party throughout the war, it is not to be wondered at that the aspirants to its laurels should have been numerous. Various anecdotes too, and traditions, hang about a victory which made so much noise in the kingdom. And first in relation to the siege of the town. In the examination of a Wiltshire gentleman named John Thistlethwayte, three years afterwards when the Parliament having got the upper hand were compelling the Royalists to compound for “delinquency," a circumstance comes out which probably finds its place no where else in the chronicles of the time. It appears that when Sir Ralph Hopton led his victorious army to Salisbury after the battle of Roundway, he failed not to recount the successful expedient which in an hour of pressing want had replenished his musketeers' fusees. It therefore came to be a popular joke that "Hopton held out Devizes with bedcords," and a piece of hempen cord worn as a hat-band, continued for some time, among the Royalists, to be an emblem of triumph. It was tendered in evidence against Mr. Thistlewayte, that while at Salisbury he had been guilty of indulging in this suspicious looking decoration. His delinquency therefore was held to be proven. The witnesses against him were Henry Thistlethwayte and Timothy King. Sworn before the Wilts Committee at Falstone House 13th October, 1646. The report touching the "delinquency" of another Royalist named Francis Barber of Burbage, furnishes also an incident. His delinquency was clear enough, in the fact that he had two sons in the royal army, and had himself even served for about three weeks. His especial enemy appears to have been the constable or tythingman of his parish, to wit Giles Davis, who impressed one of his carts for the service of Sir William Waller, when that General was prosecuting the siege of Devizes. The battle of Roundway following immediately after, threw the balance of power into the hands of the aggrieved farmer, who forthwith made his way, accompanied by his wife, into the victorious ranks of the Royalists in Devizes, where his two sons were serving under the command of Colonel Pearce, and induced that officer to march with force and arms into the territory of his neighbour Giles Davis and capture two of his horses; telling him withal that it was his full intention "not to leave him while he was worth a groat." Barber had also sufficient influence with Lord Crawfurd to obtain from him one of Sir William Waller's captured waggons, which he therefore carried off in triumph from the field of battle, as a compensation for his lost cart. Another witness against him, besides Davis, was Edmund Pearson of Burbage, who averred that one of Barber's sons would not have entered the King's army but for the father's urgency, &c., &c. Other references to the events of this period will occur when we come to notice the examination in full of Mr. Edward Knyvett the minister of Coulston, at the termination of the war. The following incident, which has a touch of the Homeric about it, and which is traditionally said to have occurred in the awful interval of time immediately preceding the onset on Roundway hill, is derived from the manuscript memorials of the Wanseys of Warminster, a family who highly distinguished themselves in the Parliament's interest throughout the struggle. One of the Royalist soldiers having advanced so far in front of his comrades that the movement was regarded by the opposite party as defiant, a Parliamentary trooper named Jehu Wansey rode out of the ranks, engaged with, and slew his man. In the battle and rout which eclipsed this chivalrous commencement, Jehu, though a fugitive, contrived to save his life; being destined to receive his final bullet in one of the Irish campaigns. Another tradition connected with the battle is derived from Mrs. Bevan who (in 1856) had occupied the ancient gabled mansion at Melksham Spa between forty and fifty years. This lady stated that at the time of Roundway fight, some rebels were hung on the old oak in the adjoining paddock. This is evidently a distorted version of the tragedy at Wood house near Horningsham, where Sir Francis Doddington hung up thirteen clothiers on one tree. The Rowde parish register has the following entry, "1643 July 13, being Thursday, was the great fight on Roundway hill, in which William Bartlett was shot in the forehead, and was buried in martial wise at Rowde. He was chief quartermaster to the noble Colonel Sands [Sandys] and was baptised, ut patet, 26 March 1615. A cloud like a lion rampant azure was on the army fighting." The Cheriton parish register has the following, "1643 July 14. William Bartlett the son of Mr. Robert Bartlett of Churton who was slain in the fight on Bagdon-hill, was buried July 14th." [These two extracts were first made public in the Devizes Gazette 25th July, 1839, by J. S. Money Esq., of Whetham. In reference to the "noble Colonel Sandys," there were so many of the name on both sides that identification is impossible.] The question might here arise: What was the exact scene of the battle of Roundway? For, as Waller's manifest object was to prevent the junction of his two enemies, it might, to the modern inhabitants of Devizes, appear inconsistent with such a design that he should draw up his army on an elevated spot so far removed from the present road from Shepherd's Shore to Devizes. But this will be easily understood by recalling the fact that the branch road to Devizes quitted the old Bath road over Roundway, not as now, a mile beyond the Wansdyke, but by two or more tracks this side of the Wansdyke. The spot called "Windmill Knoll" in the Ordnance Map, a little to the right as we mount the hill by Mr. Estcourt's plantation, there can hardly be a doubt was the ground on which Waller stationed his men, lying as it does between the two tracks to Devizes, and consequently directly on the line of march. The flight and pursuit of course took the direction of the old Bath road down Bagdon (or Beacon down) hill. As for the neighbouring entrenchment called Oliver's camp, there is no reason to suppose that it was the scene of any transaction during the war. Almost simultaneously with the news of Roundway fight reaching the King, he received intelligence of the success of his arms in Yorkshire against Fairfax. It was on the 13th of July also that he met the Queen on her way from Bridlington, where she had just landed from Holland, bringing supplies. Returning with her to Oxford, he found Sir Robert Welsh just arrived from Devizes with the gladsome intelligence: this was on Friday morning. Such a combination of pleasing circumstances forthwith elicited from the Oxford students a copious outpouring of addresses, orations, and songs of triumph, in Greek, Latin, and English. One writer bursts forth in the following strain. "Go burn some rebel town, for such alone On traitors' heads: let them repent and die." Another, in the following not inelegant lines, celebrates the victories which ushered in the Queen's approach to Oxford. BATTLE OF LANSDOWNE. "When once the Members shrunk to four, And stopped the gap up with his blood; BATTLE OF ATHERTON-MOOR. But when Carnarvon, who still hit Stout Wilmot, Byron, Crawfurd, who Among Sir John Denham's poems are two songs, one ridiculing the report that the Royalists were defeated at Lansdowne and that thunder and lightning had aided their enemies: the other entitled "The second Western wonder," celebrating the victory at Roundway, and commencing with a jocular allusion to Sir Ralph Hopton's gunpowder accident at Marshfield. The latter is as follows. THE SECOND WESTERN WONDER. "You heard of the wonder, the lightning and thunder, Now list to another, that miracle's brother, Oh! what a damp it struck through the camp; It blew him to the Vyze, without beard or eyes, Then out came the book, which the newsmongers took Where in the first place stood the Conqueror's face, But now without lying, you may paint him flying. Great William the Con-so fast he did run, And now comes the Post,-saves all that was lost; By a trick so stale; or else such a tale 1 The preaching lady was Sir William Waller's wife; whose wellknown antipathy to the emblems of superstition is thus satirised on another occasion. "Sir W. Waller's lady hath been down to Abingdon to see the place where the Cross once stood; which she encompassed three several times, still faulting some stones in the pavement that still lay across [that is, still finding fault with some stones that lay crosswise.] After which, she put up her table-book, and went home; not vouchsafing one look towards Oxford, because that place furnishes none but men-preachers." Mercurius Academicus. 21 Feb. 1646. [abridged.] |