Herefordshire Through Time
Herefordshire Through Time
It is fortunate that John Webb recorded legends connected with the Civil War in 1825, a date which to his mind was already 50 years too late make the most of this oral tradition. However, the presence of the Scottish army made such an impression on the inhabitants of Herefordshire that even at such a late date he was able to gather many stories from elderly people who remembered hearing about the rapacity of these Parliamentarian soldiers. But are any of these stories true? John Webb says this about these traditions:
"They are valuable to any one who knows how to separate from among them the palpably false from the probably true; and especially where they are corroborated, as in many instances they are, by localities, they convey a fresh and vivid impression of events; and where they are attached to little particulars are highly graphic. "
When a besieging force found it difficult to breach or go over a wall, they attempted to mine under it. Soldiers would dig a tunnel under the wall, lay explosives and try to get the wall to cave in due to lack of support from below. Defenders would often lay counter mines to try to intercept and destroy the mines of the attackers.
Several versions exist as to how the Royalists located the Scottish mines. Did the Royalists discover a mine because an old woman heard the sound of the digging under her feet as she sat at her spinning-wheel? Did an old blind soldier put a drum on the ground and put peas or marbles on it to ascertain a mine when the peas or marbles started to gently bounce? According to tradition the defenders also opened a town ditch into the mine and the miners drowned. Another, more unlikely, story has the Scots trying to mine under the river Wye. Supposedly they too all drowned.
Our sympathies usually lie with those being besieged. Nevertheless, the lot of the besieging soldiers was often very grim. They were exposed to all kinds of weather, sickness, boredom, often under-supplied with food, in danger from sudden sorties and, if the siege dragged out, wary of an attack from an army coming to relieve the town. If all this wasn't already difficult enough, it is thought that many hungry Scottish soldiers got diarrhoea from eating unripe fruit. The Earl of Leven sent the following letter to the House of Lords on August 12th 1645:
"The condition of our army, as we have often represented, is extreame hard; the common souldiers begin to be sicke, with eating of fruite. We have now sent away almost all our horse, soe that we want their assistance to bring in provisions; and therefore we desire you to use all possible diligence in hasting downe to us what monies are come in to the Committee of Goldsmithes Hall; which if it shall not come in good proportion, we are affrayd to thinke what shall be the condition of his army."
The phrase "an army marches on its stomach" would have struck a chord with the Earl of Leven. According to one story, the neighbouring parishes were ordered to send a cartload of provisions each week to the Scottish army. If this cart was accompanied by a man and a boy, the army would keep the man and send back the boy. Supposedly one parish, in order not to lose any more men, decided to send an old woman with the provisions. However, as she was trying to cross a swollen brook, she drowned and the two horses were drowned.
As Parliament did not come to the financial relief of the Earl of Leven and his army, the soldiers resorted to systematic plundering. Nevertheless, it should be said here that even though the soldiers took valuables as well as foodstuffs, in fact anything moveable, they seemingly did not kill or assault people. Plundering forms the backbone of most stories, yet there are none involving cruelty or the killing of civilians. According to one story, a woman in Llansilo had the rings taken off her fingers, but the story does not say that she herself was assaulted.
Being the victim of theft is disturbing in any situation, however the effect of the theft is magnified if one loses the tools of one's trade. In the case of rural Herefordshire, it was the theft of the horses which caused the greatest grief. Horses were the main means of transport and were used for pulling ploughs and carts. Once the siege on Hereford had commenced the Parliamentarian forces decided to redeploy the Earl of Leven's cavalry. As the quote above shows, the army was in need of horses and groups of soldiers scoured the neighbourhood to confiscate any horses they found.
One story involving this quest for horses involves a little boy who almost landed his family in big trouble. A man called Thomas Wathen, from Mere Court in Kings Pyon, was away from home hiding his horses in a pit. (John Webb falsely attributes Mere Court to Kingston, on p.393.) When the soldiers arrived at his house, they found a little boy standing beside a baby in a cradle. One of the soldiers, perhaps himself a father, lifted the baby out of the cradle and cuddled it briefly before gently putting it back. Things were going well until the soldiers asked the little boy where his father was. Naïvely, the boy told them that his father had gone out to hide their horses. Luckily for the family involved at that moment the party received the order to march and there wasn't time to search for the man and his horses.
The Scots did not always make such a good impression. There are stories of them breaking furniture and throwing it into the fields, setting fire to buildings and stores and of taking half-baked bread out of the ovens, and throwing it into the mud, when they realised it wasn't baked. According to Webb, there was a saying:
"The Lord be thanked, we can now put our bread into the oven and take it out again: but it had not used to be so: when we put it in, we never knew whether we should have it out again."
People tried all sorts of hiding places for their belongings. One man living in King's Caple was said to have hidden half a bushel of silver coin in a manure heap, trampled down by his horses. Not only valuables were hidden, however. One family supposedly buried their bacon along with their pewter.
Note: a straggler is someone who falls behind his group.
Some stories recount the murder of straggling or lost Scottish soldiers. One farmer in Much Birch was asked by a straggling Scottish soldier if the farmer had seen any of his countrymen. The soldier was armed with a sword, the farmer was only carrying a hedge-bill. As they were walking along the path in a field they came to a turnstile. The farmer let the soldier climb over it first and killed him with his hedge-bill.
It is not surprising that stories of retaliation should grow up around the plundering and devastation of the countryside. One woman from St.Weonard's is said to have killed a soldier when she found him taking bread out of her oven by hitting him over the back of his head with a hacker. According to John Webb, "a reddish stone at the threshold was said to bear the stain of his life-blood, and the cottage, rebuilt about 1840, is known as Scot's Brook to this day". The field is listed as Scotts Brook in the 1839 tithe map for St.Weonard's.
There are other place names and field names in Herefordshire which bear testimony to the occupation of the Scottish army. If you type "Scotland, scotch or scott" into the Historic Environment Record field-name database you will find several fields related to Civil War incidents. There are for example, two fields called Scotch Graves, one in Weobley and one in Norton Canon, where presumably the bodies of Scottish soldiers were buried. Whether they were killed or died of illness is of course not known.
Other places bear names attesting to the occupation of the Scottish army in 1645. Scot's Hole, for example, is an oval-shaped entrenchment in the eastern part of the City of Hereford, but outside the former city walls. It is 0.5m deep and the outer bank is about 0.5m high (HER entry number 26934). "Scotland Bank" near Dorstone is based on the gruesome tradition of a Scottish straggler being hounded to death when the locals set their dogs on him.
If you type "Scotland" into the field-names database you will find 32 records. However, it is not known if all these field names are connected to the Civil War.
It is easier to research the military details of famous sieges than the personal stories of ordinary people who get caught up in these events. A story connected with the siege at Goodrich Castle gives us a glimpse of what could happen when love crossed the political divide.
Alice Birch, the niece of a Parliamentarian colonel, was in love with Charles Clifford, a Royalist. She had eloped with her lover and was hiding at Goodrich Castle when, in 1645, the Parliamentarians led by her uncle, Colonel Birch, besieged the castle. Sir Henry Lingen, the Royalist commander, gave Clifford permission to take away his fiancée before open hostilities were declared. On a stormy night, she and Clifford escaped from the castle on horseback, but in an effort to clear enemy lines they missed the ford over the river Wye and drowned. Their ghosts are now said to haunt the castle and to this day, on the anniversary of their death each year, people claim to have seen a horse with two riders drowning in the river.
[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2003]