Chapter III: Part 3

“The fight began by furious and repeated volleys of arrows from
Hotspur’s archers, whose ground, as may be seen, greatly favoured
that kind of warfare: and they did great execution on the royal army.
The king’s bowmen were not wanting in return, and the battle raged
with violence. The military art had not yet attained that perfection
which almost supersedes the effect of individual exertion; and
Hotspur, with his associate Douglas, bent on the king’s destruction,
rushing through the midst of the hostile arrows, pierced their way to
the spot on which he stood. To adopt the vivid language of a
contemporary, ‘in the ardour of his spirit, he assembled a band of
thirty warriors, broke into the royal army, and made a great alley in
the midst thereof,’ (such was the terror which his presence inspired)
‘even to the stoutest of the king’s guards.’ Monstrelet says, Henry
was thrice unhorsed by the Scottish earl, and would have been taken
or slain had he not been defended and rescued by his own men. And
the fortune of the day would have been forthwith decided, if the
Scottish earl of March had not withdrawn him from the danger; for the
royal standard-bearer was slain, his banner beaten down; and many of
the chosen band appointed to guard it (among whom were the earl of
Stafford and sir Walter Blount,) were killed by these desperate
assailants,—while the young prince of Wales was wounded in the face
by an arrow. In short, notwithstanding all the exertions of the
royalists, victory seemed inclined to favour the rebel army, who
fought with renewed ardour, from an opinion naturally derived from
the overthrow of his standard, that the king himself had fallen, and
animated each other to the combat with cheering and redoubled shouts
of ‘_Henry Percy_, _king_! _Henry Percy_, _king_!’

“In this critical moment the gallant Percy, raging through the
adverse ranks in quest of his sovereign, fell by an unknown hand;
alone, and hemmed in by foes. The king lost no time to avail himself
of this event. Straining his voice to the utmost, he exclaimed
aloud, ‘_Henry Percy is dead_!’ The sound was heard by either army:
into those it struck dismay, while these it animated and encouraged.
The rebels fled in every direction, nor could the king, anxious as he
was to terminate the slaughter, restrain the impetuous pursuit of his
own troops, till the flower of Cheshire, two hundred knights and
esquires (besides pages and footmen) were slain. Douglas broke
through, and endeavoured to escape in the direction of Haghmond-hill:
being closely pursued, and leaping from a crag, he experienced a
severe injury, and was captured: but the king, in admiration of his
valour, set him at liberty. The loss in both armies was great. * * *
An ancient manuscript rates the number of gentlemen at two thousand
two hundred and ninety-one, besides commons. They were chiefly
buried, says that authority, in a great pit, the dimensions of which
are there specified, and over which the present church of Battlefield
was afterwards erected: but many are stated to have lain dispersed in
various directions for the space of three miles about the field of
battle: a fact which confirms what has been said above of the
desultory nature of the conflict. Others, of the most distinguished
rank, were interred in the neighbouring town, chiefly in the cemetery
of the Dominican or St. Mary’s Friars.

“The body of Hotspur was at first delivered to his kinsman lord
Furnival for interment, and it was by him committed to the ground
with the suffrages of the church, and with all the honours which, in
that haste, could be procured as due to his rank. It is painful to
reflect, that the king afterwards repented him of this generous
attention to the remains of deceased valour. He caused the corpse to
be taken out of the tomb in which it had been laid, and to be placed
between two mill-stones in the public street, near the pillory;
where, as if he feared lest the general sympathy should rescue it
from its ignominious situation, it was kept under military guard,
till the head was severed from the body, which was divided into
quarters, and transmitted to several cities in the realm.”

Thus closes this circumstantial and able description of the celebrated battle of Shrewsbury; an event so interesting in the annals of the county, that we make no apology for having transferred so detailed an account of it to our pages. A nobler theme could not well be conceived for the lay of a minstrel. “The characters of the leaders, both of the royal and of the rebel party, the chivalrous spirit of the times in which they lived, and the magnitude of the cause that roused them to arms, are circumstances highly susceptible of poetical description, while the train of incidents from the very origin to the termination of the feud, is of that romantic cast which requires little embellishment from fiction. There is indeed one objection which may have deterred our later Poets from the undertaking; it is, that the ground which Shakspeare has trod is sacred; but without any violation of the reverence due to his memory, it may be wished that this magnificent subject had also been celebrated by the muse that sang the tale of Flodden Field.”

We have already stated that on the deposition of Richard II. the Earl of Wiltshire, recently appointed lord of the Manor of Oswestry, fell a victim to popular fury, and Thomas, son of Richard, Earl of Arundel, was restored in blood. This last-named nobleman was a liberal supporter of the Corporation of Oswestry. In 1406 he gave it a release for £100 (a large sum in those days,) which that body was indebted to him, in consideration of the distresses which the town had suffered during the Glyndwr insurrection. He also obtained pardon from the king for his vassals in Chirk, Bromfield, and the Manor of Oswestry, for the share they had taken in that rebellion. In the same year with the release he granted a most extensive Charter to the town, containing many matters showing the customs of the times. This Charter ordered, that “neither the lord nor his heirs should confiscate or seize the effects of persons with or without will in the corporation; that no burgess should be compelled to be the lord’s receiver-general, but only collector of the issues arising within the borough; that the burgesses should be discharged from all fees demanded by the Constable of the castle, or any of his menial servants, for any felonies or trespasses committed out of the same liberties, when brought to the prison of the castle; saving that the Constable might receive one penny at his own election, from every mansion-house in the town, and a farthing from every cottage, on the feast of St. Stephen annually; that the burgesses should be free for the future from all excise of ale, brewed and sold in the town, which had hitherto been payable at the rate of seven-pence for every _Bracena cervisiæ_ exposed for sale; that they were to be freed from the duty of _Amobyr_, or _Lyre-Wyte_; that whoever lived in the house of a burgess, and happened to die there, the burgess was to have a heriot after his decease, in the same manner as the _Uchelwyr_, or freeholders residing on the lands of the lord in the Hundred of Oswestry; that no Shrewsbury ale should be sold in the town without license, while any ale brewed in the town was to be had, under the penalty of 6s. 8d.; that none of the inhabitants of the lordships of Oswestry, Melverley, Kinardsley, Edgerley, Ruyton, and the eleven towns, should drive or carry any cattle, corn, or victuals, or other wares, to any foreign fair or market, before the same had first been exposed for sale in the town of Oswestry, under the penalty of 6s. 8d.; that none of the lord’s tenants should be compelled to pay the _redditus advocarii_ for the security of the castle,” &c. The _Amobyr_ of the Welsh, and the _Lyre-Wyte_ of the Saxons, were fines paid by the vassal to his lord, to buy off the power to violate domestic relations. Pennant gives a different interpretation to the term _Amobyr_, but does not succeed in giving us its literal and precise meaning. There is one curious fact mentioned in the aforesaid Charter, and which, even in these days must excite a smile. The respective _six-and-eightpences_ of the gentlemen who now study “Coke upon Littleton” was actually prescribed even so far back as the fifteenth century. It would be a still more curious fact developed, were we acquainted with the lord of the Manor’s law-adviser when this Charter was granted, because we might perhaps then be able, from the knowledge of that fact, to ascribe the origin, if not honour, of lawyers’ _six-and-eightpences_ to the ancient Borough of Oswestry!

According to Pennant, “until the time of the above-mentioned Charter, the lord’s Welsh tenants of the Hundred of Oswestry were accustomed by their tenure to keep watch and ward, for three days and three nights, at the four gates of the town, during the fairs of St. Andrew and St. Oswald, with a certain number of men called _Kaies_; but these treacherously, with others, ravaged and plundered the place. On this the tenants were compelled to pay a sum of money as wages to a sufficient number of Englishmen, as the burgesses should think convenient, for the custody of the four gates; and the Welsh men were for ever to be discharged from that duty. The vassals of the Earl of Arundel in these parts were of a mixed nature; either descendants of the Norman followers of Alan, or of the native Welsh, who were most numerous, and bore an hereditary dislike to their co-tenants of foreign stock. The Welsh part was called _Walcheria_, and lay in the upper part of the parish.”

Reverting to Owain Glyndwr’s career, we see that his escape from the Shelton Oak, at the Battle of Shrewsbury, did not deter him from fresh enterprises. Evidently regardless of the ruin of his allies—they, as Leland tells us, “whom he promised to unite with” at that battle—he continued to infest the English borders, where he committed great havoc, the king being unable, from the want of funds, to resist his aggressions. Owain’s marauding parties committed serious damage to Shrewsbury and several of the adjoining townships, and extended their ravages as far as Buildwas Abbey, which they wasted with fire, so that divine service was for a time discontinued, and the monks were reduced to the greatest poverty. At length Henry directed a writ to Edward Charlton, Lord Powys, to raise forces with which to subdue the renewed rebellion; and similar orders were sent to Lords Arundel and Grey, and Sir Richard L’Strange, Lord of Knockin, Ellesmere, and other bordering manors. Glyndwr had despatched to Shrewsbury two of his best officers, Rhys Ddu and Philipot Scudamore, to command the insurrectionary party; but Lord Powys, having promptly obeyed the orders of his sovereign, fortified several castles, and speedily took as prisoners the above-named two leaders, and they were both soon afterwards executed in London. Holinshed says, that “Glyndwr himself in the same year, dreading to show his face to any creature, and finally lacking meat to sustain nature, for mere hunger and lack of food miserably pined away and died.” He was living, however, six years later, but in a state of concealment, chiefly at the house of one of his daughters, married to a gentleman of Herefordshire named Monnington. In July, 1415, the new king Henry V., anxious to leave his country in tranquillity before he engaged in the war with France, offered a pardon to Glyndwr; and this would probably have been accepted by the Cambrian chieftain, had not the negotiation been interrupted by his death, which occurred September 30th, 1415, in the 61st year of his age. It is said that David Holbetch, Steward of the manors of Oswestry, Bromfield, and Yale, and founder of the Oswestry Free Grammar School, took a distinguished part in this negotiation, and obtained the promised pardon for Glyndwr. Tradition states that he was buried in the churchyard of Monnington-on-Wye.

With Glyndwr ceased most of the troubles and calamities which had too long afflicted the English and Welsh Borders. The superstitious charm with which Owain’s name had been invested by his countrymen soon faded away, and his life, though startling in a rude and ignorant age, soon proved that he was “in the common roll of men!” Shakspere was justified in creating him, poetically, as self-idolatrous, for his daring incursions and fiery movements indicate that he believed himself to be of the meteoric class, to curb oppression and give liberty to the enslaved. For years after Glyndwr’s fall Oswestry, for aught that history tells us to the contrary, lay in comparative repose, entirely free from foreign aggression. Intestine feuds and disorders seem to have been the chief disturbers. The Welsh were arrayed against the English, and the latter appear to have had no less enmity against their Cambrian neighbours. To Pennant’s industrious and accurate research we are indebted for the scanty notices collected of the history of this period. Among the records of the Drapers’ Company of Shrewsbury, he tells us there is the following order:—“25 Eliz. 1513. Ordered, that no Draper set out for Oswestry on Mondays before six o’clock, on forfeiture of six shillings and eightpence; and that they wear their weapons all the way, and go in company—not to go over the Welsh Bridge before the bell toll six.”

However numerous and fierce marauders were in the days here referred to, it would seem that peaceful employments were nevertheless pursued by the inhabitants of Oswestry, and that their manufactured cloth was of so good a quality as to be held in high repute among the Shrewsbury Drapers. The “contests, robberies, and disturbances in the Marches of Wales” still continuing with unabated force, and both Welsh and English seeming to have considered everything as lawful plunder which they could seize in each other’s territory, the Stewards, the Constable, and Lieutenant of Oswestry and Powys entered into covenants in the year 1534, to restrain these plundering excursions. It was agreed, that “if, after a certain day then fixed, any person of one lordship committed felony in the other, he should be taken and sent into the lordship where the offence was committed, to receive punishment; and that if any goods or cattle were stolen from one lordship and conveyed into the other, the tenants and inhabitants of that lordship should either pay for the same within fifteen days, or otherwise four principal men should remain in bail, a main-prize, till they were either paid for or recovered.”

Notwithstanding these rigorous measures, the evil still continued; and so alarmed were certain of the inhabitants of Shrewsbury, and regardful of the safety of their fellow-burgesses who had to visit Oswestry market weekly, that prayers for their preservation were offered up in one of the churches, on Monday mornings, before they started on their perilous journey. A timid gentleman, William Jones, Esq., left to the Drapers’ Company “one pound six-shillings and eight-pence, to be paid annually to the Vicar of St. Alkmond’s Church, for reading prayers on Monday mornings, before the Drapers set out for Oswestry market!” Pennant informs us that at this period “Oswestry was the great emporium for Welsh cloth; a privilege to which it was well entitled from its vicinity to those districts of Wales in which that important branch of commerce was manufactured, at a period when the English trader could not, with any degree of safety, trust himself in the Principality. To this town (Oswestry) the Drapers of Shrewsbury repaired every Monday. We learn the fact from a curious MS. Chronicle of the last-mentioned town, which relates that ‘on Monday, Dec. 5th, 1575, the Drapers of Shrewsbury had like to have been robbed, if they had not been privately warned; but the bailiffs and a great company went, strongly aimed, upon their usual trade toward Oswestry. The robbers proposed to rob them in the dale between Shelton and Shrewsbury, and lay over night in Master Sherar’s barn, on the other side of the water.’ The whole narrative, which is told much at length in the Chronicle, exhibits the unsettled police of a country slowly emerging from a state of barbarism, and strongly reminds the reader of the inimitable scene at Gadshill, so admirably pourtrayed by our great dramatic bard in the first part of Henry IV.” The same writer adds, “notwithstanding, however, this and similar proofs of the general insecurity of the country, the Welsh manufacturer was unwilling to meet the purchaser even half way with his commodities. ‘Not satisfied,’ says our countryman Dr. Peter Heylyn, in his _Cosmography_, ‘with having fixed the market at Oswestry, they sought to draw the staple more into their own country.’ The MS. quoted above informs us, under the year 1582, that it would have been removed thence, ‘to the great decay of that town and of Shrewsbury, yf Sir Thomas Bromley, being Lord Chancelor, had not by his great wisdom opened the same to the Queen’s Majestie, for which godly deede theye of the said townes are contynewally bownde to praye daylye.’ Lord Chancellor Bromley was a Shropshire man, and possessor, by purchase from the Earl of Arundel, of the Castle and Lordship of Shrawardine; he was therefore personally interested in the prosperity of the county, and by his influence at Court enabled to promote it.” It would further appear, that the market was continued at Oswestry, so that it is likely that Lord Bromley’s interposition at Court prevailed. In 1585 the Welsh cloth market was removed from Oswestry to Knockin, the plague having broken out in this borough, and destroyed “three-score and four persons, and no more;” according to the parish register. The plague continued from April to August, when it entirely disappeared, and the market was held, as before, in Oswestry.

Oswestry was visited with other calamities some few years before this period. In 1542 a fire broke out in the town, which was so destructive, that “two long streets with great riches” were consumed; and in 1567 there was another fire, which destroyed “seven-score within the walls, and three-score without.” The suburb still known by the name of _Pentre-Poeth_ (the burnt end of the town) suffered severely, and may have derived its designation from this destructive fire; or, as Price intimates, from the frequent fires that may have occurred there during the conflicts between the Welsh and English. These accidents were looked upon, at the time, through astrological telescopes, by Camden, the historian, and a Dr. Childrey. They both gravely ascribed these events to astrological phenomena, Camden seriously remarking, “that the eclipses of the sun in Aries have been very fatal to this place; for in the years 1542 and 1567, when the sun was eclipsed in that sign, it (Oswestry) suffered much by fire!” After reading such absurdity as this from men professing to be learned, we have reason to be thankful that we are living in a more enlightened and scientific age.

A few years before the conflagration last referred to, the town was visited by a no less alarming evil. In 1559 pestilence consigned to the grave, within one year, more than five hundred of the inhabitants. The disease which thus afflicted the people is stated to have commenced with profuse perspiration, (from which it was called “the sweating sickness,”) and to have continued until the death or recovery of the patient. Its operation was quick and powerful, and cure or death occurred within twenty-four hours. Those persons who were seized in the day were put to bed in their clothes to wait the issue; and those seized in the night were desired to remain in bed, but not to sleep. The desolation of the town during the long continuance of the plague is described in affecting language by the writer of the clever historical sketches, on the History of Oswestry, that appear in Mr. Roberts’s publication, entitled “Oswald’s Well:”—

“It was then that Croeswylan received its name. _Croes wylan_, or
the Cross of weeping, was there erected, the base of which still
remains to be seen. To this, with superstitious reverence, all the
people resorted. The diseased and dying sought in grief beneath its
sacred shadow a preparation for the doom to which they were
appointed, and there they languished till that doom was fixed.
Before it, the whole and healthy ones confessed and deplored their
sins, and deprecated the vengeance of heaven. Throughout the
succeeding century this foul contagion lurked on our shores, and at
intervals visited our town, converting it into a vast charnel house.
Its attacks were so insidious and sudden that the glow of health
suffered no process of removal, but instantly fled, as scared and
affrighted on the approach of the fell devourer. During its presence
no sights were to be seen but the wan and sickly visage of those who
were dying, or the panic-stricken gaze of the man yet uninfected,
almost delirious with alarm, and starting from the touch of the
dearest friend of his heart. The air was rent with shrieks and laden
with lamentation. Death alone seemed contented and satisfied, and
sat like a monster unmoved as he banqueted on hundreds of his
victims. All commerce was at a stand-still. Every house was locked,
the inmates scarcely venturing upon a communication with each other,
much less exposing themselves to contact with those without. With
foreboding reluctance they breathed the breath of heaven, pregnant as
it was with the seeds of death. If one of their number was attacked,
no consideration of friendship or kindred spared him the aggravation
of being hurled into the street, there to await the regular arrival
of the dead-cart. That sad accompaniment of the contagion, the
gibbet of the scene, rolled sullenly along the death-smitten streets
upon its gloomy mission, and never returned without the sad evidences
of the rapid progress of the desolating scourge. In the ears of the
expiring it must have sounded like the toll of the passing bell, the
knell of their speedy departure. Upon it, whether dead or just
gasping for life, the diseased victims were heaped, and hurried off
to the brink of a huge pit, dug, probably, in a corner of the Old
Churchyard, into which they were remorselessly thrown. Everything
bespoke the presence and working of a mighty power, in league with
‘the King of terrors.’ All human ties were forcibly disrupted, every
human sympathy was sacrilegiously immolated, until the people were
reduced to that extremity of sadness, in which life is burdensome for
its sorrows, and death terrible for the grim and ghastly shroud in
which it lies hid.”

The market was held, during the Plague, at _Croes wylan_, that the people from the surrounding country-places should not visit the town, and thereby suffer from the infection. No doubt that with the dreadful scourge stalked, hand in hand, gaunt poverty. It may be easily imagined that the poor suffered severely from the sickness, and that many of them required relief. We have some testimony before us that the public authorities of the time sympathized with the sufferers. The following extracts from the “Accompt of Richard ap Lley, Muringer of the town of Oswestr, for and from the xvj day of September, in the 2nd yere of our sovraynge Lady Elizabeth,” show how pecuniary aid was rendered to certain parties:—

The sayde accomtante doth asc alowaunce for rent bayted to the
Towlers (toll-takers) for one qr. in considracion of the PLAGE:
_s._ _d._
Fyrst to the executors of John Vyghan xx
Allso, &c. rent bayted to Thomas ap Rc. for xx
Wolyws-gate
Allso, &c. to David Glover the elder, for xiij iiij
Newe-gate
Allso, &c. to Wyling Lloyd, for Betresce-gate x
Allso, &c. to David ap David, for Blak gate iiij ij
Allso, &c. rent of Crofft-pystil, in the hande ij
of Rc. ap Mrdyth, dyssessed
Allso, &c. money payde for wrytinge of a xij
suplycacion to my lord of Arundell
Allso, &c. for Lewys Tayler, and Guttyn Furbur, xiiij
beinge unpayde for setting of stales, by reason
of the Plage
Allso, &c. for Rc. Lewther, for one qr. beinge xx
absent from the towne
_Tanners_. Allso, &c. for a qr. rent unto xiiij
tanners beinge apsent in in
tyme of the plage; and fyrste,
Thomas Baker (2 other similar
items)
_Glovers_. Itm. The sayde accomptaunt xij
dothe asc alowaunce for them
that are deade or fled, and
them that are in decaye; and
fyrst, Thomas ap John Wyling,
beinge a poore man (five
others fled, &c.)
_Buchers_. Imp. the sayde accomtant, &c. v
Lewys, bucher, that is dead
(one for the like and 7 fled)
_Corvsers_. Edward Gorg, fled (2 others iij
fled)
_Backers_. David ap sr. Rc. saythe that vi
he dothe not occupey his
backhowes, and prayth alowance
David Bobyth hathe ben longe iij
secke, and asc alo
_Hucksters_. Jonet vrch. David ap Morys asc x
alowance for a qr. Rent (1
other)
_Alle Selers_. Edward Lloyd pray the alowance xjj
for a qr.
David Glover the elder, in xiiij
lycke manner
Richard Salter was longe xiijj
sycke, and praythe alowance
Thomas Glover praythe xx
alowaunce for half a yere;
aledginge, that he sold no
alle for that space (3 others)

Payments for the provision of the genrall Feast unto the Coo-burgesses according to the aunsient costom, holden the vth day of Desember, in the thryde yere of the raynge of our sovraynge layde Ellizabeth, by the grace of God quene of England, &c. at the making of this accompt:

_s._ _d._
_Whete_. Fyrste, the saide accomptaunt xj
hathe payde for ii stryckes and
a hoope of whette for brede and
for peys
_Maullt_. Allso payde for iii strycke of xij
maullt
_Boochers_. Allso payde for a qr. and ii vj viij
rybes of byff
Allso payde for mytton for to ij vj
make peys for this feast
. . . for iij_lb._ ressyns xij
. . . s pep v ij
_Cloves_, _&c._ Allso payde for cloves, masses, vj
aud saffrone
Allso payde for synamon and vij
sugr.
Itm. pd. for buttr. spent at viij
this feast
_Chese_. Allso payde for chesses ij ix
_Nyttes_, &c. Allso pd. for appells and nyttes xvj
_Saullt_. Allso payde for a hoope of sallt x
for the byff

_This Accompt was made before us_, _the persons under-named_, _then Bailiffe of the said Towne_, JOHN STANNEY, THOMAS EVANS.

* * * * *

With these awful calamities the people endured severe privation, both as to food and clothing. Provisions had risen so enormously in price as to place even the coarsest food beyond the reach of the poor. We are told that so deficient were the working-classes of the commonest provision, that they were glad to resort, for subsistence, to horse-bread, composed of beans, oats, and bran. “The good old times” are too frequently quoted as periods of comfort, compared with the present days; but such facts as have been now related must convince every Englishman of right feeling that, however humble his lot, he still possesses “a goodly heritage.”

For a considerable time no event occurred in Oswestry worthy of detailed notice. In the 42nd of Elizabeth, Coke, Attorney-General, acknowledges all the liberties and franchises of Oswestry, by an order that all further proceedings on the part of the Crown, on a writ of _Quo Warranto_ against the Bailiffs and Burgesses of Oswestry, should wholly cease. In 1603 a dispute took place between the Bailiffs, Burgesses, &c. and the Earl of Suffolk, then lord and owner of the town and manor, the former body having, in numerous assembly, resolved to maintain the rights and privileges granted to them by Richard II., and confirmed by their “late sovereigne of famous memorye, queene Elizabeth.” A petition setting forth their grievances, mainly caused by the Earl of Suffolk’s steward, had been presented by them to the Lord President of the Marches; to which Lord Suffolk replied as follows:—

“_To his good freinds_, _the Burgesses and Townesmen of his Towne and
Manor of Oswester_:

I HAVE of late receaved a Letter from my honble good Lord and freind,
the L. President of Wales, wch declared unto mee, a great desire in
his Lpp to give some satisfaction to you uppon a Peticon given him
from yor Towne, as exceptinge against the Course wch Mr. Lloyd, my
Officer, healde with you. Nowe you must knowe, that I doe, and will
avowe him in such things as he, in his discreation, shall find to bee
profitable for mee wch, perchaunce, may bee displeasinge to you, but
herin you may further wronge yor selves then you are aware off; for
yf you shall deny to yeald mee thoes Rights & Proffits that are due
unto me, as Lord of the Manor, you must then knowe, that I doe look
for at Mr. Lloyds hands such a resistance of yor wills as I may not
bee prejudized thereby: & I knowe his understandinge & discreation is
such, as he would not drawe mee into frivolous and needles
questions.—Therefore I must tell you, that yf you have refused the
duties whch belonge unto mee, that I will execute my remedies as the
lawes of the Land will allowe mee. But, becawse I wolde not be
thought rigorous, and that yt may appeare that my L: President hath
the powre of an honorable & kind ffreind in mee, I am contented that
yf you doe sende upp to the Tearme at Winchester, such as shall have
powre to followe the cawse in the behaulf of you all, that then the
questions wch are risen between the Steward & you shall, yf yt may
be, have an end; by Councill chosen of each syde; wch Course shall
please mee well: but yf yt happen otherwise, the fault shall not be
myne, for I desire not contencons; but then of necessety, Lawe must
determyn them. In the meane tyme, I charge you all to carry yor
selves respectively and duetifully to my Officers; for you must learn
to obey, yf you will desire to be obeyed; wch you, being a Corporate
Towne, should principally desire. And soe I leave you for this tyme,
untill I heare further from you. From the Court at Wylton, this 25th
of October, 1603.

Yor Lovinge freind & Lord,
SUFFOLKE.”

James I. in 1616, granted a Charter to the town, thus removing “divers doubts and ambiguities” which had “arisen concerning the ancient liberties, francheses, &c., of the town and borough of Oswaldstre,” and extending their liberties and privileges, as well as confirming them a body corporate, by the name of “the Bayliff and Burgesses of Oswestry, in the Countie of Salope.”

About this period a heavy blow was struck at the commerce of the town, by the Drapers of Shrewsbury (a reference to whose complaints and apprehensions has already been made), “who weary,” says Pennant, “of their weekly journeys to Oswestry, determined to transfer the market to their own town, from that in which Queen Elizabeth had established it. But this attempt proved in the first instance abortive. The Lordship of Oswestry was enjoyed at this time by Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, to whom it had been granted by the late queen, in the 43rd year of her reign. He was in great favour with James, in whose Court he held the office of Lord Chamberlain, and to whom he had recently recommended himself by his vigilance and promptitude in the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. Possessed of the highest notions of the privileges of the peerage, and jealous of the infringement of his rights by the traders of Salop, he issued his mandate to them by one of their own body,—Arthur Kynaston, merchant of the staple, a younger brother of the house of Ruyton,—to desist from such attempts in future. Their answer is recorded in their own books: it is entitled ‘The copy of a letter sent by the Company to the Earle of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of his Majestie’s househoulde, ye 24th June, 1609.’ ‘Right Honerabell,—Your letter bearing date the second of this June, by the hands of Mr. Kiniston wee have received: wherein ytt appereth yor Lordship was informed that wee the Societie of Drapers wentt aboute by underarte and menenesse to withdraw your markett of Walsh clothe from your towne of Oswester;’ and they proceed to exculpate themselves from the charge in those phrases of submission which were in that day the established usage of inferiors in their addresses to those above them. This was their tone during the plenitude of the Earl’s power, which, five years after the date of this letter, received a great increase by his appointment to the exalted post of Lord High Treasurer of England. During this time we may be sure ‘the market for frize and cottons continued, where, according to Heylin, it was originally fixed, at Oswestry.’ But in 1618, the King’s necessities caused an enquiry into the management of the treasury, and Suffolk, whose unbounded expenses in his magnificent palace at Audley-End, had brought him into pecuniary difficulties, was fined by the Court of Star Chamber in the vast sum of £30,000, and dismissed from all his employments. The clemency of James mitigated this enormous fine, but the influence of the Earl of Suffolk was gone; and in 1621 the Shrewsbury Drapers made an order upon the books of their Company, ‘That they will not buy cloth at Oswestry, or elsewhere than in Salop.’”

As we have shewn in a preceding page, the struggles of the Welsh, to recover the freedom they had lost, terminated with the death of their last great leader, Owain Glyndwr. “Their wild spirit of independence, and their enthusiasm for liberty,” says the eloquent historian whom we have already quoted, “from this period gradually declined. The blood of their beloved Princes was nearly extinct; and their native bravery was subdued, or rendered ineffectual, by their intestine divisions and by their repeated misfortunes. When fierce valour and unregulated freedom are opposed to discipline, to enlarged views, and to sound policy, the contest is very unequal: it is not therefore surprising that the genius of England at length obtained the ascendancy. It was, indeed, an interesting spectacle, and might justly have excited indignation and pity, to have seen an ancient and gallant nation, falling the victims of private ambition, or sinking under the weight of a superior power. But such emotions, which were then due to that injured people, have lost at this period their force and their poignancy. A new train of ideas arises; when we see that the change is beneficial to the vanquished—when we see a wild and precarious liberty succeeded by a freedom which is secured by equal and fixed laws—when we see manners hostile and barbarous, and a spirit of rapine and cruelty, softened down into the arts of peace, and the milder arts of civilized life—when we see this Remnant of the Ancient Britons uniting in interests, and mingling in friendship with their conquerors, and enjoying with them the same constitutional liberties; the purity of which, we trust, will continue uncorrupted as long as the British Empire shall be numbered among the nations of the earth.”

We now approach a period in our national history which has ever been viewed, by opposing political parties, in a conflicting spirit. The turbulent elements of

THE CIVIL WARS

were not allayed until Death had silenced the two great actors in the tragic and murderous drama. The present volume, devoted principally to local history, is not an appropriate organ in which to discuss the merits and demerits of Charles I. and his sturdy rival Cromwell. Charles was doubtless guilty of many gross violations of his prerogative, and plunged into a reckless course of misgovernment, accompanied with galling taxation, which the people, beginning to learn the lessons of liberty, and to understand the genius of the British constitution, would not tamely submit to.

The ill-fated monarch, looking at him through the long vista of two centuries, was greatly to be pitied. The son of a king, who disregarded the instructions of his wise preceptor, George Buchanan, and who, in his rule over the English people, was prodigal, unprincipled, and tyrannical, he ascended the throne with a corrupt education, and urged to despotism and injustice by his infamous minister Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, he speedily exhibited in his regal capacity, a passion for power, which, as Macauley remarks, soon became “a predominant vice; idolatry to his regal prerogative, his governing principle. The interests of the crown legitimated every measure, and sanctified in his eye the widest deviation from moral rule.” Such was the son of a kingly father who was fond of cockfighting, and the brutal pleasures of inebriation, who utterly neglected the affairs of state on the plea that “he should not make a slave of himself;” who sold titles and privileges of all kinds, that his vices might be fed; and who basely deprived people of their patents, after having paid for them to himself. These were only a small portion of the sire’s iniquities. What surprise then can be entertained that Charles, his son, walked much in the father’s footsteps! Notwithstanding his despotic and infatuated measures, to which all the evils of the civil wars may be traced, yet he had many excellencies; and the closing scene of his unhappy life proved that had he been blessed with a wiser tutelage, and taught to govern with a just and righteous hand, he might have descended into the tomb with virtue and honour, embalmed in the grateful recollections of his country.

Of his powerful rival and successor much has, and still may be said, in his praise and condemnation. His character, however, singular and erratic as it was, was mixed, as that of other men; and whilst he displayed a religious enthusiasm and sanctity in most of his public acts, apparently impressed with the conviction that he “was doing GOD service” in the course in which he had embarked; yet the troublous events of his life—the fears, anxieties, and weakness of his mortal nature—must have convinced him, if he sincerely believed in the religion of which he made so loud and trumpet-tongued a profession, that “he had done many things which he ought not to have done, and left undone many things he ought to have done.” Now that we look calmly back upon Cromwell’s life, we can see much in his administrative policy that elevated the nation during his transient rule, and that has shed its salutary influences even upon the present generation; but the deep, dark spot in his escutcheon—the murder of Charles—a crime which harrows up the feelings, and rouses the indignation of all right-minded men—that foul murder, with all its cruel and inhuman associations, blots out any excellency that he ever did achieve, and stamps his character indelibly as that of a religious, enthusiastic professor only, and not of a Christian man. Charles may have been guilty, and deserving of punishment for his misrule; but we have yet to learn that Cromwell had plenary power to execute the mandate of JEHOVAH, and to have adopted the inspired exclamation, “VENGEANCE IS MINE!”

“At the breaking out of the Civil Wars,” says Pennant, “the whole of Shropshire, with few exceptions of persons and none of places, adhered to the cause of royalty. Oswestry, like the rest, was garrisoned for the king. The town was defended by a new gate and draw-bridge; the castle was fortified very strongly; and to prevent it from being commanded by the church, in case of the capture of the town, the steeple was pulled down, and a part of the sacred edifice was also demolished.” The same popular author, with his fervid nationality, and strong royalist principles, adds, with evident pride and delight, “The garrison consisted chiefly of Welsh (a people almost to a man staunch in the cause of their sovereign).” The governor of Oswestry Castle at this disturbed period was a Colonel Lloyd. Edward Lloyd, Esq., of Llanvorda, compounded for his estates, as a royalist, in the sum of £300; and at the period of which we write (1643) he was in the prime of life, and therefore physically able to assume the important command of Governor of the Castle. Colonel Thomas Mytton, of Halston, near Oswestry, a man well skilled in military art, and of great personal courage, had united as a commander with the Parliamentary forces, and first signalized himself in an assault upon the town of Wem, which he seized and garrisoned; that place soon became the centre from which attacks were directed against the royalist garrisons in the neighbouring towns. Mytton’s success at Wem was achieved in the latter end of August, 1643; and although he actively assisted the Parliamentary army in its attacks upon other parts of the country, he frequently visited Wem to concert measures for fresh conquests. In January of the following year, a plan was there determined upon for a sudden and covert attack upon Oswestry. The story is on record that Mytton well knew the _bon vivant_ qualities of the Governor of Oswestry. It was said of this royalist Commandant, that in the social circle he was the life and soul of the company, and that when he entered upon the convivialities of the table, he found it a difficult matter to interrupt the rosy hours by wending homewards. Colonel Mytton might know the frailties of his gallant opponent; and, with a strategetic art unworthy of a modern general, he devised a scheme for capturing the Governor and seizing the town of Oswestry. The anecdote proceeds to state, that Colonel Lloyd was to be invited to dinner at the house of a neighbouring gentleman; and Mytton calculated that no dinner invitation would be refused by good-humoured Col. Lloyd. The plot included the spread of further net-work, in which the unsuspecting Governor was to be surely caught. His gastronomic and vinous attachments were to be plentifully gratified; and whilst indulging in bacchanalian revels, a military force, under Mytton’s direction, was to enter the dining room in which the innocent Governor was carousing, to seize him, _vi et armis_, take him before his own garrison, in Oswestry, and there compel him to issue orders to his officers to surrender the town and castle. The plot, as we have described it, was partly successful, but eventually failed. Colonel Lloyd accepted the apparently-friendly invitation to dinner; and all went merrily on with him for a brief period. The detachment of troops was sent from Wem to take him prisoner, so that the first act of the drama was nearly completed. Whilst, however, the Parliamentarians were on their way to surprise him, two of their scouts were seized by some royalist friends; they confessed their share in the treacherous plot; the Colonel was apprized of the danger he was in, fled from the habitation of his Judas-like host, reached the “post of honour” which he had so improperly abandoned for the pleasures of the table, and secured from the grasp of his enemies both the town and castle. Colonel Lloyd’s misconduct was reported, it seems, to the royalist commander-in-chief, who removed him from his important position, and appointed as his successor Sir Absetts Shipman.

The parliamentary leaders were numerous and powerful, and they were all fired with zeal and enthusiasm in the cause which they espoused. The town of Oswestry was a military post of distinction in their eyes; and to possess it was an achievement “devoutly to be wished.” Oswestry stood on a towering height, vigilantly watching the varied movements of the parliamentary hosts, and protecting the communication between the town and Wales. The opposite party were equally active and observant. Colonel Mytton was well acquainted, from his local connexion, with the strength and resources of the town, and brought to his aid, in his meditated attack upon it, Sir Thomas Fairfax, the equal to Cromwell in military tactics. In the month of March, 1644, Fairfax and Mytton, with a strong force under their command, made a sudden attack upon the town, which was gallantly repulsed by Prince Rupert (the King’s nephew), who commanded the royalist troops in garrison. This triumph was but of short duration, for the town was attacked in a few months afterwards, and in this renewed onslaught, the parliamentary forces were victors. The Battle of Oswestry, if such it may be called, was fought on the 22nd June. The Earl of Denbigh, a young parliamentary leader of some military talents, and son of a nobleman who had died in defence of the crown, suddenly left the main body of his army, and marched, with his “forlorn hope” upon Oswestry, determined upon taking the town by a _coup de main_. He reached the vicinity in company with Colonel Mytton, about two o’clock in the afternoon of June the 22nd, the former probably knowing, from the “false brethren,” as spies were then called, that the garrison was partly defenceless, the Governor having imprudently gone to Shrewsbury with certain parliamentary prisoners. Denbigh’s force consisted merely of two hundred infantry, and two troops of cavalry. The engagement was short and sharp. After a hot affair of about two hours, in which Lord Denbigh’s artillery played fiercely upon the garrison with small and great shot, a breach was made in the walls of the town, and the infantry poured in, headed by Major Fraser, with the loss of only one man killed and three wounded. “The New-gate,” adds Pennant, “was next demolished by the cannon, when a young fellow, one George Cranage, went with a hatchet, and cutting down the chains of the draw-bridge, enabled the cavalry also to enter. The besieged made an attempt to maintain the Church, but soon finding it untenable, fled to the castle. Hither they were closely pursued, and the pioneers were quickly called in to undermine its walls; in which, we are informed, the skill as well as valour of Colonel Mytton was very conspicuous. He was probably enabled, from his residence in the neighbourhood, to direct the miners to proceed with most effect. But the daring valour of Cranage again anticipated these slower operations. He was persuaded to hang a _Buttar_ (a petard) at the castle-gate! Being well animated with sack, he undertook this desperate attempt, crept with the engine from house to house, till he got to that next to the castle, fastened it to the gate, set fire to it, and escaped unhurt! The gate was then burst open, and the garrison, finding it impossible to make any further resistance, surrendered the castle upon promise of quarter for their lives. * * * It is greatly to the honour of the victorious commanders that they restrained their soldiers from pillage, at the expense of a gratuity of £500. One can scarcely err in ascribing this noble and uncommon act of mercy to Colonel Mytton’s solicitude for the welfare of his neighbours. The Earl dispatched intelligence of his success to the Parliament. His letter was read to the House of Commons, on the 27th June, giving an account of his taking the town and castle of Oswaldstree, with 400 prisoners and 300 arms. Thanks were voted to him for this his good service, and former testimonies of affection to the house.” The circumstantial narrative proceeds to state that “his Lordship returned, after this exploit, to his main army at Drayton,” and left Colonel Mytton in defence of the town. The fall of Oswestry was a severe blow to the royal party. Besides opening a door for the reduction of North Wales to the power of the Parliament, it lowered them in the scale of public opinion, a loss, in the declining posture of their affairs, of incalculable importance. Active and energetic as were both Lord Denbigh and Colonel Mytton, in their attack upon Oswestry, still they did not escape the slanders even of their own party. The Earl of Denbigh seems to have felt their calumnies acutely, for a few months after the siege his Lordship wrote a letter to Mytton, vindicating the gallantry of both; which we subjoin:—

“COLL. MITTON,

I will not trouble you with the injuries that are offered to you and
myselfe, by the Committe of Wem. I am sure you have deserved more of
the Parliament then the rest of that Committe. Captaine Clive, as I
am informed, reports I was not at the takeing of Oswaldstre, and that
my horse stood att too great a distance; I am sure they entred with
the foote; but the false representations of passages heere shall not
divert me from those occasions that may fully expresse me to be

Your faithfull frend and servant,
DENBIGH.”

“Condor, 29th Oct. 1644.”

At this period the King’s position was critical and alarming. In the early part of the month he determined to take refuge within the walls of Shrewsbury, in his march through Worcester and Bewdley. Waller, the parliamentary leader, hearing of Charles’s movements, broke up from Oxford, and hastened in the direction of Shropshire. On this intelligence the King left Shrewsbury, and retraced his steps. The battle of Copredy Bridge (June 29th) terminated in the defeat of the parliamentary forces; and in July the Earl of Denbigh, encouraged by his success at Oswestry, drew his forces towards Shrewsbury, but was repulsed by the royalist army, with a loss of 120 of his men. The King’s defeat at Marston Moor (July 3rd) added, however, to his disasters and dangers. The whole of Shropshire was in arms, and jeopardy and distress stared every man in the face.

Among the prisoners taken in the late disaster at Oswestry was Francis Newport, Esq., who had served both in the short and long Parliaments. The historians of Shrewsbury have furnished us with an interesting account of this distinguished man:—

“Mr. Newport was son and heir of Sir Richard Newport, of High Ercall,
one of the knights of the shire. This young gentleman was but just
eligible to serve in parliament, having arrived at full age only on
the 23rd day of the preceding February. He manifested the same
ardent loyalty which actuated his father: and ventured, with rare but
honourable gallantry, to vote for the acquittal of Lord Strafford, at
a time when such votes exposed those who gave them to no small
personal hazard; the populace, with their usual toleration of
sentiments differing from their own, denouncing all such, fifty-six
in number, as _Straffordians_; and exposing their names to execration
and danger by public placards. Mr. Newport was soon expelled from
the house as a _malignant_; appeared in arms against the parliament;
and was among the prisoners taken at Oswestry, on the capture of that
town by the Earl of Denbigh and Colonel Mytton. It is needless to
say that he suffered very considerably in his estate: being obliged
to compound in the large sum of £5284, in addition to £3287, and £170
a year extorted from his father for the same crime of loyalty. Yet
though attached to the monarchy, he was friendly to the rights of the
subject; and it is not a little remarkable, that he who had suffered
so deeply for the first Charles, was so much disgusted by the base
and arbitary measures of the two succeeding kings, by the last of
whom he had the honour of being dismissed from the office of lord
lieutenant of this county; that he was a great promoter of the
Revolution, and was excepted, by the abdicated monarch, from his
general pardon. He was created earl of Bradford by king William; and
died Sept., 1708, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.”