Battle of Shrewsbury

“ There has not been discovered, within the memory of man, any large trench or pit near Sandal Church, where it might reasonably be supposed that some of the slain would be interred, such as has been discovered at Battlefield Church, in consequence of the battle of Shrewsbury, and at Saxton Church, in consequence of the battle of Towton. ”

“ So wrong a message did the false earl give, that both Hotspur and the Douglas flamed with rage, and without waiting for Owen Glendower's forces and the expected reënforcements from the north, gave orders for instant battle, thus hastening the conflict before they were really ready. "The more haste, the less speed" is a strong old adage, boys, that holds good both in peace and war, and bitterly was it repented of on that "sad and sorry field of Shrewsbury." ”

“ Sir Thomas Percy, Knight, a younger brother of Henry Percy, first Earl of Northumberland, was created Earl of Worcester and Lord High Admiral of England in 1397, and taken prisoner at the battle of Shrewsbury, and beheaded in that town in 1403.
[2b] Owen and Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury, vol. i. p. 186; Carte’s History of England, vol. ii. p. 659. The battle is stated, in Gough’s edition of Camden’s Britannia, vol. ii. p. ”

“ As Henry had much to hazard and nothing to gain by delay, it was clearly his interest to fight; yet, being aware of the risk and chances of a battle, he appears to have been desirous to avoid it, by negotiations for peace. The Abbot of Shrewsbury went more than once to the insurgents, in the hope of effecting a pacific accommodation between the hostile parties. The habits and usages of that age justified the mediation of a dignitary of the Romish Church of so elevated a degree as the Abbot of Shrewsbury ”

“ Many Cheshire gentlemen, to their sorrow, joined Hotspur as he marched through their county. He came in sight of Shrewsbury on the evening of July nineteenth. But Henry was there before him; the royal standard floated over the castle; and it was three or four miles to the north of the town that the shock of battle came. Five thousand of the rebels and three thousand of the loyal forces fell. ”

“ In all his long career as a commander he fought only two actions which deserve to be called battles; Patay was a rout from the beginning, and Castillon a miscalculation. The last general of the school of Edward III who fought abroad was overthrown significantly enough by artillery, the new arm which the French had recently developed. Shrewsbury's courageous perseverance and ubiquitous activity throughout an unusually protracted military career, and the forlorn attempt of the valiant old warrior to stem the disasters of his country, made a deep impression upon both nations. ”

“ The autumn rains had by this time raised the river, securing their flank, and it would have been difficult for an attacking army to force a passage, even with great advantage of numbers. Their situation, at the same time, was most precarious; of the forty thousand men, of whom Shrewsbury had written to Lord Hussey, he had not been able to raise a tenth; and, if rumour was to be believed, the loyalty of the few who were with him would not bear too severe a strain. With Norfolk's reinforcements, the whole army did not, perhaps, exceed eight thousand men, while even these were divided ”

“ To attack without artillery a moated and palisaded camp defended (if we may credit Æneas Sylvius) by three hundred pieces of ordnance was foolhardy enough. But the impetuous charge of the English and Gascons shouting ‘Talbot, Talbot, St. George,’ left the issue long doubtful. Shrewsbury ordered his men to protect themselves against the enemy's fire by interlocking their bucklers. ”

“ Misinformed as to their numbers, believing that the French were retreating in alarm, without waiting to recruit his troops, the Earl of Shrewsbury resolved on storming the French camp.
The mistake was fatal. Not only did the French army vastly outnumber his own, not only was it fresh, whilst his troops were fagged, but their camp was well chosen and well defended with artillery that played upon the English from every side with disastrous effect. The defeat was complete. Talbot and his gallant son fell, and their death has been immortalised by Shakespeare. ”

“ The danger must have been really great, as even Shrewsbury hesitated, and this time preferred to hold the line of the Trent. [177] But Henry would now hear nothing of retreat. His own [Pg 160] musters were at last coming up in strength. The fortification of Hull, he said, was a breach of the engagement at Doncaster; and Vernon, one of the lords of the Welsh Marches, Sir Philip Draycote, and Sir Henry Sacheverell, going to Shrewsbury’s assistance, the line of the Don was again occupied. The head-quarters were at Rotherham, and a depôt of artillery and stores was established at Tickhill. ”

“ The Earl of Shrewsbury, and with him other Norman nobles, had collected an army, which was occupied in laying waste the surrounding country. The earl with his troops set out from Shrewsbury, plundering and burning towns and villages, and putting many of the inhabitants to the sword. The progress of this marauding force was stopped on its arrival before Worcester. The citizens, excited by a deep hatred of their Norman oppressors, closed the gates, and, conveying their wives and children into the castle, prepared for a desperate resistance. ”

“ He was, in fact, taking an active part in caring for the horses, just as, in later years, he “delighted in seeing twelve or fourteen horses bedded down, all for his own driving on the Shrewsbury road.”
“The most popular man in the county,” as he was presently to be known, married in 1803, and settled at Pradoe. He became active in the volunteer movement consequent upon the threatened invasion of England by Napoleon, and was Chairman of Shropshire Sessions and High Steward of Oswestry. ”

“ The force which Shrewsbury had with him could not now hold its position in the face of the vast numbers which were collecting. When the number of the rebels who had reassembled was known, Sir John Russell was sent back from Nottingham to tell the King that his conditions could not be insisted upon, and to entreat him not only to grant the full pardon, but to promise also to hold a Parliament in person at York. ”

“ In 1234, Richard, Earl Marescall, being told that Henry intended to seize him when he repaired to parliament, fled to Llewelyn, and they both appeared before Shrewsbury with a powerful army, and burned part of the suburb of Frankwell, returning to the mountains laden with the spoil of the inhabitants, many of whom they had barbarously murdered. ”

“ The passions of the combatants despised the cool calculations of military prudence; a new system of warfare was necessarily generated; and men of talents and ambition quickly acquired that knowledge which was best adapted to the quality of the troops and to the nature of the contest.
Charles, having left Nottingham, proceeded to Shrewsbury, collecting reinforcements, and receiving voluntary contributions on his march. ”

“ Henry on the instant despatched a courier to Lord Hussey, and another to Lord Shrewsbury, directing them to raise all the men whom they could muster; sending at the same time private letters to the gentlemen who were said to be with the insurgents, to recall them, if possible, to their allegiance. Lord Shrewsbury had not waited for instructions. Although his own county had not so far been disturbed, he had called out his tenantry, and had gone forward to Sherwood with every man that he could impress, on the instant that he heard of the rising. ”

“ In 1442 and again as late as 1535 acts were passed for the protection of Shropshire against the Welsh. But apart from the border warfare in which they were constantly engaged, the great Shropshire lords were actively concerned in the more national struggles. Shrewsbury Castle was garrisoned for the empress Maud by William Fitz-Alan in 1138, but was captured by Stephen in the same year. Holgate Castle was taken by King John from Thomas Mauduit, one of the rebellious barons. Ludlow and Shrewsbury were both held for a time by Simon de Montfort. ”

“ Manslayers, cutpurses, and other doubtful persons might have liberty for a time, and by good conduct might earn their pardon by taking service under the Crown. On the present, as on many other occasions, they had proved excellent soldiers; and those who had been with Lord Shrewsbury had been rewarded for their steadiness. Under the circumstances he had perhaps been better able to depend upon them than on the more creditable portion of his force. After the pacification at Doncaster, Norfolk was ashamed of his followers ”

“ Caught between two armies supplied with the ordnance which the insurgents so much dreaded, the Lincolnshire men, further frightened by a proclamation from the Earl of Shrewsbury transmitted to them by one Thomas Miller, Lancaster Herald, began to lose heart and finally consented to surrender, on condition that they should receive assurance of merciful treatment. ”

“ The queen's refusal to allow him, after the debate on the address in December 1711, to conduct her from the House of Lords to her coach was thought to indicate that he and his new tory friends had again fallen in the royal favour (Wyon, ii. 342, from Swift's Journal to Stella) ; but the alarm proved unfounded. Shrewsbury was expected to be named lord-lieutenant of Ireland (Wentworth Papers, p. 243) , but in November 1712 he was prevailed upon to accept the embassy to France with a view to accelerating the conclusion of peace. ”

“ The Irish declared that ‘there came not from the time of Herod any one so wicked in evil deeds.’ At the end of 1447 Shrewsbury resigned the reins to his brother Richard, and in July 1448 was sent as lieutenant of Lower Normandy and captain of Falaise to assist Somerset in France. ”

“ Norfolk, it was clear, had gone upon the service most reluctantly. He, too, had deeper sympathies with the movement than he cared to avow; but, even from those very sympathies, he was the fittest person to be chosen to suppress it. The rebels professed to have risen in defence of the nobility and the Catholic faith. They would have to fight their way through an army led by the natural head of the party which they desired to serve. [65] The force under Shrewsbury was now at Doncaster, where, on the 25th, the Duke joined him. ”

“ The Shropshire insurrection was, indeed, of so visionary a nature, that zealous Commissary Reynolds could not manipulate it into any definite shape. Though sent to Shrewsbury that he might develop the existence of 'a general plot of the malignants' in the West of England, he entirely failed. ”

“ It was evident to both Sherburne and Harry that the Federal pickets and outriders had acquired much skill and alertness, and they urged the troop to its greatest speed. Even if they should be able to defeat their immediate pursuers, it was no place for them to engage in battle, as the enemy could soon come up in thousands. ”

“ The threat stupefied the Whigs. To whatever excesses their passion may have led them, they felt that their safety was bound up with the prudent chief they had elected. A passionate scene ensued, in which the Tory Nottingham and the Whig Dissolves Parliament, Jan. 27, 1690, and undertakes Irish war. Shrewsbury vied with each other in intreating William to forego his plan. At length he yielded, but determined that he would escape from the atmosphere of faction which surrounded him, and himself go to carry on the war in Ireland. ”

“ The Royalist Army, under King Charles I, had encamped a few miles from Banbury, when Prince Rupert sent the king word that the army of the Parliament, under the command of the Earl of Essex, had arrived at Kineton. The king's army had left Shrewsbury two days before Essex's army departed from Worcester, and, strange as it might appear, although they were only about twenty miles away from each other at the start, they travelled almost side by side for ten days without either army knowing the whereabouts of the other. ”

“ When the news of this disaster and of the condition of the garrison in Haddington reached London, Somerset, who had now obtained letters patent from the king authorising him to call the king's subjects to arms whenever he deemed necessary, and to appoint lieutenants in his own name to command in his stead, both by sea and land, at once dispatched the Earl of Shrewsbury with 22,000 men to raise the siege and expel the French. ”

“ That dueling has been employed too frequently for bad purposes, by brave men—and for bloody ones, by blackguards, has never been denied. The page of history, in the fatal meeting between Buckingham and Shrewsbury, strikingly exemplifies the former assertion. For the seduction of his wife—Buckingham, by the way, had seduced his own—the injured earl demanded, and obtained satisfaction. In accordance with the barbarous custom of the times, the seconds—two on either side—engaged; on the duke's side, Jenkins was left dead; on the earl's, Sir John Talbot was severely wounded. ”

“ From mouth to mouth rumours of the conspiracy flew abroad; at nine o'clock it was stated, and generally believed, that the King was wounded; at ten that he had been seized; later that he was dead. Early in the evening the draw-bridge at the Tower was drawn, and the sentries were doubled; the City gates were closed and guarded; a whole battalion stood all night under arms at Kensington; the Council was in perpetual sitting; many houses were lighted from eve to dawn; nor since the great panic of Beachy Head in '90 had there been an alarm so deep or widespread. ”