The Royalist and Parliamentarian War Effort in Shropshire During the First and Second English Civil Wars, 1642-1648 Item Type Thesis or dissertation Authors Worton, Jonathan Citation Worton, J. (2015). The royalist and parliamentarian war effort in Shropshire during the first and second English civil wars, 1642-1648. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Chester, United Kingdom. Publisher University of Chester Download date 24/09/2021 00:57:51 Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10034/612966 The Royalist and Parliamentarian War Effort in Shropshire During the First and Second English Civil Wars, 1642-1648 Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of The University of Chester For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Jonathan Worton June 2015 ABSTRACT The Royalist and Parliamentarian War Effort in Shropshire During the First and Second English Civil Wars, 1642-1648 Jonathan Worton Addressing the military organisation of both Royalists and Parliamentarians, the subject of this thesis is an examination of war effort during the mid-seventeenth century English Civil Wars by taking the example of Shropshire. The county was contested during the First Civil War of 1642-6 and also saw armed conflict on a smaller scale during the Second Civil War of 1648. This detailed study provides a comprehensive bipartisan analysis of military endeavour, in terms of organisation and of the engagements fought. Drawing on numerous primary sources, it explores: leadership and administration; recruitment and the armed forces; military finance; supply and logistics; and the nature and conduct of the fighting. The extent of military activity in Shropshire is explained for the first time, informing the history of the conflict there while reflecting on the nature of warfare across Civil War England. It shows how local Royalist and Parliamentarian activists and 'outsider' leaders provided direction, while the populace widely was involved in the administrative and material tasks of war effort. The war in Shropshire was mainly fought between the opposing county-based forces, but with considerable external military support. Similarly, fiscal and military assets were obtained locally and from much further afield. Attritional war in Shropshire from 1643 to 1646 involved the occupying Royalists engaging Parliamentarian inroads, in fighting the garrison warfare characteristic of the period. Although the outcome of both wars in Shropshire was determined by wider national events, in 1646 and again in 1648 the defeat of the county Royalists was due largely to their local Parliamentarian adversaries. Broadening this study to 1648 has provided insight into Parliamentarian county administration during the short interwar period. CONTENTS List of maps ii List of tables iii List of plates iv List of abbreviations v-vi Explanatory notes and conventions vii Chronology viii Maps ix-xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Leadership and Administration 20 Pre-war county governance and administration 20 The adaptation of county governance to Civil War 26 Royalist leadership and administration 31 Parliamentarian leadership and administration 48 Chapter 2 The Armed Forces 68 Recruitment 69 Royalist forces in Shropshire 76 Parliamentarian forces in Shropshire 87 Chapter 3 Financing the War Effort 102 The Royalists 103 The Parliamentarians 115 Plunder and free quarter 133 Chapter 4 Military Supplies and Logistics 143 Arms and munitions procurement 143 Clothing and equipment 153 The supply of provisions 154 Obtaining horses and provender 160 Transportation and distribution 168 Chapter 5 Operational Aspects of the War Effort 181 The nature of warfare in Shropshire 181 Garrisons and fortification 188 Siege-craft 195 Military intelligence and communications 205 Medical services 211 Conclusion 216 i Bibliography 222 LIST OF MAPS Map 1 Reconstruction of the likely seventeenth-century boundaries ix of the Shropshire hundreds. Map 2 Likely extent of Parliamentarian control in Shropshire in x later September 1643. Map 3 Likely extent of Parliamentarian control in Shropshire in xi April 1644. Map 4 Likely extent of Parliamentarian control in Shropshire at xii the end of 1644. Map 5 Likely extent of Royalist control in Shropshire during xiii winter 1645-6. Map 6 Main supply lines into Shropshire as they may have operated 174 during summer 1644. Map 7 Shropshire garrisons during the First Civil War, 186 also showing the larger field engagements. ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Alphabetical listing of Royalist commissioners of array, 33-4 1642-6. Table 2 Alphabetical listing of Parliamentarian committeemen, 51 1643-4. Table 3 Sample of documents signed by the committee at Shrewsbury 53 during 1645. Table 4 Alphabetical listing of officials of the Parliamentarian 57-8 administration in Shropshire, 1646-8. Table 5 Royalist units raised by local commanders 80 (with date). Table 6 Parliamentarian regiments raised by local commanders 95 (with date). Table 7 Analysis of contribution and assessment paid by townships 127 within the liberties of Shrewsbury, 1644-6. Table 8 List of sorts, quantities and cash-equivalent values of provisions 157 supplied as contribution from the Shrewsbury area, 1644. iii LIST OF PLATES Plate 1 Sir Francis Ottley, detail of a family portrait by Petrus Troueil, 35 dated 1636, in the collection of Shropshire Museums. (By courtesy of Shropshire Council/Shropshire Museums). Plate 2 Thomas Mytton, from a contemporary engraving. 52 (By courtesy of Shropshire Archives, ref. PR/1/744). Plate 3 Warrant issued in Sir Francis Ottley's name to muster the town 82 dragoons at Shrewsbury sometime in 1643 (By courtesy of Shropshire Archives, ref. 6000/13294). Plate 4 Bill presented by the Smithfield horse dealer Benjamin Ash 165 for purchasing horses and for livery services, authorised for payment by Sir Thomas Myddelton on 6 May 1644 (Crown Copyright The National Archives, SP28/346 Part 1, unfoliated). Plate 5 The tower house (or keep) of Hopton Castle 201 (author's photograph). Plate 6 View from the medieval castle earthworks on Panpudding 201 Hill, Bridgnorth (author's photograph). iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A&O Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, eds. C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait, 3 volumes (London, 1911). BCHRC Bishop's Castle Heritage Resource Centre, Bishop's Castle. BDL The Boldeian Library, Oxford. BRL The British Library, London. CPCC Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding, ed. M.A. Everett Green, 5 volumes (London, 1889). CPCM Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Advance of Money, ed. M.A. Everett Green, 3 volumes (London, 1888). CSPD Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I, 1625-1649, ed. W.D. Hamilton [et al.], 23 volumes (London, 1858-97). HHL Henry Huntington Library, San Marino, California. HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission. v HRO Herefordshire Record Office, Hereford. IO List A List of Officers Claiming the Sixty Thousand Pounds, &c. Granted by his Majesty for the Relief of His Loyal and Indigent Party Truly (London, 1663). JHC Journals of the House of Commons. JHL Journals of the House of Lords. LBWB The Letter Books of Sir William Brereton, ed. R.N. Dore, 2 volumes (Gloucester, 1984, 1990). Mss Manuscripts. NAM The National Army Museum, London. NLW The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. NRO Northamptonshire Record Office, Northampton. ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds. H.C.G. Matthews and B. Harrison, 40 volumes (Oxford, 2004). OT List 'A list of the names of the Indigent Officers certified out of the county of Salop by His Majesty's Commissioners appointed by the Act of Parliament for the purpose', in 'Ottleiana: or letters & c. relating to Shropshire chiefly to Sir Francis Ottley, in, Anon., Collectanea Topographica & Geneaologica (London, 1841) 'Ottley Papers' ‘The Ottley Papers Relating to the Civil War’, ed. W. Phillips, in TSANHS, 1894, 1895, 1896. ROP The Royalist Ordnance Papers 1642-1646, ed. I. Roy, 2 parts (Banbury, 1963, 1975). SA Shropshire Archives, Shrewsbury. SRO Staffordshire Record Office, Stafford. TNA The National Archives, London. TSANHS Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society. TSAS Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society. vi WRO Warwickshire Record Office, Warwick. WSL William Salt Library, Stafford. EXPLANATORY NOTES AND CONVENTIONS Dates are given according to the Old Style (Julian) Calendar, in use across the British Isles at the time of the Civil Wars. However, the New Year is taken to begin on 1 January, not 25 March. Spellings in contemporary manuscript and printed sources have been modernised to aid readability along with some minimal intervention in vii punctuation. However, spelling of the titles of contemporary publications has been retained. Contemporary monetary values have been quoted throughout. Thus 12 pennies (12d) = one shilling (1s); 20 shillings = one pound sterling (£1); £1 = 240d. To put these amounts into some local pre-Civil War context in terms of personal income, in 1640/1 the day rate paid by the corporation of Shrewsbury, Shropshire's county town, to skilled workmen such as carpenters and ordinary masons was 8d including food and drink or 14d without, meanwhile the respective rates for day labourers were 4d and 8d. At the opposite end of the social scale, among the county gentry proposed as suitably wealthy candidates for the shrievalty of Shropshire in 1632 were the future leading Royalists Thomas Wolrych of Dudmaston and John Weld of Willey, whose respective annual incomes were then estimated as £1,200 and £3,000.1 Finally, while acknowledging the vigorous scholarly debate since the turn of the twentieth century concerned with whether or not the warfare widespread across the archipelago of the British Isles from 1639 into the early 1650s were British civil wars, or, indeed, were wars fought between three kingdoms (or four nations, if Wales is considered as a separate land), because it is concerned with the conflict as if affected an English shire this thesis has kept the traditional convention of classifying the period as the English Civil Wars.