WARWICKSHIRE AND ITS HISTORY FROM THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY TO MODERN TIMES
For many years after the decisive battle of Bosworth the history of
Warwickshire was marked rather by peaceful and steady progress than
by events of intense interest. No great occurrence of a military or
catastrophic character disturbed its sunny hills and fertile vales. And
even during the reign of Edward VI., which witnessed the historical
struggle between the Duke of Somerset and Earl of Warwick for power,
Warwickshire enjoyed a period of rest and tranquillity, unaffected by
the schemes and plotting of John Dudley, who had been created Earl of
Warwick by the King.
On the death of Edward VI., however, the county became involved in
the attempt of Warwick, who had been made Duke of Northumberland, to
place Lady Jane Grey, who had just married his son Lord Guildford
Dudley, on the throne to the exclusion of Mary, half–sister of the late
King. The attempt completely failed and resulted in Warwick’s execution
as a traitor on Tower Hill on August 22, 1553, his death being followed
the next year by that of the unfortunate lady who had been made the
innocent instrument of his over–weening ambition.
[Illustration: DUNCHURCH.]
During Mary’s reign Warwick’s grandson, Ambrose, was restored to
favour, and although the county was involved in the rising of the Duke
of Suffolk and Sir Thomas Wyatt in February 1554 to depose the Queen
and prevent her marriage with Philip of Spain, the House of Warwick was
not concerned in the rebellion, which was speedily quashed.
Warwickshire was not permitted to escape the cruelties and persecutions
which distinguished the disastrous reign of Mary, and among the
historical memories which the county should for ever honour and cherish
with undying love are those of the martyrdom of Robert Glover and Mrs.
Joyce Lewis, both of Mancetter, and of others; the former of whom was
burned at the stake in Coventry on September 19, 1555, in company with
Cornelias Bungey.
In the succeeding reign of Elizabeth the county had its part in the
general progress and prosperity of the nation at large. The fear of
the threatened Armada of 1585 found Warwickshire, as other counties,
ready and willing to furnish its quota of men and money for the defence
of England. And as the time of danger drew nearer and the designs
of Philip of Spain became a reality, the numbers of the levies made
in the county increased, until in December 1587 the Lord–Lieutenant
received orders from the Queen to provide 600 men, properly selected
and equipped. Large loans were also successfully raised, although from
the State Papers one gathers that there were a considerable number of
families, probably Catholics, who objected to contribute. One great
happening only in the county marked this period as one destined to
be ultimately regarded as of worldwide interest and importance. On
April 23, 1564, at Stratford–on–Avon, William Shakespeare, one of the
greatest poets of any age, was born. A genius not alone destined to
reflect undying lustre upon the literature of the wonderfully rich
Elizabethan age, but to survive through succeeding centuries of change
in men, modes of thought and fashion as no other writer has.
Rather less than half a century after Shakespeare’s birth the county
was once more brought into prominence by the famous Gunpowder Plot.
Not only were many of the chief conspirators members of well–known
Warwickshire families, but much of the plotting took place in the
county. The conspiracy, which was intended to compass the death of
King James and his eldest son Prince Henry, and other Protestant
noblemen on the opening of the Parliament in November 1605, was in the
beginning largely the work of one Robert Catesby, of Bushwood Hall,
near Lapworth. Catesby had taken part in the abortive rebellion of the
Earl of Essex in the previous reign, but had been pardoned after having
paid a fine amounting to £3000. He would appear to have been “the born
plotter” he was called by an historian of the period, for he was mixed
up in numerous conspiracies previous to the “gunpowder treason,” which
cost him his life. At one time he was probably a Protestant, as he
married a daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, of Stoneleigh Abbey.
Catesby and his fellow conspirators, in addition to compassing the
death of King James and the heir to the throne, proposed to seize the
person of Prince Charles or that of the Princess Elizabeth, then living
at Combe Abbey, near Coventry, which had been but recently erected by
Lord Harrington. The ultimate intention being to marry the Princess to
some Catholic nobleman. Catesby’s mother was a Roman Catholic, a Miss
Throckmorton of Coughton Court, near Alcester. His father, originally
a Protestant, had been frequently brought to book and fined for
recusancy. It was probably the persecution of his father that turned
Robert Catesby’s undoubted gifts for plotting into the channel of
the famous Gunpowder Conspiracy. He at first associated himself with
three desperadoes, and ultimately with Guido Fawkes. The plotters met
to arrange the details of their plan chiefly at Bushwood, Clopton,
Coughton Court, and the ancient manor–house of Norbrook, not far from
Warwick, the home of John Grant, one of the chief conspirators. This
latter place was the magazine where the arms were stored, and also
a general rendezvous, but the headquarters were the Lion Inn, at
Dunchurch.
At this time Catesby himself was residing at Ashby St. Ledgers,
Northamptonshire, after he had sold his Warwickshire estates. The plan
was to have a hunting match at Dunsmore, near Dunchurch, and then the
conspirators, on receiving the news that Guido Fawkes’ portion of the
work had been faithfully accomplished, and the Houses of Parliament
blown up, were to ride off to Combe Abbey and seize the person of the
Princess Elizabeth.
On the 5th of November there was a large muster of people—invited
by Sir Everard Digby, whose part in the plot it was to bring about
a “rising” in the Midlands—concerned at Dunchurch, ostensibly for a
hunting party. All day they hung about the street of the little town,
or sat in the parlour of the low–gabled Lion Inn, hungering for news.
Towards midnight these were thrown into a panic by the arrival of
Catesby, Rokewood, Percy, the Wrights, and others who had fled from
London on the arrest of Guido Fawkes the night before, whilst he was at
work in the vaults beneath the Houses of Parliament laying the train
that was to explode the gunpowder on the following day.
The principal conspirators, who, instead of fleeing the country on
Fawkes’ arrest, had proceeded post–haste to Dunchurch, in the hope of
still seizing the Princess and raising a rebellion in her name, on
reaching the village decided to continue their flight, with others who
joined them, on the news of the failure of the plot.
It was ultimately decided to make a stand at Holbeach House,
Staffordshire, the residence of Stephen Littleton, who had only
recently joined the conspiracy. To reach it they had to ford a river,
and in doing so their arms and ammunition became damp. Whilst drying
the powder in front of the fire a spark fell amongst it; an explosion
occurred, and Catesby, Morgan, Rokewood, and Grant were badly burned;
and several of those who had thrown in their lot with the fugitives
took advantage of the confusion to escape.
On the arrival of the sheriff of Worcestershire and his posse
at Holbeach, the house—which had been seriously damaged by the
explosion—was attacked, and Catesby and Percy, a member of the
Northumberland family, were shot in the courtyard, where they had
intentionally exposed themselves. Rokewood was severely wounded and
taken prisoner with Winter, Grant, Morgan, and several less known
plotters who had retreated into the house. Others were afterwards taken
whilst hiding in the cover afforded by Snitterfield Bushes, some six or
seven miles to the south–west of Warwick.
Thus ended one of the most notable conspiracies in English history, the
heinousness of which has been the subject of much controversy both in
the period immediately following its failure and in recent times. With
the capture and death of the chief participants, and the ultimate trial
and punishment of those who had not succeeded in making good their
escape, Warwickshire once more relapsed into its normal condition of
peace and quietude, from which it was, however, destined to be rudely
awakened by the yet more stirring events of the great Civil War.
At the outbreak of the struggle between Charles I. and his parliament
the county generally declared itself strongly on the side of the
latter; the then owner of Warwick Castle, Robert Greville, Lord Brooke,
being one of the most powerful and bitter of the early opponents of
the King. Prominent upon the side of Charles, however, was found Sir
William Dugdale of Blythe Hall, the antiquary and historian, who,
holding office as one of the royal heralds and as Garter King–at–Arms,
journeyed with the King to Nottingham and made the proclamation when
the royal standard was set up on August 22, 1642. The disastrous Civil
War may be said to have then begun, notwithstanding that two days
previously a hot skirmish had taken place at Long Itchington, some ten
miles to the east of Warwick, between the King’s forces and those of
the Parliament under Lord Brooke and Lord Grey.
Although the first serious encounter between the opposing parties
took place in the neighbouring county of Worcester on September 23,
when Prince Rupert gained an advantage over a body of Parliamentarian
troops, what may be called the first battle of the war took place just
a month later, a little to the south of Kineton, on the plain below
Edge Hill, by which latter name the engagement is known.
Following hard upon the raising of the Royal standard at Nottingham,
Lord Essex at the head of the Parliamentarian forces seized Worcester.
About the middle of September the King and the army which had flocked
to his standard marched to Shrewsbury, from which town on the 12th of
the following month they set out for London. On the 18th of October
Charles was quartered at Packington Old Hall, the home of Sir Robert
Fisher, about ten miles to the north–west of Coventry. On the 19th and
20th the Royal forces were at Kenilworth, next day at Southam, and on
Saturday, 22nd, Charles was the guest of Mr. Toby Chauncy at Edgecote
House, near Cropredy, just over the border in Oxfordshire; whilst
Prince Rupert and a body of troops were encamped a few miles to the
north at Wormleighton House, the main body of the Royalist army being
gathered at Edgecote and Cropredy.
Essex, who had left Worcester upon hearing of the Royalist move
towards the capital, reached Kineton on the eve of the 22nd of October
with a portion of his army, numbering about 13,000 foot and regular
horse, with some 700 dragoons. He was thus numerically inferior to
the Royalists, whose forces numbered about two thousand more foot.
The intention of the Parliamentary leader was to rest his men on the
following day (Sunday), so as to allow the remainder of his troops to
come up with him. These consisted of two regiments of foot, eleven
troops of horse, and seven pieces of ordnance.
The approach of Essex, the number of his forces and his intentions
became known to Prince Rupert, through the pickets which he had
judiciously stationed on the high ground at Burton Dassett. A hasty
council of war was held at Cropredy, at which it was decided to attempt
to check the Parliamentary advance, and to give Essex battle.
Throughout the night of Saturday October 22, the whole district was
astir with the movements of troops, the little town of Kineton, the
Tysoe villages, Butler’s Marston, Burton Dassett, Warmington, Cropredy,
and Wormleighton being terror–struck with the massing of the rival
forces and passage of swiftly–travelling messengers.
Almost before it was light the main body of the Royal army struck camp,
and marched by way of Mollington and Warmington to a position on the
Edge Hills extending from Edge Hill House on the south to Knowle End
on the north, the King’s standard being placed and displayed on the
site now occupied by the Round Tower. The Royal Line was well protected
both on its flanks and in the rear; whilst a complete view of the
Parliamentarian army, then disposed in three lines of battle on the
plain below in front of the little town of Kineton, was obtainable, the
ground in front of the Parliamentarians being even more “open” than it
is at the present time.
There would appear to have been good hope on the Royalist side of a
successful issue to the impending battle. The advantage of position
certainly lay with Charles’ troops. The King, after reconnoitring
the enemy through a telescope from Knowle End, where now stands a
crown–shaped mound planted with trees, rode along the lines of his army
clad in steel, wearing a star and garter, and a black velvet mantle
over his suit of armour. He afterwards addressed the officers, gathered
in his tent for last instructions, in these words, “Come life or death,
your King will bear you company.” It was the Earl of Lindsey, the
King’s Lieutenant–General, who acted as impromptu chaplain and offered
up a quaint and brief prayer in these words: “O Lord, Thou knowest how
busy I must be to–day! If I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me. March
on, boys!”
[Illustration: SOUTHAM.]
Through that long Sunday morning, on October 23, 1642 (November 2,
new style), the forces of Lord Essex lay and watched the enemy on the
heights above them, and distant from them scarcely more than a couple
of miles; showing no disposition to risk an attack upon a position
which was undoubtedly so advantageous as to be worth several thousand
men. At about one o’clock it was decided by the King and his officers
to descend the steep face of the cliff, and make a frontal attack upon
the Parliamentarians disposed in a long line passing through Battle and
Thistle Farms. In Essex’s own regiment commanding a troop was Oliver
Cromwell, then forty–one, who was destined to ultimately crush the
Royal cause on the fields of Marston Moor and Naseby.
Prince Rupert, who, earlier in the day, had caused embarrassment by
his refusal to serve under orders save those of King Charles himself,
led the cavalry on the right, Lord Wilmot on the left, whilst the
command of the centre was vested in Sir Jacob Astley and General
Ruthven, with the King and reserves of pensioners in the rear. Although
the day was fine overhead the ground was wet and miry, and proved heavy
“going” for troops already fatigued by several days of rapid marching.
Close upon two o’clock the muffled boom of two cannon fired by the
Parliamentarians rolled across the plain and reverberated amid the
cliffs of the Edge Hills. The momentous opening of the great Civil War
had come.
The Royalists’ cavalry on the left swept round, and charged upon
the body of Parliamentarian troops located at what is now known as
Battle Farm, where Essex had placed some of his artillery. They were
repulsed with considerable loss. Prince Rupert’s charge along the right
wing met with more success as it drove back Sir James Ramsay and the
force under his command. But unhappily for the King the Prince rushed
onwards towards Kineton with characteristic heedlessness to plunder the
Parliamentarian baggage train, unmindful of the fact that his help was
needed, as the Royalists were losing ground on other parts of the field.
At this hour of the day, although the Parliamentary left was crumpled
up and forced back, the right wing held its own, as did also the
centre; and when Rupert returned from his impetuous pursuit, it was
too late to retrieve his error of judgment. The enemy’s centre had not
only stood firm but had advanced, forcing the Royalists to retreat. The
arrival of John Hampden, with a body of troops who promptly opened fire
upon the Prince’s horsemen, causing them to flee in great confusion,
completed the disaster, Rupert himself having to throw away his hat and
plumes lest they should offer a mark to the enemy’s musketeers.
The Royal army was now indeed, for some considerable time, in imminent
danger of a disastrous and crushing defeat, owing to the severe
pressure on its left front.
Both armies suffered severely, almost equally so, states a contemporary
account, but inasmuch as the Parliamentarians had held their ground
and the Royalists had been compelled to retire from the assault, the
advantage was with some justness claimed by the former. The number of
killed was very large, but contemporary estimates are so contradictory
that it is almost impossible to obtain figures of any exactness.
Probably Sir William Dugdale, who, present during the engagement,
afterwards went over the field and estimated the number of those
actually slain to have been rather more than 1100, is approximately
correct.
Although the enclosures have altered the general appearance of the
field of battle from that which it bore on that disastrous Sunday of
October 23, 1642, the main lines can even nowadays be traced with
considerable clearness and accuracy. And the “Sun Rising,” a fine, old
stone house, has survived the course of the years, as has also the
old Beacon Tower, at Burton Dassett, on the summit of which the first
signal fire was kindled in the cresset by the Parliamentarians to send
the news of the battle London–wards to the next station at Ivinghoe,
some forty miles distant, and thence to Harrow–on–the–Hill.
The months immediately succeeding the first struggle at Edge Hill
saw some great happenings. Warwick had held out when called upon by
Sir William Dugdale to surrender in the King’s name, though Banbury
yielded. But at Coventry the anti–Royalist faction was all powerful,
the “rebels,” “sectaries,” and “schismatics” gathered thick within its
walls, where they deemed immunity from molestation more certain than
in unprotected towns. Kenilworth at the commencement of the war had
been garrisoned for the King, but the defenders were soon stealthily
withdrawn as the rebels in the district increased in numbers; a fight
between them and a body of Parliamentarian troops from Coventry taking
place at Curdworth near Coleshill, just prior to the battle of Edge
Hill.
So far as Warwickshire’s part in the Civil War is concerned the most
stirring and memorable event after the battle of Edge Hill was the
attack upon and the destruction of a part of Birmingham by Prince
Rupert on Easter Monday of the year 1643.
Although many echoes of the struggle which was fiercely waged, and
with varying fortune to the contending parties, up and down the country
for a further period of two and a half years, reached Warwickshire, and
although several severe engagements were fought in the neighbouring
counties of Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Berkshire, no very
considerable fighting took place in Warwickshire itself after the
burning of Birmingham. It was, however, so near the field of other
actions that its peace was perpetually disturbed during the succeeding
years, until the final crushing of the Royalist adherents at Naseby
on June 14, 1645, and the surrender of the King to the Scots in the
following year at Newark. Troops passed along its peaceful lanes on
many occasions, and manor–houses were raided by detached bodies of
Royalists and Parliamentarians, producing a feeling of unrest and
insecurity amongst the inhabitants, and imparting an element of romance
to many a time–worn building.
With the return of Charles II. in the early years of the Commonwealth,
and during the brief campaign succeeding his invasion of England to
assert his kingship, which ended so disastrously on “Cromwell’s day,”
September 3, 1651, at the battle of Worcester, Warwickshire once more
knew the presence of troops within its peaceful confines, and the
hurrying to and fro along its lanes and by–ways of fugitive Royalists
and armed pursuers.
After the battle Charles, whilst escaping in disguise, in company with
Miss Jane Lane, fled into Warwickshire, narrowly escaping capture by
some of the Lord Protector’s men near Bearley Cross. It was in the
kitchen of a house at Long Marston that the royal fugitive, to render
his disguise more effective, took his turn at the kitchen spit! And
Packington Old Hall also sheltered him and his companion during their
flight.
Warwickshire played no very prominent part in the history of the
half century immediately succeeding the Restoration, and although the
intervening years between the latter and the Napoleonic Wars saw many
changes, the life of the county was on the whole placid and uneventful.
Situated far inland, the wars of the closing years of the eighteenth
and early years of the nineteenth century made little impression on a
county then so agricultural in its interests and pursuits.
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century Warwick grew little,
though remaining the county town; and even the anciently renowned
city of Coventry had but an uneventful history, and progress chiefly
remarkable for its development of the ribbon industry.
Birmingham was as yet almost unthought of as a great industrial centre
of population.
The history of Warwickshire during the middle and latter years of the
nineteenth century is chiefly industrial, although the period which has
seen the rise of Birmingham has not been entirely without an underlying
element of romance. The “hardware town” had from early times, as we
have already pointed out, attracted many artisans, skilled workmen, and
ingenious inventors to itself by reason of its freedom from corporate
restrictions. And at the end of the eighteenth century it had commenced
to grow and expand, not, of course, at first with the rapidity that
was later on to mark its advance; but, nevertheless, with an expansion
which was notable and also marked in the character of its industries.
The gun and sword trades, which had existed at the time of the Civil
War, grew steadily; and to these were added others connected with
iron, steel, and brass, and in the days of Edmund Burke the rise of
the jewellery trade, and that of other ornaments, had made it what he
described as “the toy shop of Europe.”
Indeed, the growth and progress of Birmingham has shed upon
Warwickshire almost all the lustre which it has enjoyed for more than
a century, and since the passing away of the more stirring days of
internecine strife. As was but natural the town, now become a centre
of a vast unrepresented population, took an active and prominent part
in the agitation which preceded the passing of the great Reform Bill
of 1832; and its famous public meetings in support of that measure not
only may be said to have represented the county as well as Birmingham
itself, but also the Midlands generally.
Defeated in 1831, the measure was reintroduced in the following year,
and was read a third time on the 19th of March, and on the 26th of the
same month was sent up to the Lords. It passed its second reading, but
there were grave fears that it would be thrown out at the third. An
enormous gathering of the Birmingham Union on New Hall Hill, at which
200,000 people were stated to be present, took place in support of
the Bill. In the petition to the House of Lords, sent by this great
gathering, it was prayed that they would not mutilate the Bill, and
that they “would not drive to despair a high–minded, a generous, and
fearless people.”
The news that the Bill was defeated and that Lord Grey had resigned
stirred up the whole population—timid and fearless, enthusiasts and
apathetics alike—whose anger and determination to see this measure
become law were manifested in no uncertain way. Still treasured in some
households are copies of the placards that were exhibited, which bore
these words:—
NOTICE.
No Taxes paid here
Until
The Reform Bill is Passed.
In the subsequent agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws Birmingham
also took its part, and in connection with this there was once more
serious rioting.
The political prominence of Birmingham, first earned in the reign of
Charles I., has continued of steady growth, although its “great fame
for hearty, wilful affected disloyalty” asserted by Clarendon happily
no longer abides with it.
Warwickshire, as we have stated, was in ancient times largely an
agricultural county, and, indeed, may still be reckoned so. Its
well–watered meads and pleasant valleys providing pasturage for cattle,
and its rich soil being productive of excellent crops.
The war, however, brought about a great change in the nature of its
industries. The men were in large numbers called off the land to supply
the needs of man power in the army; their places were taken by older
men who were above military age, by boys, women, and girls of all ranks
in society.
[Illustration: WARWICK CASTLE.]
The temporary growth in population of such towns as Coventry and
Birmingham was another noticeable effect of the necessities of war. On
the outskirts of the latter town temporary dwellings were erected in
large numbers to accommodate the munitions workers drawn to Birmingham
from all parts of the country, and in the case of the former town
enormous building operations were undertaken to provide factories and
to house the workers engaged in the same.
Coventry in war time was a very different place to the town of even the
period immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities; and different
from the city of to–day which has gradually tended to return to the
normal.
The development of the munitions industries in the county formed one
of the most significant features of its life from the spring of 1915
to the autumn of 1918. Not only was the very face of the countryside
greatly altered in many districts, but the very lives of the people
underwent a radical though temporary change.
Unfortunately industrial unrest, which immediately followed the
armistice and extended into several of the succeeding years, prevented
Warwickshire from making full use of the enormously increased
facilities for output of manufactured articles for which the county
has long been famous. Even factories which only needed conversion in
comparatively unimportant details to fit them for the struggle to
capture the world–trade that waited to be won by enterprise and hard
work were left idle or were very imperfectly adapted to the needs of
peaceful production.
But that there is a great future for this county in the very heart of
England when industry has learned its lesson, and enterprise is once
more harnessed to the chariot wheels of commerce no one can doubt.
To–day Warwickshire has largely recovered from the temporary
dislocation of its life by war, and has returned to its more normal
occupations and mode of living.
Its war record, to be read in the gallant deeds of its fighting sons,
and in the amazing work performed by its women, girls, lads, and older
men, gives it a place of honour among the counties of central England,
as its natural loveliness has given it one of compelling charm among
the most beautiful.