The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 59
PART FOURTH
SECOND CIVIL WAR
1648
About the beginning of May 1648, the general Presbyterian-Royalist discontent announces itself by tumults in Kent, tumults at Colchester, tumults and rumours of tumult far and near; portending, on all sides, that a new Civil War is at hand. The Scotch Army of Forty-thousand is certainly voted; certainly the King is still prisoner at Carisbrook; factious men have yet made no bargain with him: certainly there will and should be a new War? So reasons Presbyterian Royalism everywhere. Headlong discontented Wales in this matter took the lead.
Wales has been full of confused discontent all Spring; this or the other confused Colonel Poyer, full of brandy and Presbyterian texts of Scripture, refusing to disband till his arrears be better paid, or indeed till the King be better treated. ‘To whom other confused Welsh Colonels, as Colonel Powel, Major-General Laughern, join themselves. ‘There have been tumults at Cardiff, tumults here and also there; open shooting and fighting. Drunken Colonel Poyer, a good while ago, in March last, seized Pembroke; flatly refuses to obey the Parliament’s Order when Colonel Fleming presents the same.—Poor Fleming, whom we saw some time ago soliciting promotion:[1] he here, attempting to defeat some insurrectionary party of this Poyer’s ‘at a Pass’ (name of the Pass not given), is himself defeated, forced into a Church and killed.[2] Drunken Poyer, in Pembroke strong Castle, defies the Parliament and the world: new Colonels, Parliamentary and Presbyterian-Royalist, are hastening towards him, for and against. Wales, smoking with confused discontent all Spring, has now, by influence of the flaming Scotch comet or Army of Forty-thousand, burst into a general blaze. ‘The gentry are all for the King; the common people understand nothing, and follow the gentry.’ Chepstow Castle too has been taken ‘by a stratagem.’ The country is all up or rising: ‘the smiths have all fled, cutting their bellows before they went;’ impossible to get a horse shod,—never saw such a country![3] On the whole, Cromwell will have to go. Cromwell, leave being asked of Fairfax, is on the 1st of May ordered to go; marches on Wednesday the 8d. Let him march swiftly!
Horton, one of the Parliamentary Colonels, has already, while Cromwell is on march, somewhat tamed the Welsh humour, by a good beating at St. Fagan’s: St. Fagan’s Fight, near Cardiff, on the 8th of May, where Laughern, hastening towards Poyer and Pembroke, is broken in pieces. Cromwell marches by Monmouth, by Chepstow (11th May); takes Chepstow Town; attacks the Castle, Castle will not surrender,—he leaves Colonel Ewer to do the Castle, who, after four weeks, does it. Cromwell, by Swansea and Carmarthen, advances towards Pembroke; quelling disturbance, rallying force, as he goes; arrives at Pembroke in some ten days more; and, for want of artillery, is like to have a tedious siege of it.[4]
Here is his first Letter from before the place: a rugged rapid despatch, with some graphic touches in it, and rather more of hope than the issue realised. Guns of due quality are not to be had. In the beginning of June,[5] ‘Hugh Peters’ went across to Milford Haven, and from the Lion, a Parliament Ship riding there, got ‘two drakes, two demi-culverins, and two whole culverins,’ and safely conveyed them to the Leaguer; with which new implements an instantaneous essay was made, and a ‘storming’ thereupon followed, but without success.—Of ‘the Prince,’ Prince Charles and his revolted ships, of the ‘victory in Kent’ and what made it needful, we shall have to speak anon.
“TO THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LENTHALL, ESQUIRE, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: THESE”
Sir,—All that you can expect from hence is a relation of the state of this Garrison of Pembroke. Which is briefly thus:
They begin to be in extreme want of provision, so as in all probability they cannot live a fortnight without being starved. But we hear that they mutinied about three days since; cried out, ‘Shall we be ruined for two or three men’s pleasure? Better it were we should throw them over the walls.’ It’s certainly reported to us that within four or six days they’ll cut Poyer’s throat, and come all away to us. Poyer told them, Saturday last, that if relief did not come by Monday night, they should no more believe him, nay they should hang him.
We have not got our Guns and Ammunition from Wallingford as yet; but, however, we have scraped up a few, which stand us in very good stead. Last night we got two little guns planted, which in Twenty-four hours will take away their Mills; and then, as Poyer himself confesses, they are all undone. We made an attempt to storm him, about ten days since; but our ladders were too short, and the breach so as men could not get over. We lost a few men; but I am confident the Enemy lost more. Captain Flower, of Colonel Dean’s Regiment, was wounded; and Major Grigg’s Lieutenant and Ensign slain; Captain Burges hes wounded, and very sick. I question not, but within a fortnight we shall have the Town; “and” Poyer hath engaged himself to the Officers of the Town, Not to keep the Castle longer than the Town can hold out. Neither indeed can he; for we can take away his water in two days, by beating down a staircase, which goes into a cellar where he hath a well. They allow the men half-a-pound of beef, and as much bread a-day; but it is almost spent.
We much rejoice at what the Lord hath done for you in Kent. Upon our thanksgiving[6] for that victory, which was both from Sea and Leaguer, Poyer told his men, that it was the Prince, “Prince Charles and his revolted Ships,” coming with relief: The other night they mutinied in the Town. Last night we fired divers houses; which “fire” runs up the Town still: it much frights them. Confident I am, we shall have it in Fourteen days, by starving. I am, Sir, your servant,
Precisely in about ‘Fourteen days’ a new attempt was made,[8] not without some promising results, but again ineffectual. ‘The Guns are not come from Bristol, for want of wind’; and against hunger and short scaling-ladders Poyer is stubborn. Three days after this Letter to Lenthall, some three weeks since the siege began, here is another, to Major Saunders.
- ↑ Letter xxxvii. vol. i. p. 247.
- ↑ Rushworth, vii. 1097.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Abundant details lie scattered in Rushworth, vii: Poyer and Pembroke Castle, in March, p. 1033; Fleming killed (1st May), p. 1097; Chepstow surprised (‘beginning of May’), p. 1109,—retaken (29th May), p. 1130; St. Fagan’s Fight (8th May), p. 1110; Cromwell’s March, pp, 1121-8,
- ↑ Cromwelliana, p. 40.
- ↑ By Cannon-volleys.
- ↑ Rushworth, vii. 1159: read in the House, 20th June 1648 (Commons Journals, v. 608).
- ↑ Rushworth, vii. 1175.