Chapter Twenty — London-Gloucester: autumn, 1643
Critics of the Privileged Corranto (a few scurrilous rival publications, all of little merit, according to the Corranto's proprietors) would point out that although this journal sounded like a fast Italian courier, it had been named by mistake after a slightly seedy Spanish court dance. Robert and Gideon were unmoved. Printers of the civil war news were capricious, defiant, self-assured, non-compliant individualists. They were their own proprietors. Most wrote their own material. Some were vulgar, slanderous and obscene, though many were earnest moralists. A few wrote for money. That did not necessarily make their articles untrue. ' 'Privileged' is weak though,' grumbled Gideon, who admired Robert, yet zealously picked on errors. 'It will frighten off the nervous.' 'People will judge from the content,' scoffed Robert. 'No, they won't judge unless they buy — and they will buy from the title. If it be lathered in Latin and pomposity, they will turn to some True Diurnall — especially if that shows a woodcut of pillaging soldiers roasting naked infants on a stolen spit.'
'Trust a grocer to know what makes people part with their money' 'Dried prunes do well… Call ours the Plain Speaking Corranto.' 'The Honest Corranto, Truthfully Intelligenced and without Lather?' 'We alienate the soap- boilers then…' There was an enclave of soapboilers only next door in Coleman Street. 'The London Corranto?'
'No; we want it to travel further. Why, it shall be the Public Corranto and all shall understand it is for them.'
So it was. Gideon never revealed to his partner that the Jukes family jocularly referred to the treasured news-sheet as Robert's Raisin. Even Lacy had picked up the habit of mockery, to Gideon's irritation. He bit it back. He did not like to quarrel with her, because she was expecting a child.
It was soon whispered that the producer of the king-congratulating Mercurius Aulicus was neither trained nor a licensed printer. 'Oxford University has a licence to print books, but no individual is so privileged.' Robert Allibone had heard gossip about the Royalist printer at his 'ordinary', the tavern which he used for economical daily dining now that Gideon was fed at home. 'This is some spangled parakeet who has been an actor.'
Gideon would never shake off his dotterelling. Used to it, he stayed calm. 'They say he is the son of a mayor of Oxford, one John Harris. Apparently the family are vintners and tavern-keepers.'
Robert shook his head. 'How can a wriggling alehouse maggot have got himself a press?'
'Who knows — but a brewer's dray would be heavy enough to carry it into town for him,' said Gideon, whose grocery background always made him consider logistics.
As that year of 1643 went forward, the Public Corranto took on Harris and Mercurius Aulicus, striving to give the Parliamentary view even though what happened in the war was often confusing. Every district had its sieges and skirmishes. Some actions were part of the overall battle-plan; many fights occurred willy-nilly, when troops unexpectedly happened upon their enemy or the enemy's provision trains. On the whole it was the King's year.
The Corranto tried to remain optimistic. But three important Parliamentary leaders were lost that year: first Lord Brooke of Warwick was shot through the eye at Lichfield, picked off by a sniper who had been positioned on the central spire of St Chad's Cathedral, the deaf-and-dumb younger son of local gentry. In June, John Hampden, the famous rebel against Ship Money, one of the Five Members and Pym's most able supporter for reform, received fatal wounds in an engagement at Chalgrove. Overloaded with powder, his pistol blew up; he died four days later, murmuring, 'O Lord! Save my country!' Meanwhile John Pym himself was falling victim to bowel cancer and would breathe his last in December.
Most military successes were on the King's side too. In the north, Lord Newcastle raised the siege of York, occupied Pontefract and Newark, locked in the Parliamentary arsenal at Hull, then heavily defeated Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas at Adwalton Moor. In the south-west, Sir Ralph Hopton cleared Cornwall and Devon, and moved on Wiltshire and Somerset. He was seriously injured when a careless tobacco pipe exploded a cart of gunpowder, but survived to annihilate Sir William Waller's Parliamentary army at Roundway Down. In July Prince Rupert stormed Bristol, England's second city and a vital port, although he took heavy casualties. The King's main army faced the Earl of Essex between Oxford and Reading, hoping for news that Newcastle and Hopton had overcome all opposition and were marching to join in a grand assault on London.
They never came. Their local levies were refusing to leave their home districts. In the west too, further advances were impossible while Gloucester and Plymouth held out for Parliament. Lord Newcastle was turned back by heavy Parliamentary resistance at Gainsborough, so diverted himself to a siege of Hull. But Royalists were cheered when the Queen at last reached Oxford.
So far there were no grand military sweeps or major battles. The area between the royal capital at Oxford and the King's constant goal of London saw endless manoeuvring. Towns were garrisoned, castles were fortified; they were abandoned for strategic reasons, or taken by the enemy; then they were reinvested or rescued; later, their fortunes often changed again. Small groups of soldiers moved in and then moved on, jostling for possession of local garrisons, farmhouses and market towns. Vital objectives changed hands repeatedly.
For Parliament, the Earl of Essex was criticised for indecision, although he was rarely free to take the initiative: if he moved away, he would leave London undefended. Essex successfully captured Reading, but while he occupied it his men were decimated by camp fever.
At that time the King was very close to recapturing his kingdom. The shifting boundary of Royalist control was little more than forty miles from London as the crow flew. A bird had the advantage. If they came, Royalist soldiers would have to advance on carriageways and byways which for years had been neglected or inconsistently maintained by their parishes and which, as well as being famous for broken bridges, flooded fords and missing signposts, were generally overgrown with trees and hedgerows, choked with mud, and carved up and criss-crossed with ruts like the face of a cheese-grater. Still, both sides kept careful watch on one another. Parliament issued an order that no one might travel from Oxford to London without a pass. Their own scouts and spies were active in the Royalist-held areas. Meanwhile, Royalist spies took detailed notes of the Lines of Communication around London; some were arrested as they scanned the fortifications.
With the King encouraged by his generals' successes and Parliament correspondingly depressed, this stalemate continued to late summer. Then Prince Rupert's capture of Bristol turned royal eyes to the west. Bristol surrendered in just three days, though the defenders under Nathaniel Fiennes were sufficiently brave for Rupert to allow them to march out with full honours. Parliament was angrier at Fiennes's conduct and court-martialled him for dereliction of duty; he was only spared through the intervention of the Earl of Essex.
Meanwhile the Parliamentary commander William Waller sustained a grave defeat. Waller's previous string of local victories had made him a hero to Parliament; perhaps fatally, he saw himself as a hero too. He made vainglorious boasts and even procured a wagon-load of leg-irons for anticipated Royalist prisoners. But at Roundway Down he failed to post scouts and fatally lost the advantage. Hopton's Royalists obtained reinforcements and charged gallantly uphill; they pushed some of the Parliamentary cavalry over a precipice and then bloodily routed the infantry. Waller fled to Bristol, unaware of the scale of the damage; his few surviving men were so dispirited they deserted. Waller then took himself to London where he was nonetheless welcomed as 'William the Conqueror'. Church bells rang and he made a stirring speech in Middle Temple Hall. The Earl of Essex, who loathed Waller — especially for having lost a fine army — was outraged. He fumed even more when Parliament decided it was now necessary to recruit a new national army — which Waller would lead.
Attempts to negotiate peace with the King in Oxford had failed. Essex's troops were broken by lack of resources and disease. He struggled to convince Parliament to give him financial aid but all available funds were about to be siphoned off to Waller. Then in August, before Waller's new army was ready, the King personally besieged the city of Gloucester. This was to prove a turning point.
Gloucester's position was perilous. Far up the River Severn, with the enemy now controlling the Bristol Channel on both sides, it was a puritan merchant city holding out alone in the heartland of Royalist control. It constantly threatened the King's recruiting operations in South Wales, his supply route by sea and his ironworks in the Forest of Dean. When Charles decided to remove this annoyance, he was full of confidence. He believed that his headquarters at Oxford and numerous Royalist garrisons in the surrounding area shielded him. It was inconceivable that the Earl of Essex could bring through any relief.
Gloucester seemed likely to fall as easily as Bristol. Charles was convinced its young military governor, Colonel Edward Massey, would capitulate. Even Royalist merchants in Gloucester viewed the coming Royalist army with such fear — in the light of events at Birmingham — they offered the King a fortune in return for reassurance
