Civil War

Civil War

Copyright oggbashan October 2022

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

The story is set during the English Civil Wars 1642-1651 and the first Anglo-Dutch war of 1652-1654.

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"Lord Henry? You're not a Parliamentarian, are you?"

"No, Sir George. I know you are. But I'm not a Royalist either. I'm too injured by wars to fight for either side. I hope to stay neutral if it comes to war."

"That might be difficult..."

"I know. My concern is to keep my people safe whatever happens. I am fortifying the Roman walls and beyond to try to deter anyone from attacking us."

"If you two are going to talk politics, can I go and see your housekeeper, Lord Henry?" Helen, Sir George's daughter asked. "She has a receipt for deterring moths. They are a more immediate concern for me than politics."

"Of course you can," I replied.

"Helen supports me," Sir George said, "But she knows war is almost inevitable. She's worried for me. Unlike you, I will be with the Parliamentary army. I can understand that you are in no state to go to war, but you might have to choose which side to support."

"I don't like either side," I said. "The King has acted badly but some on your side are far too fanatical, wanting to destroy the Church. If I had to choose? I'd be on Helen's side."

"Helen's?"

I formally asked Sir George for permission to court his daughter. He was slightly surprised because I think he thought I was settled as a bachelor after my wife and child died in childbirth five years ago. But he agreed. The age difference between Helen and I wasn't great.

Months before this conversation, I knew the Civil War between the Royalists and Parliamentarians would happen soon. I was repelled by some of the intolerance displayed by those on the Parliamentary side, but I wasn't really a Royalist. I just wanted to keep myself and the people on my estate safe, whatever happened. My house, or rather mansion, had been built in the middle of an old Roman fort which still had walls standing to their original height. It had been a small town until about 900 AD when people had moved out to a better and larger site a few miles away.

It had then been the site of a monastery that was dissolved by Henry VIII. One of my ancestors had bought the site and monastery buildings from the Crown and had built the mansion I now lived in.

Although the Roman Walls were thick and solid, they wouldn't last long against modern cannon. When trouble started brewing between the King and Parliament, I had some Dutch engineers on site to plan to improve the small harbour near the fort and to drain the marshland that surrounded the fort on four sides except for a narrow causeway. When built, the fort was probably on an island about forty feet above the surrounding land.

I expected outright war to start within months. One evening I was sitting in my dining hall for dinner with the Dutch engineers and asked idly:

"How would you make my house defensible?"

That startled them. I explained that I expected civil war soon and I would like a place of refuge. I wanted to keep my people safe, whatever happened. I wasn't interested in fighting for either side, just to try to keep a low profile and to deter any armed force that came close.

The chief engineer thought for a while.

"Lord Westbury? We are drainage engineers not military ones. You would need specialists. They exist in Holland and we could contact them, but to make this place defensible? That would cost a lot of money, far more than you are paying us. The Roman walls would crumble under cannon fire. They might survive a day or so, but no longer. You would need rammed earth bulwarks and cannon, many cannon. Our country could provide expertise, men and cannon if you can afford it. Are you sure?"

"Yes. I have seen what an army can do to civilians, whether the civilians are on their side or not. I want defences that make an armed force decide to go elsewhere. I want to deter attacks, not necessarily defend against a determined army."

"Yes, Lord Westbury. For a start we would change our drainage plans. It would be simple to provide a moat around the fort, and it might make the drainage works easier. We would need a sluice gate to drain the moat, to ensure the water doesn't get too high, and to keep out high tides. That sluice gate would have to be defended. We can change our plans in the next couple of days because we have only just started. There is a ship coming from Amsterdam in a few days bringing our workmen. I could go back on it and try to find a military engineer to advise you. Would that do?"

"Yes, Herr Onbart, that would be acceptable. But any engineer would need a fee for his consultancy. I will give you fifty guineas to persuade the military engineer to come. Would that be enough?"

"That would be generous, Lord Westbury. For fifty guineas I could probably get one of our best."

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The next day, suggested by the local vicar, I would be hosting an afternoon wine and cake event for the local gentry. The intention was to discuss the coming war and what we should do. We all live in a remote part of East Anglia that has no strategic importance. We hoped any battles would not come near. I didn't know whether any of my neighbours would be supporters of either side. My intention was to find out how they would react to a war, which side, if any, they would be supporting, and how we could keep ourselves, our families, and our staff of farm and domestic workers safe.

In the morning I walked around with Herr Onbart. He suggested that the moat should be at least fifty yards wide, about ten feet deep, and be inside any additional defences constructed. His idea, until the military engineer arrived, was that the defences should be erected in a space one hundred yards from the Roman walls. That startled me. I hadn't expected that such a large area would be needed.

The cost would be considerable, but I had money, more money than I could reasonably spend. My grandfather had opened some copper mines on his land in Wales. Now I owned that land and the mines. There were now ten separate mines producing nearly a third of the total output elsewhere. I hoped that Wales would not be involved in the Civil War, but if it was, I would shut down and seal the mines when any army was near. In the meantime, I intended to reduce production and bring many of the miners and their families here, for the miners to help with the labour for the drainage works, and possibly now any defences. I had written to my agent in Wales. He had persuaded about eighty miners and their families to come to East Anglia, for easier work above ground.

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At the afternoon wine and cake party, my pastry cook had surpassed himself. I was not surprised that most of the local gentry didn't want war and would not support either side. They might have feelings of sympathy with a particular side, but not enough to send their sons to war. Except? Helen Anstruther, Sir George's daughter whom I had considered as a possible fiancée when I had time for courtship, was a strong supporter of the Parliamentarians, as were her wider family mainly based in London and Newark. Helen had been looking after her aged grandmother until the grandmother died a few months ago. Helen had inherited her grandmother's mansion in the village.

I shouldn't have been surprised by Helen's views. Her father and an uncle were Members of the much-abused Parliament. She understood that I wanted to stay out of any conflict. Unlike many locally, I had been to war and had been wounded in action, I still had a limp from a musket ball that had been cut out of my leg.

If I could make my estate defensible, most of my neighbours and their workers would take refuge with me. I would need defenders. I was hoping that some of the Welsh miners would fight, but the agricultural staff from several estates, if trained, might be a considerable force.

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Four months later, with advice and direction from the Dutch military engineers, the Roman walls had been surrounded by star bastions with wide moats outside them. We had some cannon but not enough and generally only of small calibre. Heavier guns would be delivered with the week, sea conditions permitting, I had been buying and storing food for a possible siege which I hoped would never happen. But the signs were that Civil War would start within days.

I was impatient for the larger guns to be delivered and for the defenders to be better trained. Most of them could now load and fire a musket, but whether they could aim and hit anything? That I doubted. We were using a lot of gunpowder to train them but in deep cellars under my mansion and in rooms inside the Roman fort's walls I already had seven tons of gunpowder and many more tons would be delivered with the heavy guns that would come with experienced Dutch mercenary gunners. I couldn't expect to train gunners from scratch in a couple of months.

The neighbours met once a week in my house to discuss the impending crisis. I had expected Helen to go to London to be with her father and family but her father had sent her a letter asking her to stay away because she was more likely to be safe locally. She was concerned that buying cannon would make my place a target, because so many modern cannon would be useful to either side. I reassured her. Our cannon would deter any attack, and if it was likely that we would have to surrender, I would ensure our cannon were wrecked first.

The first delivery of cannon from the Netherlands were stock weapons that could be mounted on ships. I had eighteen long Sakers firing a 3.65 inches ball. They arrived before the outer defences were completed. But I had ordered the largest guns available to be cast -- Cannon Royal. The shot weighed 74 lbs, bore 8.54 inches and their range was useful. They were expensive and used a significant amount of gunpowder, but should deter any army not having equivalent guns. Cannon Royal were really too large to be moved with an army because they weighed 8,000 pounds without the carriage. With the local roads in the poor state they were, moving Cannon Royal would take dozens of horses and a very strong cart on which to mount them with block and tackle.

My mansion had been modernised and wasn't the castle it had been. The windows were too large. But we built a strong brick-backed rammed earth embankment on all four sides, rising to above the first floor. We had overlapped part of the embankment to provide a protected entrance. It meant that the principal rooms were darker even in sunlight than they should have been and the uppermost floor might be vulnerable to cannon fire if the opposing cannon could get in range. They probably couldn't because the Cannon Royal would destroy them at twice or three times the range of any moveable cannon.

The Civil War had started before our defences were completed. Even so, what we already had should deter anything short of the main army of either side, who were well away from us. Two months after the start of the war, the works had finished. The outer works meant that no one could get closer to the Roman walls than two hundred yards. Inside those walls, as lean-tos against the walls we had the tradesmen -- the blacksmiths, armourers, farrier etc. Our gunpowder stores, except the ready-use stores near each gun, were in the mansion's cellars or in specially dug underground stores. Some of the Welsh miners were digging tunnels from those cellars and stores out towards the outer bastions so that powder could be transferred without coming under fire.

Our weekly session had a long debate over what flags we should fly to show that we weren't Royalist or Parliamentarian. Up to now, my personal standard had flown but that told any approaching force nothing. I had been born on our family estates in Wales and my mother was Welsh, so after some discussion we agreed we could fly the Welsh Dragon. Because so many of our defenders were Dutch mercenaries, we added the Prince's Flag of the Netherlands, a Tricolour of orange, white and Blue. Apparently that flag might shortly be obsolete, but it was recognised.

I asked Helen, together with some of the other women, to make a Herald's Tabard, quartered with the Welsh Dragon and Prince's flag. If any force approached. We would have to speak to them. Although the College of Heralds might object, that Tabard should protect the person wearing it.

Despite Helen's obvious partiality for one side, she was beginning to see that my precautions might keep her and our neighbours safe whoever came close. I was very impressed at what Helen was doing with my housekeeper and staff. Despite the large numbers of people now within our fortifications, they were all kept housed, clothed and fed. Most of that was Helen's doing.

We now had four arrow-head bastions, each armed with two Cannon Royal and four Sakers. The harbour was defended by an outwork with the last two Cannon Royal and originally two Sakers, but we had added four small guns as well. Inside the harbour defences was the sluice-gate that controlled the level of water in the moats around our bastions. If an army approached, the local cattle could be grazed between the outer defences and the Roman walls. People not defending the walls would be inside the Roman walls or in the mansion.

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Sir George came on a quick visit to see his daughter and he was curious to see how my plans to fortify my property were proceeding. After the conversation in which I sought his daughter's hand, we walked around the defences, accompanied by the Dutch military engineer.

Sir George was very impressed, not just by the scale of the fortifications but by the massive guns. He had never seen a Cannon Royal and could see that they would make any attack very costly for the attackers. We had some target rafts in the estuary on the other side of the navigable channel. There were two small ones and a larger one.

I asked for Sir George to be given a demonstration of the guns in action. First the smaller guns showed that they could all hit the target raft but the damage wasn't impressive. But the Sakers? The Dutch gunners could fire them three times a minute. Three shots each from the two Sakers and that target was destroyed.

Before the Cannon Royal could be loaded I could see Helen approaching in the distance. I asked the gunners to wait a few minutes until she arrived.

"Lord Henry?" Sir George said. "I'm likely to be in a battle shortly. I could only come now because my cavalry troop isn't fully equipped yet. Whether Helen accepts your proposal or not, will you make sure she is safe?"

"Of course I will, Sir George. These defences are to protect not just me, but Helen, my staff, and our neighbours. We would have to abandon the village and Helen's house, but we have already moved any valuables from her house into the mansion. All my neighbours have done the same. The mansion is rather cluttered at present but we hope to store things more efficiently in the next few weeks -- if we are left alone."

"I can't think of any military reason why you should be attacked." Sir George said. "The estuary is too shallow to be navigable beyond your fort and leads nowhere. Strategically its position is useless. As a base for troops it is too far on bad roads from anywhere important. This is a backwater and any battles should be hundreds of miles away."

We stopped talking as Helen arrived.

"Did you get your receipt?" I asked.

"Yes, and better than that. Your housekeeper has given me some already prepared mixture. I'll use it today on the clothes stored in your house, Lord Henry."

I warned Helen to cover her ears before the cannon was fired. The Cannon Royal took five minutes each to load. I also warned Sir George to cover his ears with his hands. The guns' rate of fire was slow, about a shot every quarter of an hour but the damage just one ball could achieve? The first shot destroyed the target sited on the large raft. The other gun smashed the raft to pieces leaving nothing but a few broken pieces of wood.

"Ouch!" Sir George said when we had recovered our hearing, "I wouldn't want to face the Cannon Royal, nor even the Sakers if they can be fired that fast and with such accuracy."

"The Dutch gunners are expensive, but worth it. They are trying to train my men, but it takes years to be that competent. My Welshmen are all skilled archers. The locals are being trained in musketry but at present they are far better with a crossbow. They can span and loose a crossbow twice as fast as they can load and fire a musket -- and crossbows are more accurate."

"Crossbows? Aren't they obsolete?"

"Only if you have well-trained musketeers. It takes months to train musketeers; but years or decades to train a bowman. You can show anyone how to use a crossbow in less than an hour. Their killing range is longer than a musket, and even longer than a long bow, but achieving the accuracy at distances takes longer than the hour."

"Father?" Helen said. "Even I and the local women have been trained with crossbows. Some of the women haven't the strength to span them, but they can loose the bolts on their own. As defenders behind strong walls any opponents won't know we are women, but they might be just as dead whether hit by a bolt loosed by a woman, or a musket shot by a man."

"You're serious, Lord Henry? Women with crossbows?"

"Yes, Sir George. Several of the men have already left to join one side or the other. We have far more women than men. Our main deterrent would be the cannon, but if attackers get closer? Crossbow bolts kill."

"Are you as prepared as you could be?"

"I don't like the idea of leaving the village and any buildings outside the fortifications to any intruders, but there is a limit to what we can protect. We have tried to remove anything that could be looted, but the buildings could be burnt. The church is inside the Roman walls. What was the monks infirmary is still outside. We had been using it as a barn but it is now empty. I would be upset if it was destroyed. It is a solid sound building."

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Sir George left the next morning to re-join his cavalry troop north of London. As soon as I was able to see Helen alone, I proposed. To my delight she accepted me. We agreed not to get married until the war was over. She wanted her father, if he survived, to give her away.

Helen had been invaluable. When she was looking after her grandmother she had been the lady of the house but discreetly helping the housekeeper who was nearly as old as the grandmother. Helen had brought the housekeeper and all Helen's servants and amalgamated the two households, hers and mine. She had given the elderly housekeeper the role of looking after the linen and bedding for everyone, a task that the old lady could do.

But Helen had also been helping my housekeeper, particularly with the task of catering for a much larger group of people. She had found several cook's helpers who were becoming more efficient. The outside kitchen was working flat out, dealing with hundreds of meals a day. I was worried that we might not have sufficient supplies, but Helen reassured me. All the stored food from every house in the village had been brought in. We had enough to survive a siege for months, and if no siege, to get through until the next harvest and possibly beyond.

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Two months later there had been no alarms. The news of the war reached us very infrequently and in a very incoherent fashion. We didn't really know what was happening. But we were more crowded. The inhabitants of another village had decided they would be safer inside our defences and had joined us. We had built some more lean-tos against the inside of the Roman walls. It looked like a small town with many families, artisans' workshops and even a large communal kitchen.