored on the other side.

Then suddenly the men immediately to Wil’s front dropped to the ground leaving him exposed, but momentarily due to his disarrayed senses, he was unaware of it. A handful of musketeers had been filtered into the Parliamentarian pike hedge and had fired point blank to assist disengagement. The opposing Regiments drew sullenly away from each other gasping for breath and sliding in blood and excrement. Pitkin dimly became aware now that he was a yard or two in front of his comrades. He turned to get his bearings and his eyes were just beginning to focus when something hit the staff of his replacement pike shattering it in two. Looking wildly back at the enemy line he saw a Roundhead dragoon levelling a pistol at him and could see that the man held another, obviously but recently discharged weapon, in his other hand.

The unnatural clarity of battle attunes the senses to a point where time itself appears to slow to the pace of a snail enabling such details to register through the fear. The dragoon pulled the trigger, a puff of smoke, and the weapon misfired! The Roundhead cursed and glared at Pitkin then his mouth opened and a strange look came over his face. Puzzlement, then disbelief, then the lips drew back in an almost feral snarl. Pitkin’s body unfroze from its moment of panic induced paralysis and he wiped his eyes clear of sweat, smoke and blood. Now he could clearly see the dragoon’s face for the man had discarded his hat and was but a few yards to his front.

Richard Mead and Wil Pitkin had met again.

Mead drew his sword and pushed through the musketeers about him. Pitkin snatched up a fallen officer’s rapier and clambered forward over the dead. On both sides their comrades grabbed them and hauled them back into the ranks though they struggled like wildcats to be at each other. Both were bellowing curses, berserk and bereft of reason in a quest for vengeance and it was only the sudden arrival of two rival troops of cavalry between them that prevented their coming together in mortal strife. The powder smoke again blanketed the combatants, bringing with it its customary foul smell of rotten eggs. The battle rotated again drawing the conflicting units further apart and soon out of sight of each other.

Rupert’s cavalry had finally been brought back under some semblance of control. They halted the Parliamentarian Horse then wheeled back and charged their Foot forcing the Roundheads into squares and giving Gerrard’s men time to retire back up the hill. With them they dragged a snarling Pitkin still screaming his intent to kill. Within one of the Parliamentarian squares, in reality a rough circle, a murderous Mead was equally vocal in his desires and similarly straining against his fellows.