1643.
Clarendon reproaches with virulence, our spirited ancestors, for
disloyalty to Charles the First.--The day after the King left
Birmingham, on his march from Shrewsbury, in 1642, they seized his
carriages, containing the royal plate and furniture, which they
conveyed, for security, to Warwick Castle. They apprehended all
messengers and suspected persons; frequently attacked, and reduced small
parties of the royalists, whom they sent prisoners to Coventry.--Hence
the proverbial expression of a refractory person, _Send him to
Coventry_.
In 1643, the King ordered Prince Rupert, with a detachment of two
thousand men, to open a communication between Oxford and York. In his
march to Birmingham, he found a company of foot, kept for the
parliament, lately reinforced by a troop of horse from the garrison at
Lichfield: but, supposing they would not resist a power of ten to one,
sent his quarter masters to demand lodging, and offer protection.
But the sturdy sons of freedom, having cast up slight works at each end
of the town, and barricaded the lesser avenues, rejected the offer and
the officers. The military uniting in one small and compact body,
assisted by the inhabitants, were determined the King's forces mould not
enter. Their little fire opened on the Prince: but bravery itself,
though possessed of an excellent spot of ground for defence, was obliged
to give way to numbers. The Prince quickly put them to silence; yet,
under the success of his own arms, he was not able to enter the town,
for the inhabitants had choaked up, with carriages, the deep and narrow
road, then between Deritend and Camp-hill, which obliged the Prince to
alter his route to the left, and proceed towards Long-bridge.
The spirit of resistance was not yet broken; they sustained a second
attack, but to no purpose, except that of laughter. A running fight
continued through the town; victory declared loudly for the Prince; the
retreat became general: part of the vanquished took the way to Oldbury.
William Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, a volunteer under the Prince, being
in close pursuit of an officer in the service of the parliament, and
both upon the full gallop, up Shirland-lane, in the manor of Smethwick,
the officer instantly turning, discharged a pistol at the Earl, and
mortally wounded him with a random shot.
The parliament troops were animated in the engagement by a clergyman,
who acted as governor, but being taken in the defeat, and refusing
quarter, was killed in the Red Lion-inn.
The Prince, provoked at the resistance, in revenge, set fire to the
town. His wrath is said to have kindled in Bull-street, and consumed
several houses near the spot, now No. 12.
He obliged the inhabitants to quench the flames with a heavy fine, to
prevent farther military execution. Part of the fine is said to have
been shoes and stockings for his people.
The parliament forces had formed their camp in that well chosen angle,
which divides the Stratford and Warwick roads, upon Camp-hill.
The victorious Prince left no garrison, because their insignificant
works were untenable; but left an humbled people, and marched to the
reduction of Lichfield.
In 1665, London was not only visited with the plague, but many other
parts of England, among which, Birmingham felt this dreadful mark of the
divine judgment.
The infection is said to have been caught by a box of clothes, brought
by the carrier, and lodged at the White-hart. Depopulation ensued. The
church-yard was insufficient for the reception of the dead, who were
conveyed to Ladywood-green, one acre of waste land, then denominated the
Pelt Ground.
The charter for the market has evidently been repeated by divers kings,
both Saxon and Norman, but when first granted is uncertain, perhaps at
an early Saxon date; and the day seems never to have been changed
from Thursday.
The lords were tenacious of their privileges; or, one would think, there
was no need to renew their charter. Prescription, necessity, and
increasing numbers, would establish the right.
Perhaps, in a Saxon period, there was room sufficient in our
circumscribed market-place, for the people and their weekly supplies;
but now, their supplies would fill it, exclusive of the people.
Thus by a steady and a persevering hand, she kept a constant and uniform
stroke at the anvil, through a vast succession of ages: rising superior
to the frowns of fortune: establishing a variety of productions from
iron: ever improving her inventive powers, and perhaps, changing a
number of her people, equal to her whole inhabitants, every sixteen
years, till she arrived at another important period, the end of the
civil wars of Charles the first.