An hundred horsemen riding at their hardest--not in any military
formation, but strung out in a straggled ruck--horsemen steel-clad from
crown to hip, some with helmets battered; others bare-headed, the
head-piece gone; cuirasses showing dints, as from stroke of halberd or
thrust of pike; on back and breastplate blood splashes, dried and turned
purple-black; boots, mud-bespattered and _delabre_--this damaged cohort
all that remained of "William the Conqueror's" army!
They were the remnant of Hesselrig's Horse, the "Lobsters" in retreat
from Roundway Down, where the chivalrous, but too reckless, too
confident Waller, had given battle to the outnumbering enemy under Byron
and Wilmot; been defeated, and put to utter rout.
It was the wind up of a series of sanguinary engagements with the
Marquis of Hertford and Prince Maurice, commencing with an encounter on
the low-wooded bottom between Tog and Friznoll hills, so hotly contested
that veterans there engaged, who had gone through all the Low Country
and German campaigns, declared the most furious fights they ever had
abroad were but sport to it.
Carried up to the adjacent height of Lansdown, from which, after another
fierce conflict, the Parliamentarians were forced to retire, the two
armies--what remained of them--again came face to face on the elevated
plateau of Roundway Down; the final scene of the struggle and Waller's
discomfiture.
Hesselrig's Cuirassiers had especially suffered. With ranks broken, and
many of them unhorsed, they were all but helpless in their unwieldy
armour, and scores got tumbled over the cliffs of the Down. Of a
well-appointed regiment, over five hundred strong, which but a few days
before had filed out through the gates of Bristol, only this straggling
troop--less than a fifth of the force, still kept the saddle.
Waller was himself along with it--for the "Lobsters" formed his
body-guard--so too Hesselrig, severely wounded. Crestfallen both--it
could not be otherwise--but with no cowed or craven look. The blood
upon their gauntlets and sword-hilts, on their blades still unwiped,
told both had been where cowards would not be--in the thick of the
fight. Only to superior numbers had they yielded, and were now retiring
sullenly as disabled lions. If they rode hard and fast it was through
the urgency of their followers, who feared pursuit behind with the
fiendish cry, "No Quarter!"
Morn was just dawning as the retreating troop caught sight of Bristol's
towers--glad to their eyes, giving promise of refuge and rest. This
last they needed as much as the first. For days and nights they had
scarce ever been out of the saddle; looked wan for the want of sleep,
and were weak from fatigue and hunger. Their horses blown and
dead-beat, many of them staggering in their gait. No wonder the sight
of that city was welcome to them.
But what a spectacle they themselves to those inside it, to the
hundreds, nay thousands, who gazed off and out from turret, wall, and
window! The first glimpse got of them was by the warder in the Castle's
keep, just as the brightening sky enabled him to descry objects at a
distance. Then other sentries saw them from the watch towers of the
gates on that side; and the signal of alarm ran along the line of
fortification, round and round. Soon bells rang, trumpets brayed, and
drums beat all over the city, startling the citizens out of their sleep
and beds. Before the sun had yet shown above the horizon, not one but
was awake, and most out of doors. Men rushed wildly through the
streets--women too--or stood aperch, clustering on every eminence, every
pinnacle and parapet thick as bees, with eager, anxious glances scanning
the country outside. At length to fix them on the long, glittering
line--for the sheen of the cuirasses were not all gone--that now
approached in slow, laboured pace, as the crawl of a scotched snake.
When near enough for the bare heads and battered helmets to be
distinguished, the blood smouches on dress, arms, and accoutrements, the
gloom on brows and in eyes, with lips compressed and features hard set
as in sullen anger--when these sure insignia of disaster were fully
before them, a feeling of despondency came over the hearts of the
Bristolians. Intensified, doubled, when at the head of this figment of
a force, crushed and shattered, they saw Sir William Waller, and by his
side Sir Arthur Hesselrig--the two leaders so long victorious as to be
deemed invincible! They had seen them ride out with an army numbering
nigh 6,000 men, and now saw them returning, in retreat, with but a bare
hundred! These so down-looking and dispirited, that, as Waller
himself--candid as he was brave--confessed in his report to the Lord
General, "a corporal with an ordinary squadron could have routed them."
To many who witnessed their re-entry within Bristol's gates it was as
much spectre as spectacle--the presentiment of misfortune for
themselves.
But not all viewed it in this light. There were eyes into which it
brought a sparkle of gratification; some even the glow of anticipated
vengeance. During Fiennes's iron rule, the "malignants" had been much
humiliated, and the prospect of a change, themselves to have the upper
hand, made them jubilant. And there were the relatives and friends of
the so-called "State Martyrs," with the fate of these fresh in their
mind, burning for revenge. Citizens affected to the King's cause,
Cavaliers, whether prisoners on parole or otherwise, the tapsters,
gamesters, and tricksters of every speciality; in a word, all the
reprobacy and blackguardism of Bristol, high and low, male and female,
were gleeful at a sight giving them forecast of that for which they had
long been yearning--an opportunity of pillage and plunder. It was just
with them, as it would be with their modern representatives the Jingoes,
at any mischance to Liberalism, likely to give the Jew of Hughenden
another spell at despoiling and dishonouring England. For they, too,
were doughty champions of beer and Bible, with whom national honour was
but a name, the nation's glory an empty boast. They, as Tories now,
cared not for the wrongs and sufferings of an over-taxed people, any
more than recks Arab slave-trader the tears and lamentations of the poor
human beings with black skins he drives, brute-like, across the burning
sands of Africa. For is not the whole history of Toryism, from its
commencement up to the latest chapter and verse, a record of sympathy
with the wronger and unpitying regardlessness for the wronged--an
exhibition of all the ferocity known to the human heart, with all its
falsehood and meanness?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By a coincidence in no way singular, but simply from two events chancing
to occur at the same time, they were dancing at Montserrat House, while
Waller was riding in retreat from Roundway Down. Madame Lalande's ball
was on the night after the battle, July 13th.
It was about to break up, for day was dawning, and cheeks growing pale.
Less than a month after mid-summer, the hour was not so much into
morning, and there were some tireless votaries of Terpsichore inclined
for still another _contredanse_, by way of wind up. This came, however,
in a manner more sudden and unexpected. First, the call notes of a
distant bugle, taken up and responded to by others, till a very chorus
of them sounded all over the city. Then a _tantara_ of drums, and the
jangling of church bells, with the boom of a great gun from the Castle!
Too early for the _reveillee_--before the hour of _orisons_--what could
it all mean? So queried they in the grounds of Montserrat House,
gathering into groups. Certainly, something unusual; as the fracas not
only continued but seemed growing greater. To the instrumental sounds
were added human voices, shouting in the streets, calls and responses,
with a hurried trampling of feet--men rushing to and fro!
Only for a short while were Madame Lalande's guests in suspense. Nor
had they to go outside for explanation. There was an eminence in the
grounds which commanded a view of most part of Bristol, with the country
beyond the fortified line, south-eastward. On its summit stood a
pavilion; the same which on that night had been the means of revealing
more than one secret. And now from this spot an anxious crowd--for
scores had rushed up to it--learnt the cause of the excitement. Close
in to the city's walls, about to enter one of the gates, was the
shattered remnant of Hesselrig's Horse--all that was left of Waller's
defeated army!
If the dresses of those who clustered round the pavilion--most in fancy
costume--were diversified, varied also were the feelings with which they
regarded this new spectacle presented to them. A surprise to all; to
many an unpleasant one, but most viewing it with delighted eyes. For,
unlike as with the crowds clustering other eminences outside, within
that precinct, hitherto almost sacred to Cavalierism, this was, of
course, in the ascendant. And what they saw seemed sure evidence of a
crushing defeat having been sustained by their adversaries; so sure,
that many who had all the night behaved modestly, and worn masks, now
pulled them off and began to swagger in true Cavalier fashion.
Sir Richard Walwyn, Eustace Trevor, and other Parliamentarian officers
present were compelled to listen to observations sufficiently offensive.
Had they been themselves unmannerly, or even without it, they could
have stopped all that, being still masters in Bristol. But there was no
need for their showing spite by taking the initiative; as this was
forced upon them, whether or no, by command and the simple performance
of duty. While Madame Lalande's guests were hastening to take their
departure, a man, newly arrived, made appearance in their midst; an
officer, wearing _sabretasche_ and other insignia of an aide-de-camp.
Entering unannounced at the outer gate, without ceremony he strode on up
to the house, inquiring for Sir Richard Walwyn.
"Here!" responded the knight, himself about to leave the place; and he
stepped forth to meet the new comer.
"From the Governor, Colonel Walwyn," said the aide-de-camp, saluting,
and drawing a slip of folded paper from his sabretasche, which he handed
to the Colonel of Horse, adding, "In all haste."