Cavalier by Worsley Lucy

Author:Worsley, Lucy [Worsley, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2008-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

The two armies prepare for battle at Marston Moor

They are drawn up on Marston Hill, beyond the road and ditch running east-west between the villages of Long Marston and Tockwith. To the left of William's field of vision, a road called Atterwith Lane runs north-south, linking the moor with the fields. The Parliamentarians are standing 'in battalia in a large field of Rye, where the height of the corn, together with the showers of rain which then fell, prov'd no small inconvenience' to the damp soldiers.36 As the afternoon passes, they edge forwards down the hill, facing north, into the wet wind and looking across the ditch that separates them from the Royalists.37 The vast Parliamentarian army - twenty-eight thousand men in all - now 'in Marston corn fields falls to singing psalms', a sight and sound that strikes fear into the hearts of Prince Rupert's fourteen thousand men.38 Gathered here on Marston Moor is the largest number of men ever to take part in a battle on British soil. And William's four thousand infantrymen, who could make all the difference to the outnumbered Royalists, have yet to arrive from York.

Both armies have adopted a conventional deployment: cavalry at each wing, pikes and musketeers in the middle. Oliver Cromwell, heading the Parliamentarian left, or western, wing, is not yet marked out as the future leader of his party, yet he is in the process of proving his strategic genius. In 1628, he sought treatment from the doctor Theodore de Mayerne (who will also treat William Cavendish) for valde melancolicus, or depression. The same year marked his spiritual rebirth as a radical Puritan. By July, 1644, Cromwell has risen through the ranks on merit and has an important cavalry command. On the other, eastern, wing of the Parliamentarian lines stands Lord Fairfax's son Sir Thomas Fairfax's cavalry. His plan is to advance northwards into the moor along Atterwith Lane. During the afternoon, those at the eastern and western extremities of both armies edge so far forward that the two sides are 'within Musket shot' of each other.39

The sight of the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies inching towards each other will never be forgotten by those who witness it. Simeon Ashe, a chaplain with the Earl of Manchester's army, will afterwards describe the mixture of terror and exhilaration he feels: 'How goodly a sight was this to behold, when 2 mighty Armies, each of which consisted of above 20,000, horse and foot, did with flying colours prepared for the battle look each other in the face.'40

Both sides are similarly equipped and outfitted, though some battalions have a uniform: William's infantry, for example, will be wearing their distinctive white coats; Prince Rupert's foot soldiers are the Bluecoats, while others in the Royalist army wear green. Both sides wear the rounded iron helmets known as 'pots'; they can be turned upside down and used to boil water over an evening fire. A superior version has a flexible neck cover, giving it the name of a 'lobster-tailed pot', and the troops who wear them are known as 'lobsters'.

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