A Murderous Midsummer by Mark Stoyle

Author:Mark Stoyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300269079
Publisher: Yale University Press

III

According to Hooker, Russell’s decision ‘nowe to loose no more time, but to give the adventure upon the enemie’ was prompted, first, by the arrival of the long-awaited reinforcements under Lord Grey, and second, by the fact that the lord privy seal had recently been ‘advertised’ from Exeter that the city was in desperate straits and could not hope to hold out for much longer.43 Both of these factors were surely critical in prompting Russell finally to seek a conclusion with the rebels, but it is possible that the king’s lieutenant in the West was swayed by a third consideration, too. Ellis Gruffydd, a Welsh soldier serving in the English garrison of Calais, later recorded that ‘the Lord Privy Seal saw his opportunity to attack the besiegers before the Cornishmen arrived’. This statement suggests that, while some of the Cornish rebel forces had arrived before Exeter in time to take part in the action at Fenny Bridges on 27 July, many of their fellow countrymen were still in the process of marching up from the west: meaning that Russell – having received his own reinforcements – now had a precious window of time in which to act before the rebels could concentrate all of their own forces.44

The events of the next three days may be reconstructed from Hooker’s later accounts and from a letter sent by John Fry – one of the loyalist gentlemen who was serving in the king’s army – to John Thynne just two weeks afterwards. On Saturday, 3 August, Russell’s forces set out from Honiton and, after having diverted from the line of the main road – perhaps because it had been barricaded by the rebels – they marched ‘over the downs’ to Woodbury, some 9 miles to the south-east of Exeter. Here, the king’s army halted beside a windmill that formed a prominent feature in the local landscape. Four miles north-west of Woodbury lies Clyst St Mary, the village that had been a key rebel centre since the risings first began to escalate, and which now stood directly in the line of march between Russell’s forces and Exeter. According to Hooker, when ‘the rebels of saint Marie Clist’ heard of the royal army’s advance, they at once

with all their force and power came forth, and marched onwards, untill they came to the foresaid mill, where they offer[ed] the fight, and notwithstanding they were of verie stout stomachs, & also verie valiantlie did stand to their tackles [i.e., kept up the struggle], yet in the end they were overthrown, and the most parte of them slaine.45

Fry later estimated there were ‘slayne of the rebelles’ in this engagement ‘les than one hundredth, as I thykne’, but ‘of our men none slayne . . . yt I hard of’ – though he conceded that ‘after ye end of ye fight were iii or iiii of our men slayne yt folyshely went abrode to spoyle’: that is to say, to take goods by force from the local people, a practice that would henceforth be indulged in at every opportunity by the Crown’s forces in the South-West.

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