The interest of this battle resides in its strategical
rather than its tactical aspect. In this it is unique among all the battles of
the great Civil War.
The situation leading up to the battle is somewhat involved
and needs a map of Southern England by which to follow it. Stated in the
broadest terms, the Royalist army, on its return from its victorious campaign
in the west over the Earl of Essex, had by mid-October, 1644, reached
Salisbury. The Roundheads at this moment had three separate armies in the
field. The Earl of Manchester was at Reading, the Earl of Essex was reforming his
defeated army at Portsmouth, and Sir William Waller was falling back before the
King and was now at Andover. In addition the Roundheads had three sieges on
their hands, Donnington Castle (a mile to the north of Newbury), Basing House
(a mile east of Basingstoke), and Banbury. The approach of the Royal army
seemed to threaten the first two. The very threat had this effect on the
besiegers of Donnington Castle, who, faced by the resolute defence of Colonel
Boys, abandoned the siege and fell back on Reading on October 18th. There
remained Basing House. With the object of relieving it, the King resumed his
advance on October 18th, driving Waller out of Andover the same day.
Meanwhile the three Parliamentary armies were steadily
converging. On the 16th Manchester reached Basingstoke from Reading. On the
next day Essex, advancing from Portsmouth, reached Alresford (12 miles south of
Basingstoke), and on the 19th joined Manchester there. Meanwhile Waller was
also drawing near from Andover, and on the 21st all three armies were united at
Basingstoke. The total now concentrated came to 19,000 men, one of the largest
armies on either side that had yet appeared in the field. But if formidable in
numbers it was less so in its command. Instead of appointing one commander-in-chief
for this army, the egregious Committee of Both Kingdoms placed it in commission
under a council composed of Manchester, Essex, Waller and other officers, and
even two complete civilians; (reminding one of the Dutch Deputies that
accompanied Marlborough’s army in the field).
Undeterred by this formidable concentration in front of him,
the King pushed boldly forward and reached Kingsclerc on October 21st. Here he
was midway between the two threatened posts, Donnington Castle and Basing
House. But he was too late to relieve Basing House, so he now turned north
towards Donnington Castle, entering Newbury next day, the 22nd.
From Newbury Charles sent a force of horse under the Earl of
Northampton to the relief of Banbury, which was speedily effected by it. But
this left him with only 9,000 men at Newbury. The Roundheads’ Council of War
decided to attack the Royalist army without further delay, and set out for the
purpose on October 25th. Next day they were established on Clay Hill, one mile
to the northeast of Newbury.
Thus the situation on the evening of October 26th was that
the Roundheads, 19,000 strong were confronting the Royalists, 10,000 strong,
the two armies facing respectively west and east, immediately to the north of
Newbury. It looked as if the King had been outmanoeuvred; but there were
certain points in his favour which appeared to justify his decision to stand
his ground. The first was the natural strength of the position that he
occupied. His right flank was protected by the river Kennet and the town of
Newbury in which he kept a garrison; his left by a small tributary, the
Lambourn, while still further to the left rear, stood the formidable Donnington
Castle, under its heroic defender, Colonel Boys (whom the King knighted on the
field for his spirited defence, shortly before the battle). So much for the
flanks. The centre rested on a large house occupied by a Mr. Dolman and now
called Shaw House. Round three sides of the garden, forming a sort of
courtyard, were some ancient embankments. The house formed a veritable
fortress, like Hougoumont in a later and more famous battle. The Royalists had
another but intangible advantage, namely the weak and divided command of their
opponents. We have seen that the command was vested in a Council—a notoriously
bad form of command in war. Moreover, the senior general on that Council was
probably the most inefficient commander of a considerable army that ever fought
in England. The Earl of Manchester, to do him justice, never set up to be a
soldier; he preferred to regard himself as a civilian who had only assumed
command at the call of duty. Apparently even the Parliamentarians were
influenced by the desire to have a commander with ‘a handle to his name’;
whereas Cromwell, though fresh from his triumph at Marston Moor, was relegated
to a subordinate command of horse. The Earl of Essex had gone sick and his army
was itself given a divided command in the persons of Skippon and Balfour.
But this peculiar council now nerved itself to a remarkable
decision—one that gives this battle its distinctive interest. Not liking the
look of the Royalist position from the front, the council decided—on whose
proposition does not appear—to attack it simultaneously from front and rear. To
encompass this would entail a wide detour by the outflanking column owing to
the position of Donnington Castle on the left rear—a site that might have been
purposely selected to frustrate such a manœuvre. The route decided on was as
follows: three miles north-east nearly to Hermitage—west, via Chieveley to
North Heath—south to Winterbourne—west to Boxford—south to Wickham
Heath—south-east to Speen. Total 13 miles. It was a bold decision to take, even
though the Royalist army was in great inferiority; for the council could not
have known the exact strength of their opponents, and the tendency is to
overrate the size of the opposing army. Including a period for rest and sleep
the march would take the best part of 24 hours, and during that time the
remainder of the army risked being attacked by the whole force of the
Royalists. But this decision is a good example of the profound truth that in
war risks must be taken. In actual fact there was never much prospect of the
King attacking the main army during this period. By some means he managed to get
wind of the flanking move, and in order to counter it he also divided his
forces and detached Prince Maurice’s detachment to occupy a position to the
west of Speen, facing west.
The reserve, consisting of horse and the artillery train,
was stationed in the open in a large field, which can still be identified,
stretching from the northern outskirts of the town to the banks of the Lambourn
River. Maurice took up his position on the rising ground just to the west of
Speen village, and spent the morning of October 27th busily entrenching his
position.
Meanwhile the outflanking force—Essex’s army, under Skippon
and Balfour, with Waller’s and Cromwell’s horse—was steadily plodding on its
long, circuitous march. Skippon, Balfour and Waller appear to have shared the
command—a strange arrangement! It had set out shortly after midnight and halted
to bivouac at Heath End. This outflanking force constituted the greater part of
the army—probably two-thirds of it, though exact figures are not given.
We must now for a moment consider the strategy of operations
on ‘exterior lines’, such as this was: i.e. a concentric attack from two or
more different directions. To make success probable, the army undertaking it
should be in superior strength to its opponents, else there is the danger that
the enemy, making use of his central position on ‘interior lines’, will attack
and overwhelm each opponent in turn. To diminish the risk of this, and to add
to the effectiveness of the blow, it is necessary that both forces should
attack simultaneously. Therein lies the snag—or rather, there it used to lie
before the days of improved communications, telegraphy and telephony, wireless,
etc. For two widely separated forces, out of sight of each other, found it
difficult, if not impossible, to co-ordinate their attacks. It is for this
reason that the operation was so seldom attempted, and if attempted, so seldom
was successful in olden days. Indeed, the second Battle of Newbury is the only
clear-cut example of it in the course of the Civil War.
But in spite of the difficulties and hazards inherent in an
operation on exterior lines in the seventeenth century, there remained one form
of communication common to both ancient and modern times—sound. Manchester
arranged very sensibly in my opinion, that Skippon should fire his cannon as a
signal that he was in position and about to attack; on hearing that signal
Manchester would also attack; thus co-ordination would be achieved in the
simplest possible manner. It seemed almost foolproof—but nothing is foolproof
in war.
THE BATTLE
Manchester attempted a feint attack in the early morning.
The tendency of such attacks is either to be transparently feints, or to be
pushed too far. The latter happened in this case and the attacking troops were
only extricated with difficulty.
Skippon came into contact with Prince Maurice’s detachment
at about 3 p.m. The exact time is disputed; even to-day it is difficult to
ascertain exact times of occurrences in the course of an encounter battle, and
naturally it was much more difficult then. It is important to fix this moment
though, in view of what transpired, and anyway it cannot have been far from 3
p.m. There remained two hours of daylight (it was November old New Style). If
Manchester’s attack was to prove effective against the strong Shaw House
position there was no time to lose. But no sound came from that part of the
field. Meanwhile the attack on Prince Maurice was being launched. In spite of
their fatigue after their long march, the Roundheads attacked resolutely. The
trenches to the west of Speen had not been completed, and the position was,
after a sanguinary struggle, overrun, and the guns defending it, captured from
Essex at Lostwithiel, were, by a curious coincidence, recaptured by Essex’s own
men. The Royalist foot was sent reeling down the road into and through the
village of Speen, and even further. The situation for the Royalists looked
critical. The King himself was with the Royal princes, standing at the head of
his reserve in the open field, when some fleeing cavalry came charging past
him. Charles did his best by his own personal efforts to rally them, but
without marked success. At this critical moment a small reinforcement to either
side would decide the issue, as so often happens in war. There was an obvious
quarter from where it might be reasonably expected. Hitherto we have not spoken
of the redoubtable Oliver Cromwell, whose cavalry had added such lustre to his
name on the field of Marston Moor, only three months before. He held the left,
or northern flank of the line (Balfour held the southern) and hitherto had been
but lightly engaged. Accounts as to his action on this day are conflicting. But
though we cannot credit the assertion of Manchester that ‘on that day there was
no service at all performed by Cromwell’ (for the two were at enmity), it does
not seem that Cromwell exerted himself or intervened at this decisive moment.
Excuses are made for him, the commonest being that his troopers were harried by
the artillery fire from Donnington Castle. This will not do. Though we have no
record of the number of guns in the castle it cannot have been very great;
there was not room for a large number. Moreover, the fire of these guns was
exceedingly slow, and even at the present day the cavalry would not constitute
an easy target moving quickly across the front. The range was about 1,000
yards, and the most they can have effected was to be a ‘nuisance value’ to
Cromwell’s men. I conclude, therefore, that either Cromwell feared overmuch the
potential danger residing in the armament of Donnington Castle, or else his
heart, to put it bluntly, was not in the affair. He gives the impression of
being slightly disgruntled on this occasion. Even the greatest of men suffer
from human frailties.
Whatever the cause, Cromwell failed to effect a successful
intervention; on the contrary it was a Royalist, Lord Cleveland, who seized
this critical moment to charge with his brigade. The battle fluctuated
uncertainly for some time, but it was decided in this sector by two further charges
by Sir John Cansfield and the King’s Life Guards. The Roundheads were hurled
back to Speen, the King’s personal safety was secured, and the battle on this
portion of the front became stationary for the remaining few moments of
daylight.
Meanwhile what was happening on the opposite side of the
field? Again we are in the presence of controversy. The commonly accepted story
is that Manchester refused, despite the reiterated appeals of those around him,
to intervene, in spite of the engagement he had made to do so. But those who
assert this do not explain how it then came about that Manchester did
eventually intervene. Who, or what was it that caused him eventually to change
his mind? Critics are silent on this point. In point of fact, his troops did
attack, though as in the previous case it is impossible to ascertain precisely
at what hour this happened. Partly these conflicting accounts are due to the
fact that the precise moment of the commencement of such an attack is not
clear-cut or clearly defined; there would be no established ‘zero hour’ with
watches synchronized, and so on. One narrator might consider the beginning of
the attack the moment at which the commander issued his orders for the attack;
another might consider it the moment when they actually started to advance; a
third, when they got to ‘push of pike’. Moreover, the clash would come at
slightly different moments in different parts of the front. What I suspect
happened was that Manchester was so doubtful as to whether the attack would
take place that day at all, that he did not issue any ‘warning order’ to his
troops, preferring to wait until the moment actually arrived when he would
issue the orders that seemed appropriate to the occasion. This would not be a
prudent or far-seeing method of procedure (Manchester was a bad general), but
that is very different from saying that the Earl of Manchester left his
comrades in the lurch.
Assuming then that he set about launching an attack as soon
as he heard the cannonade opening, it might easily take about one hour before
the attackers actually came to blows with the enemy. His plan was not a
particularly simple one; the attack was to be delivered by two columns, one to
attack Shaw House from the north-east, and the other from the south-east. From
the top of Clay Hill, where his troops were drawn up, to Shaw House is 2,000
yards. It would take the foot a good 30 minutes to cover this distance, without
any delays, once they had been marshalled in order. An allowance of one hour is
not in the least excessive to allow from the time when Manchester, having
formed his plan, sent it out to the recipients, to the time when the first
clash occurred. If Skippon’s attack started at 3 p.m. that means that
Manchester’s, under these circumstances, would materialize at about 4 p.m.
which is probably what actually occurred. The sun sets at 4.2 p.m. on that day,
and the moon had not risen. The fight therefore took place in the gathering
darkness, as is agreed on all hands. My contention receives support from Simeon
Ashe, the Earl’s chaplain. According to this worthy, Manchester was able to see
from Clay Hill the attack on Speen (the contours show that this should be
possible) and ‘animated with this encouraging sight, the Earl prepared to
descend to the more difficult work of forcing the strong position at Dolman’s
house’. Money states that Manchester, ‘busy with his preparations for advancing
in force, rode to and fro and spiritedly addressed his men’.
So the attack was launched, while still the action was in
full swing on the opposite flank. Thus were the two essential conditions of an
operation on exterior lines—superior numbers, and a simultaneous
attack—observed. The enemy was thus not in a position to turn his central
position to account by concentrating against first one and then the other of
his opponents. I can find no evidence that Charles even attempted this. His
reserves in the field to the north of Newbury nearly midway between Shaw House
and Speen, were in a good position to execute this if they got the chance, and
were given enough time; but the nearly simultaneous hostile attack rendered
that impossible. What then saved the Royalists? Undoubtedly the night.
Manchester’s attack, after a homeric contest in the garden of Shaw House, was
decisively repulsed, and some of his troops were chased back as far as Clay
Hill; but the far more serious attack on the west would have completely borne
down its vastly inferior opponents, despite the intervention of the guns at
Donnington Castle, had darkness not put an end to the battle. Thus was a risky
and enterprising plan justified by its success.
The King, who had decided that morning that if he were
attacked on both sides he would slip away to the north by night and try to
regain Oxford, carried out his plan to the letter. He left his guns in
Donnington Castle, and while he himself with an escort rode to join Prince
Rupert at Bath, the army marched through the night, over King Alfred’s famous
battlefield of Ashdown, to Wallingford, and reached Oxford next day. Meanwhile
the Roundheads were fast asleep, and when morning dawned were still ignorant of
the departure of the royal army. The upshot of First Newbury had repeated
itself.
PROBLEMS OF THE BATTLEFIELD
This battlefield, unlike that of First Newbury, presents few
problems. The three key points, Shaw House, Speen Village, and Donnington
Castle are all unambiguous. It is an extremely easy battle to follow either on
foot or in a car. All that is necessary is to leave Newbury by the Hermitage
road, and after crossing the Lambourn you come to Shaw House. Inside the house
you may see the bullet mark in a first-floor room which, tradition relates,
nearly hit the King. Round the garden the old embankment is still in existence.
Immediately beyond the garden to the east is a knoll surmounted by a
water-tower. From here Clay Hill, from which Manchester attacked, is plainly
visible, and the course of this attack can easily be followed. A short walk
through the village of Donnington then takes up to Donnington Castle. From the
battlements of the Gatehouse, or even from the ground at its foot, the Speen
battle can be followed in detail. It requires but little imagination to picture
the excitement of the Royalist gunners as they spotted the approach of the
Parliamentary army. It would be visible for over a mile along the ridge before
it contacted Maurice’s entrenchments. A few shots were fired at this point, the
range being about 1,800 yards. Then when Cromwell’s troopers appeared in the
meadows almost at their feet the excitement must have been intensified, the
range shortening to 800 yards. Sir John Boys, possibly accompanied for part of
the time by the King himself, no doubt stood in the corner of the nearest
(south-west) turret of the gatehouse, with his eye glued to his ‘perspective glass’—if
he possessed one. In short, the layout is so straightforward that no further
space need be devoted to describing this battlefield.
Alfred H. Burne
