Page:VCH Surrey 1.djvu/496

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A HISTORY OF SURREY it calls upon those who dislike fighting to come out and fight and to promote peace and order by violence. Holland plundered partisans of his enemy in the neighbourhood of Kingston, seized some horses, but gained few more adherents. Sir John Evelyn, who was stopped on his way through the town, was released with an apology by Holland's orders. On July 6 he started to march towards Dorking. Captain Pretty seems to have arrived in Kingston after Holland had left it, took seventeen stragglers of his force prisoners and returned with them to Windsor. He probably remained to guard the line of the Thames, where all horse ferries between Lambeth and Windsor were removed. 1 Holland mean- while passed through Dorking to Reigate. There was some plundering, and from evidence on the earl's trial it appears that one Reigate man was shot by a Royalist for refusing to give up his pistols. But there was neither strength nor purpose in the rising. Perhaps Holland meant to join hands with the Sussex insurgents, perhaps to look for help among the Surrey countrymen still smarting under the treatment of their peti- tioners. Livesey and Gibbons on the same day were on their march from Sevenoaks towards Reigate. For the brief campaign we have the guidance of an actor, Major Lewis Audeley of Livesey's horse, evidently an efficient officer and intelligent reporter. He was a Surrey man by residence, married to the widow of Mr. Hawtrey of West Purley in Sanderstead. He had been detached from his commander and was at Hounslow with three troops when the rising was made. He was ordered to rejoin Livesey, and on the way to disperse any gathering on Banstead Downs. On the 6th therefore, while Holland was marching from King- ston to Dorking and thence towards Reigate, Audeley, who would also come over Kingston Bridge, was moving in a line north-east of him over Banstead Downs towards the same point. There was no company gathered on the Downs ; the 4,000 or 5,000 men whom rumour had assembled there 2 were non-existent. Audeley approaching Reigate found Holland already there with vedettes posted on Red Hill to observe the road from Kent by which Livesey and Gibbons would arrive. Audeley passed north of him and wheeled round to face him on Red Hill, with his retreat secure towards the road by which his friends were coming. He engaged the outposts on Red Hill and drove them in, but found Holland's main body too strongly posted to be attacked in Reigate, where they had possessed themselves of the half dilapidated castle then belong- ing to Lord Monson the Independent. Audeley drew off apparently northward or southward to guard the roads either to London or to Sussex, but not eastward, for Gibbons coming up the same night from Kent missed him. Gibbons pushed on into Reigate, finding it deserted by the Royalists who had unaccountably retreated to Dorking. Gib- bons again left it and bivouacked on Red Hill. Next morning, on the 7th, Livesey's whole force came up, Audeley joining them, and they 1 See Montagu MSS. Hut. MSS. Comm. Report, A letter from Lady Winwood from Ditton, July 25, 1648.

  • Holland's Trial in Clarke Papers.

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