Under Siege episode 6 - Newark 1643-1646
Under Siege episode 6 - Newark 1643-1646
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00:00Today, the roads, streets and lanes of this busy town in Nottinghamshire, England, are
00:11filled with people going about their everyday lives.
00:14They would probably find the notion of open warfare on their doorsteps faintly ridiculous,
00:19even absurd.
00:23These days it is more likely to be traffic and tourists that disturb their peace.
00:30In the middle of the 17th century, however, life was very different in this town.
00:35It was an important theatre of a bitter war, a war that set father against son and brother
00:41against brother.
00:44This was the English Civil War.
00:47And it came to this place with a vengeance.
00:52Newark, 1643-46.
01:22Charles I ascended the throne of England in March 1625.
01:38And almost from the word go, he fell out with his parliaments.
01:43The disagreements were mainly about money and war, but at the heart of the argument
01:47was Charles' unshakable belief in his divine right to rule.
01:52In fact, Charles hated parliaments, and they, for their part, increasingly came to realise
01:58that the monarch would bend to their will only if he was forced to.
02:02By the early 1640s, parliament was determined to win real power, and the king was equally
02:08resolved that they should never have it.
02:11The simmering row finally boiled over late in the year 1642, when England erupted in
02:16a civil war, a war that would claim thousands of lives, and would eventually lead to the
02:24execution of the king himself.
02:28Throughout the bitter conflict that followed, the armies of both sides attempted to capture
02:32strategically vital towns and cities.
02:37One such town was Newark, which is situated at an intersection of road and river in the
02:42Midlands of England.
02:43It was called the Key to the North, a region of the country that was one of the war's
02:48key battlegrounds, and the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies each wanted it so badly that it became
02:54the scene of no fewer than three separate sieges during the civil war.
02:59Armies fought and troops died there, while the ordinary townspeople were forced to endure
03:03those other great dangers to life, hunger and disease.
03:08Even today, more than 350 years on, the town still bears the scars.
03:13Newark, of course, has always been strategically important.
03:16That's where the Romans had a major garrison here.
03:18That's why we have a castle here from medieval times.
03:21The Great North Road came through the town of Newark, and the river Trent was fordable
03:26at this point.
03:27Therefore, really, the Trent marked the sort of north-south divide between Parliamentarians
03:32and Royalists, and whoever held Newark in the East Midlands held the key not just to
03:38the heart of the Midlands, but also, of course, to the ports on the East Coast, which were
03:42crucial for the logistic support, particularly of the Royalists.
03:48The ruins of Newark Castle cast their shadow across the river Trent.
03:54The Queen's Sconce, the best preserved of the surviving civil war defensive earthworks,
03:59walks balefully over the town.
04:03Buildings that were the centrepiece of the town's stubborn resistance still defy the
04:07passing years.
04:16Newark lies at the very heart of England, in the county of Nottinghamshire, close to
04:20the cities of Nottingham and Lincoln.
04:25The town is fiercely proud of its English civil war heritage, for the fact is that despite
04:31all the hardships and privations endured by its citizens during the English civil war,
04:36they only surrendered to their enemies when they were finally ordered to do so by King
04:40Charles himself.
04:43For since 1642, Newark had been a Royalist stronghold, and the Parliamentarians were
04:48determined to get their hands on it.
04:51Newark was, I think, more by accident of who owned the land and where the fiefdoms
04:57were from the Middle Ages, Newark was staunchly Loyalist.
05:01It also contained, of course, a large number of troops who had had some experience in the
05:05Low Countries, and it was a natural focal point for these Midlands.
05:09It had a strong-ish garrison, it had strong-ish defences, and it was strategically important.
05:17Like the armies of any age, the opposing sides of the English civil war were more used
05:22to the wide open spaces of a battlefield, where men would stand and fight toe-to-toe,
05:27where commanders would command, where the perceived rules of warfare applied, and where
05:32a victory, if it could be won, was achievable in a relatively short space of time.
05:38Siege warfare was a very different business.
05:41It was often laborious, slow work, but for a besieging army, not without its attractions.
05:47Whereas pitch battles were notoriously unpredictable, a besieging force held the initiative at all
05:53times, and success was all but guaranteed, providing it was patient.
05:59Siege warfare is as old as warfare itself.
06:02The idea was to surround the town and to starve it into submission in some way.
06:09The outside forces had the initiative all the time.
06:15Battles, pitched battles, are very unpredictable, and the fact that you were the biggest group
06:19didn't necessarily mean that you would win, so sieges were in fact more popular with the
06:24military for that reason, that it was almost guaranteed success, providing you could sit
06:29there long enough.
06:31At Newark, the parliamentarians would try to seize the town by all manner of means,
06:36while the royalists employed every trick they knew to keep them out.
06:42By early 1643, the people of Newark, and Sir John Henderson, its first governor, knew that
06:48a parliamentarian attack was a certainty.
06:51Henderson's first act as governor had been to order the construction of a new circuit
06:55of earthwork defences and ditches beyond the old medieval town walls.
07:01Henderson had certainly made good use of his experience with armies on the continent, where
07:05he had first seen these types of earthwork defences.
07:10It was on the 27th of February that a parliamentary force commanded by Major General Thomas Ballard
07:16marched towards Newark from nearby Beacon Hill.
07:19The first, albeit brief, siege of Newark was shortly to begin, and Henderson's defences
07:25were about to be put to the test.
07:32Six thousand parliamentarian soldiers, divided into three brigades, made the first attack
07:37on Newark.
07:39The first of these was an artillery brigade, and it was these men that poured cannon fire
07:43into the town.
07:48The other two brigades attacked at the earthwork defences, and at the Northgate area of the
07:52town.
07:54Believing that victory was assured, Ballard invited Henderson to surrender the town.
07:59Henderson refused.
08:02But the parliamentarian troops were simply unable to make any headway into Newark itself.
08:08Henderson's defences did their job, and he had positioned his own troops astutely.
08:13The fighting wore on, and, unable to achieve a decisive breakthrough, the parliamentarians
08:18became dispirited and tired.
08:22Realising that they were losing the initiative, Henderson chose his moment to order a counter-attack
08:27that not only drove the parliamentarians back, but also saw the royalists capture sixty
08:32of Ballard's men and three of his cannon.
08:36What had seemed a certain parliamentarian victory had been turned into humiliating defeat.
08:43It was an unexpected and sobering reverse for the parliamentarians, and for Ballard,
08:48who, after a couple of days spent agonising outside the defences of the town, decided
08:52that he wasn't getting anywhere, and that he wasn't very likely to.
08:56He abandoned the first siege of Newark.
09:02Victory for the royalists' stronghold came at a cost, though.
09:06During that first short siege of Newark, the parliamentarian cannon fire had caused a great
09:10deal of death and injury.
09:12Here, for example, at the old White Hart, an historic coaching inn, a mortar shell hit
09:18the rear of the building, and as a result, many citizens of Newark lost their lives.
09:24For the remainder of 1643, the two sides jockeyed for position in a series of engagements
09:30around the country.
09:32It would have been possible for the royalists and parliamentarians to reach a negotiated
09:35peace, were it not for the stubborn refusal of King Charles to compromise, and the determination
09:41of the hawkish elements within the parliamentarian ranks to fight the war to the bitter end.
09:48With no prospect of a negotiated settlement to the war, England was suffering.
09:53The Scottish commissioner, Robert Bailey, wrote in a letter home that the country is
09:57in a most pitiful state, with no corner of it free from the evils of a cruel war.
10:03Every shire, every city, many families are divided in this quarrel, and much blood and
10:08universal spoil are made where they prevail.
10:12The town of Newark is unlikely to have been any different.
10:17In June 1643, King Charles' wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, made a visit to Newark during her journey
10:24from Hull to the king's headquarters at Oxford.
10:27She had been visiting the continent to try and raise troops for the royalist cause, and
10:31she is reputed to have stayed here, at this house on the Kirkgate area of the town, which
10:36then belonged to Lady Frances Leek, wife of Colonel Charles Leek, a royalist commander.
10:45In the same month of the same year, the royalists won a victory at Adwelton Moor, a triumph
10:50that gave them control of much of the north of the country.
10:54Victories at Lansdowne and Roundway Downe followed, and Bristol was also captured, putting
10:58the royalists in a position of real strength in the west.
11:03Sadly for the king, this was to be the extent of his good fortune.
11:07Matters were never to get better than this for him.
11:10In fact, from September 1643 onward, they took a distinct turn for the worse.
11:16It was then that Parliament signed the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scots, bringing
11:20their army into the war on the parliamentary side.
11:26The entry of the Scots into the war was to have grave consequences for Newark.
11:31To meet this new threat, royalist units from the Midlands were dispatched north to bolster
11:36the forces of the Marquess of Newcastle, the royalist commander entrusted with the
11:41job of stopping the Scots' advance along the east coast.
11:44Several of these units came from Newark, which in truth could ill afford the losses.
11:53By now the town had a new governor.
11:55The king had decided to replace Sir John Henderson with Sir Richard Byron.
12:00Henderson had been a very successful defensive commander, and part of his tactic, of course,
12:05was to move out offensively.
12:08There were three royalist sallies, if you like, against the parliamentarian stronghold
12:14in Nottingham, which we're talking about now the autumn of 1643, that whilst they were
12:22successful manoeuvres, tended to leave Newark uncovered, and the garrison therefore was
12:28adrift doing other things elsewhere.
12:32On the 11th of October 1643, Henderson was defeated at a place called Winspey, just
12:38up by Horncastle, so actually inside Lincolnshire, and that allowed the rest of the parliamentarians
12:44to fall up, come up north up towards Gainsborough, and continue their sort of enveloping movement
12:51round to the east through Lincolnshire up to the north of Lincolnshire.
12:54This actually left Newark really quite dangerously isolated, and of course led on to eventually
12:59the successful prosecution.
13:02So the Newark garrison had been weakened by the siphoning of troops to fight in the
13:05north, while parliamentarian strength had grown in Lincolnshire.
13:10It was hardly surprising then that Byron pleaded with the royalist army for urgent reinforcements.
13:16His pleas fell on deaf ears.
13:19A local man from Strelly in Nottinghamshire, Byron was an experienced military commander,
13:24and his worst fears were confirmed in late February 1644, when an army of some 7,000
13:31troops appeared outside the town.
13:35Newark was now facing the distinctly unpleasant prospect of a second siege.
13:42In addition to 7,000 troops, of which 2,000 were cavalrymen, the parliamentarians had
13:47at their disposal 11 cannon and two mortars, and on the 29th of February, shots from these
13:54began to rain down on the town.
13:57On the 11th of March, the home of alderman Hercules Clay, the mayor of Newark, was destroyed
14:03by the bombardment.
14:05The colourful story of how he dreamed that his house would be demolished, and had moved
14:09out as a result, has become part of Newark's rich folklore.
14:14Hercules Clay was a mercer.
14:16He was a son of a mercer, so he did rather well.
14:19He wasn't a Newark man, but he'd moved into town and he'd made his money.
14:26He bought a house at the corner of the marketplace, which was just opposite the governor's house,
14:30and it is thought that Hercules Clay's house was a similar sort of building.
14:35And one evening during 1644, he had a dream.
14:39He dreamt that his house was bombarded, was hit by cannon fire, caught fire, and all in
14:49perished.
14:50But when he'd had the dream twice, he then decided that it was time to act, so he moved
14:57all his family and servants out of the house, and lo and behold, the house was hit.
15:04Like most people of the age, Hercules Clay was a deeply religious man, and he saw his
15:09deliverance as a divine favour that he was determined to repay.
15:14On the 11th of March, 1644, he pleased Almighty God in his infinite mercy, wonderfully to
15:20preserve me and my wife from a fearful destruction from a terrible blow, wrote Clay.
15:26He left a sum of money, £200, £100 for the church, for them to conduct a service on the
15:32nearest Sunday to the 11th of March, when the attack occurred, and £100 for the poor.
15:39But it's thought that the £100 for the poor actually was snapped up by the Royalist cause
15:44immediately after he'd donated it.
15:47That service, by the way, still continues today.
15:51This hole in the spire of Newark's Mary Magdalene Church also bears mute witness to the great
15:56intensity of the Parliamentarian bombardment during that second siege.
16:02By the first week of March, 1643, Parliamentarian troops were also making headway in their attacks
16:08on the town.
16:10One important Parliamentarian gain was the capture of the island, an area in the River
16:15Trent to the north-west of Newark, where the river divides into two channels.
16:20It was here, on the 6th of March, that a troop of Royalist horse and a regiment of infantry
16:25commanded by Colonel Gervais Hollis were overwhelmed by the Parliamentarian forces.
16:31It was GTI, Ground of Tactical Importance.
16:38If you held the island, then you would hold the ford, the crucial ford up at Muscombe,
16:45and you would also put your guns in such a place that you could bring particularly your
16:50howitzers and your mortars to bear on the centre of the town.
16:53There's no real high ground here, other than Beacon Hill.
16:57There's no real high ground around Newark.
16:59And not only could you hold the ford, but you could, in due course, affect the flow
17:05of the river, or the canal, rather, that came in through town and allowed the mill
17:09wheels to turn.
17:11The mill wheels, of course, ground flour, and they also ground powder for the garrison,
17:15gunpowder for the garrison.
17:16If you held the island, then you held the approaches to Newark, you held the approaches
17:19to Newark, then eventually it's going to fall.
17:23It was obvious that, faced with such overwhelming odds, Newark could not expect to hold out.
17:29And it seemed only a matter of time before the town would fall into Parliamentarian hands.
17:34The one realistic hope of salvation lay outside the defences of the besieged town, and it
17:40came in the person of Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
17:44Prince Rupert was the young nephew of King Charles.
17:47Appointed as General of the Horse in 1642, aged only 23, he came to epitomise the image
17:53of the dashing Civil War cavalier.
17:56But how had the prince come to such an influential position at such a tender age?
18:01He was influential within the Stuart household, but above and beyond everything else, of course,
18:05he was a very experienced professional soldier.
18:08He picked up his experiences, his military experiences, fighting in the Low Countries.
18:12He understood, particularly artillery, people always think of him as a cavalry commander,
18:16which he was, but he understood the effect of gunfire and how it could be used, and he
18:20fully, fully understood the impact of relatively small numbers of cavalry applied at precisely
18:28the right moment of the battle.
18:30That's why he was so influential, and at the age, in his early twenties, as he was,
18:34he was experienced beyond his years, and he had influence at court.
18:40Prince Rupert proved to be a fine, if flawed, cavalry commander, and a loyal servant of
18:44the king.
18:46Prompted by appeals from the royalist commander, Lord Loughborough, Rupert marched from the
18:51West Country to join forces with Loughborough's own troops, to make up an army of more than
18:566,000 men.
18:58They arrived at Bingham, only a short march from Newark, on March the 20th, and it was
19:04only then that the parliamentarians became aware that Rupert was even in the area.
19:11The news that the prince was on his way to Newark must have come as a very nasty shock
19:15indeed to the parliamentarian army, particularly as Rupert had placed his forces across the
19:20road to Lincoln, the obvious route for any parliamentarian retreat.
19:25On March the 21st, Prince Rupert's forces swept down from the top of nearby Beacon Hill.
19:34He, realising the importance of Newark, rapidly marched across, through Leicestershire, to
19:40the town of Bingham, which is 10 miles to the south of Newark.
19:44He then charged down Beacon Hill, which is the main entry to the town from the east.
19:51Surprising Meldrum, who wasn't really fully appraised of the situation, and in the ensuing
19:58battle, joining with the townsfolk, succeeded in evicting him from his positions on the
20:03island and around the town.
20:07It was a short, sharp, but decisive action.
20:11Rupert's cavalry smashed into the parliamentarian ranks, spreading panic and confusion.
20:17They quickly turned and fled.
20:22While the royalist horse was winning its victory, troops under Sir Richard Byron attacked the
20:27island, and there too the parliamentarians were routed.
20:31There had been the most dramatic transformation, and they had little alternative but to concede
20:36defeat and surrender.
20:39But this presented the royalists with another very real problem.
20:43Newark was simply in no position to receive such large numbers of prisoners.
20:48And so there was little option but to let the parliamentarian army march ignominiously
20:52away, no doubt nursing its battered pride.
20:56The royalists, on the other hand, gleefully seized the parliamentarian weapons, an impressive
21:01haul that included 11 cannon, 2 mortars, and no fewer than 3,000 muskets.
21:09The events at Newark sent shockwaves through the local parliamentarian armies, who reacted
21:14with panic, particularly at Lincoln, which was abandoned by the garrison there.
21:20What would have been the effect had Rupert stayed on to attack here, or at Derby, or
21:25at Nottingham?
21:26We will never know, for Rupert chose to return to the West Country, leaving Loughborough
21:31to face the inevitable parliamentarian backlash.
21:36Meanwhile, in Newark itself, Sir Richard Byron, realising that the unexpected victory
21:41had provided only temporary relief, set about the task of strengthening the town defences.
21:48As part of this urgent work, two great earthworks were constructed, named, perhaps not surprisingly,
21:54the King's Sconce and the Queen's Sconce.
21:56Unfortunately, the King's Sconce was destroyed in 1887, but the Queen's Sconce survives
22:02to this day, one of the best preserved of all Civil War earthworks.
22:10A sconce is a military term for a detached fort with bastions.
22:15At Newark, the Royalists mounted cannon on the bastions, which were placed at each corner
22:19of the sconce, which also housed an ammunition dump and essential supplies.
22:25Because it could be fired on from three sides, the ditch that ran around the sconce was a
22:29dangerous place for an attacking soldier to find himself, and he would have had to
22:34pass through deadly hazards, such as pitfalls, to get there.
22:38And a sconce was less vulnerable to cannon fire.
22:41A cannonball that struck a castle would do great damage to its walls, whereas it would
22:46simply bury itself in the earthen ramparts of a sconce, doing little damage or harm.
22:52A number of small sconces, or redoubts, were constructed on the island in order to defend
23:00strategic parts of the island.
23:03In addition, the town had a perimeter outside the existing town, incorporating the medieval
23:10town walls on one side and extending them on the other.
23:14The perimeter was eventually fortified in a similar way as a sconce, but in a linear
23:20form with bastions at intervals and at strategic points, such as Coddington Lane.
23:28By the middle of 1644, however, the tide of the war had turned against the King and the
23:32Royalist cause.
23:34Troops from the Newark garrison were here, at Marston Moor, during the decisive battle
23:38fought in July that year, which saw the Royalist armies crushed by an Allied parliamentarian
23:44and Scots force.
23:47In October 1644, another Royalist field army was defeated at Beaver, a debacle that paved
23:53the way for the removal as governor of Sir Richard Byron, the man held responsible.
23:59Colonel Sir Richard Willis, a veteran of civil war battles as far back as Edge Hill in 1642,
24:05replaced him as the third governor of Newark.
24:10The Royalist position continued to worsen during 1645.
24:15On the 14th of June came the calamitous defeat at Naseby, which destroyed the King's mainfield
24:21army and ended all hopes of an overall Royalist victory.
24:26Even the usually optimistic Charles seems to have accepted the inevitability of defeat,
24:32although a letter written to Prince Rupert after Naseby displays his trademark stubbornness
24:37and absolute belief in the justness of his cause.
24:42I must say there is no probability but of my ruin.
24:47But as a Christian, I must tell you that God will not suffer rebels to prosper, or his
24:51cause to be overthrown.
24:54I know my obligations to be in both conscience and honour, neither to abandon God's cause
25:00nor injure my successors, nor forsake my friends.
25:06Newark was now an isolated Royalist stronghold, surrounded by parliamentarian enemies.
25:19King Charles paid a final visit to Newark in October 1645.
25:24It was to prove a momentous visit, for it was here, at the 15th century Governor's House,
25:29now a busy modern cafe, that the King had a fierce argument with his reckless but loyal
25:34nephew Prince Rupert.
25:37The pair quarrelled bitterly over a number of issues.
25:40The Prince's surrender of the port of Bristol in September, about which the King was absolutely
25:45furious, was just one.
25:48Another was the behaviour of Sir Richard Willis, whom the Prince strongly supported, but who
25:53the King was determined to remove.
25:55Yet another was the general conduct of the war by the Royalist side.
26:00Rupert was extremely reluctant to be tied down in essentially a defensive action.
26:07And there was a professional disagreement, which we know about, and I have absolutely
26:10no doubt, a personal disagreement, about influence at court and really where Rupert's future
26:17lay inside the Royal household.
26:19Some suggest that Rupert saw the problem much more clearly than the King by this stage,
26:25and saw that really, that unless his forces were used to manoeuvre, and where he could
26:31use his troops to take on parliamentarian forces before they had time to concentrate,
26:36that really the Stuart cause was going to be lost.
26:39The King didn't see it that way, and wanted to keep this crucially important force in
26:44and around the area of Newark.
26:46They fell out, and in due course, Rupert departed, and of course, probably, probably proved to
26:52be the more correct of the two.
26:56The Prince was obviously unable to calm his uncle's anger, for it was not long after that
27:02he received a letter from the King banishing him into exile.
27:06You assured me that if no mutiny happened, you would keep Bristol for four months.
27:11Did you keep it four days?
27:13Was there anything like a mutiny?
27:16More questions might be asked, but now I confess to little purpose.
27:20My conclusion is to desire you to seek your subsistence somewhere beyond seas, until it
27:25shall please God to determine of my condition.
27:29It was in truth a shabby way to treat a loyal servant of the King's cause.
27:37It was therefore at this house in Newark that the King and his nephew were to meet for the
27:40very last time.
27:43But Prince Rupert was not the only object of the King's wrath.
27:47Accused of misappropriating military funds, Sir Richard Willis was relieved of his duties
27:52and sent from the town.
27:54The Governor of Newark, of course, joined the siege, friend of Rupert's, and the fact
27:59that he had led apparently a particularly flamboyant and wasteful lifestyle here inside
28:07the town, he continued to give parties, he even gave a ball at one stage and a number
28:12of banquets, whilst allegedly the local people in Newark has actually starved to death, maybe.
28:20Fact remains that he had clearly lost the confidence of the townspeople and the garrison
28:24of Newark, and Charles was made aware of that when he moved into residence here.
28:31All of which left yet another new Governor, Sir John Bellicise, to see Newark through
28:35its third and longest siege, which began on the 26th of November, 1645.
28:42Surrounded by parliamentarian forces, the prospects for the town once again looked very
28:47bleak indeed.
28:49This time the parliamentarians were determined to leave little to chance, and they set about
28:53constructing two lines of circumvallation that eventually surrounded the town.
28:59These were designed not only to prevent an escape from within, but also to guard against
29:04another Prince Rupert-like rescue act from without.
29:07During the third siege, the Scots rapidly occupied the island and succeeded in setting
29:13up camp there.
29:15This meant that the townspeople and its garrison were denied access to the island and its provisions.
29:22So steps were taken to completely surround the town, and a line of circumvallation was
29:26constructed from Farndon in the south-west to Winthorpe in the north-east, so that the
29:33town was entirely cut off from the outside world.
29:37They also attempted to dam the rivers so that the town's mills, powder mills, flour mills,
29:45saw mills, would all be cut off from water supply, in addition to which, of course, drinking
29:51water would be in shorter supply.
29:53So things were getting pretty difficult.
29:58To meet the coming parliamentarian attack, Bellicise had ordered yet more improvements
30:03to the town's defences.
30:05He had been unimpressed with what he had found on his arrival.
30:09Slight, and lying open, had been his verdict on the defensive earthworks.
30:14But within a few weeks, all that had changed.
30:17Soon he was able to boast that deep gaffes, bastions, horns, half-moons, counterscarps,
30:23redoubts, pitfalls, an impregnable line of sod-and-turf palisades meant that this bulky
30:30bulwark of Newark presented to the besiegers but one entire sconce.
30:39Bellicise also turned his attention to pressing matters inside the town.
30:43One vital necessity in short supply was money, but Bellicise was undaunted.
30:48If money was running out, he reckoned, then Newark would mint its own.
30:53And so a mint was established in the castle to produce coins for the town.
30:58Many of these siege pieces survive today, remarkable symbols of the town's defiance
31:03and powerful reminders of a turbulent period in Newark's long history.
31:08We're very lucky that we have things called Newark siege pieces, which are lozenge-shaped
31:13bits of silver and sometimes pewter, which were actually cut out of the plate that belonged
31:20to many of the local residents and some of the more prosperous businessmen.
31:25The plate was taken and either, I say, directly cut or melted down, and then these siege pieces
31:30produced varying different values.
31:33To say to not just the people of Newark but to the surrounding area, the king's rule is
31:39still very much in evidence here.
31:42That's why he's striking money, that's why money has been minted with his name, his crown,
31:47his cipher here on the coinage.
31:50So the idea of saying to the prosperous people around Newark, right, let's have your goods
31:54and your chattels and your valuables, let's bring them in and let's mint fresh money,
31:58it was as much a morale factor as it was a physical factor.
32:06Twice before, the parliamentarians had tried to take Newark, and twice they had failed.
32:11During the third siege of the town, they had other allies to help them gain their objective.
32:16But these allies were not armed with a musket or a sword.
32:20These were unseen, but just as deadly.
32:23They were hunger and disease.
32:29During the last siege, I think conditions in Newark must have been pretty horrible.
32:33There was very little food, they were reduced to eating almost anything they could get hold
32:38of, rats, horses, only if the horse was old and not able to fight.
32:46Also, plague had broken out in the town, so that of course meant that the people were
32:52weak and couldn't really have held out for very much longer than they already had to.
32:59The chroniclers tell us it was a town of great pestilence and sickness, with people scurrying
33:03around in fear and trembling all the time.
33:06I think things were pretty serious.
33:08We know that bread ran short.
33:10We know that any horse, of course, or mule or oxen or anything like that that was knocked
33:16down immediately ended up being eaten by the residents of the town.
33:21But I don't think we ever got to the stage quite as, say, the Paris siege of 1870, where
33:24rats became a delicacy.
33:26Nothing like that.
33:27It's interesting, of course, that when the king surrendered, finally, out at Southall,
33:34at the Saracens' head at Southall, that when orders came back to the town that they should
33:39surrender as well, you would think that a town in such a parlour state would say, well,
33:44thank God for that, we can chuck our hands in.
33:46But not a bit of it.
33:47Of course, the mayor said, no, trust God and sully forth, deo freitas erumpe, the motto
33:53of Newark today, which doesn't suggest to me that the morale was very badly dented,
33:58despite the fact that things were far from pleasant in the town.
34:03To add to the miseries of the townspeople, in March 1646 the dreaded plague broke out,
34:10the inevitable consequence of the overcrowded and insanitary conditions.
34:14Owing to the parliamentarian blockade, it was almost impossible to properly dispose
34:19of the dead, which are said to have been more than 200 in number.
34:25And all the while the parliamentarian attacks continued.
34:29Gun and shot from no fewer than 23 artillery pieces positioned in the lines of circumvallation
34:34poured down into the town.
34:40At the end of March, a summons was issued to Bellicis, demanding that Newark surrender.
34:46It left little doubt as to what would happen to the townsfolk if they failed to take the
34:51opportunity.
34:52We, the committee of both kingdoms, being sent and authorised to use our best endeavours
34:58for the reducing of the town and garrison of Newark, do hereby demand of you that you
35:03surrender the same.
35:05It is the pious care of the parliament to prevent the effusion of Christian blood, the
35:10wasting of the country and the destruction of towns.
35:14We sent no summons until you and all with you might see we were able by force to attain
35:19what we much rather desire by treaty.
35:23We have 16,000 horse and foot at present before your town.
35:27Horses of experience, united in health and courage.
35:31Flatter not yourselves, relief is not to be had.
35:36Consider these things seriously, for you cannot but see your ruin to be inevitable.
35:46We expect your answer on Monday by 11 o'clock in the forenoon at Balderton.
35:54It took Bellicise three days to get around to replying, and when he did, it was merely
35:59to say that he needed to receive his orders from the king and may he send out to get them.
36:06If you will grant a pass to some gentleman to go to the king and return, I may know his
36:11majesty's pleasure, whether, according to his letter, he will wind up the business in
36:15general or leave me to steer my own course.
36:22In the event, there was no surrender to the parliamentarians and no treaty was signed.
36:28The bombardment continued and the people of Newark grew hungrier and sicker.
36:35But on the 5th of May, 1646, came news that rendered further resistance from Newark futile.
36:42Nearly six weeks after the surrender of the last Royalist field army, during which time
36:47he had wandered aimlessly as a fugitive in his own country, King Charles surrendered
36:52himself to the Scots army at Southall.
37:00This is the very room in which King Charles spent his last night of freedom.
37:05Today it is a room in the Saracen's Head Hotel in Southall.
37:08But it is not difficult to imagine the scene on that night in May, 350 years ago, when
37:14after consulting with his lieutenants and counsellors, the troubled fugitive king finally
37:19decided that all was lost.
37:24What must the king's feelings have been as, after all he and his supporters had gone through,
37:29he prepared to hand himself over to the Scots?
37:34What was Newark to do?
37:36Neither governor nor townsfolk were prepared to give in, and it is said that plans were
37:40laid for a fighting escape through the parliamentarian ranks.
37:45In the end, discretion perhaps proved the better part of valour, and Belicise decided
37:49to write to the king to ask for guidance.
37:53For the parliamentarians the letter was a gift from heaven.
37:57They forced their new royal prisoner to order the town to capitulate.
38:02The king wrote,
38:03Belicise, such is the condition of affairs at this present that I can give you no hope
38:08of relief.
38:10For the best for my service will be that you conclude upon them with all expedition.
38:16The chief reason is that according to my design I am necessitated to march with the Scots
38:21army this day northwards, but cannot move till this agreement be consented to by you.
38:27I am heartily sorry that my business stands so as that I must impose conditions upon you.
38:35The letter was proof positive of the king's dire and parlous condition, and it left Belicise
38:41with little choice.
38:43Even so, some were for ignoring the order and carrying on.
38:47The town's mayor was one.
38:49He is said to have urged Belicise to trust in God and sally forth.
38:54Deo fretus erumpe.
38:56The Latin translation of that memorable phrase has been Newark's motto ever since.
39:04Despite this bravado, Belicise knew that there was only one realistic course of action.
39:10He signed the terms of surrender on 8th May 1646, with, it is said, tears in his eyes.
39:18The third and final siege of Newark was ended.
39:21Its war was over.
39:23So in all but name was the Great English Revolution.
39:28And that's when, in order to make sure that Newark never again, in the fluid situation
39:34of a civil war, never again became influential from the royalist point of view, that's when
39:38the parliamentarians ordered the townspeople of Newark to reduce the castle.
39:42And a lot of the damage that you see done to the castle looks as if it might be warlike
39:47damage, but actually was deliberate demolishing by the people of Newark at the orders, on
39:53the orders rather, of the victorious parliamentarians.
39:58Perhaps out of pity or grudging admiration for the town's valour, the terms imposed on
40:15Newark by the parliamentarians were not particularly harsh, nor were their terrible acts of revenge
40:21as had been the case in the aftermath of other sieges.
40:27The aftermath of the siege in Newark does not seem to have been quite so terrible as
40:31some other instances.
40:34We have to remember that it was a civil war, and so there would be people from the same
40:38families on both sides.
40:41So maybe it wasn't the thing to be so bad, because you were going to have to live together.
40:49Also, people would be very anxious to get back to their homes and farms.
40:53So whilst they were ordered to generally sack the town and make it defenceless, it would
41:00seem that the demolition, the slighting of the castle was rather half-hearted.
41:07A few things were done as acts of religious zeal by the Puritans in the church, such as
41:13the destruction of the font and the removal of brasses.
41:19But apart from that, things got back to normal again very, very quickly.
41:24The font was repaired in 1660, and 50 years later, very fine houses were being built in
41:30the town.
41:31So clearly the effects were not quite as devastating as one might think.
41:39On 8th May 1646, Lord John Belicise, the fourth and final governor of Newark, was allowed
41:46to march proudly out of the town with what remained of his royalist army, an army that
41:51now numbered only some 1,500 men.
41:56Noblemen and gentlemen were permitted to keep not only their servants, but also their weapons
42:01and horses.
42:02All that was asked in return was that they should never again take up arms against Parliament.
42:11The safety of the townspeople of Newark and the preservation of their goods and estates
42:15was guaranteed.
42:18As for King Charles, he had hoped salvation might be found among his fellow Scots, but
42:23it was not to be.
42:25Their price for helping him regain his lost throne was the establishment of the Presbyterian
42:30Church in England, a price that Charles steadfastly refused to pay.
42:37Perhaps a more pragmatic king might have agreed.
42:39The Church of England had been sacrificed, and English history very different indeed.
42:47Even in these difficult circumstances, King Charles refused to yield to the Scots' demands.
42:53As it was, the Scots gave up trying.
42:56In January 1647, they reached a settlement that rewarded Scottish army war services and
43:02handed the king over to Parliament.
43:07Saving the way for the drama of his trial at Westminster Hall in London.
43:13The trial began on January 20th, 1649, and it may have been the king's finest hour.
43:20Speaking in his own defence, the stammer with which he had been blighted all of his life
43:25somehow disappeared, and he made his case clearly and eloquently.
43:29''I would know by what power I am called hither.
43:33I would know by what authority, I mean lawful.
43:37There are many unlawful authorities in the world, thieves and robbers by the highway.
43:43Remember I am your king, your lawful king, and what sins you bring upon your heads, and
43:49the judgment of God on this land.''
43:56But the die was cast, despite the power of his argument.
44:00The king was found to be a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy to the Commonwealth
44:06of England.
44:09He was sentenced to die by the severing of his head from his body.
44:18The final act in the tragedy of the English Civil War came two and a half years after
44:22the surrender of Newark, on the 30th of January, 1649, when King Charles, in freezing weather,
44:30climbed a scaffold outside the Banqueting Hall in London, knelt at the block, and the
44:35executioner cut off his head with, in Oliver Cromwell's chilling words, ''the crown upon
44:41it.''
44:45It was a brutal end to one of the saddest episodes in English history.
44:50It is said that when the axe fell, a great groan came from the assembled crowd.
44:58That groan surely echoed across the land, to be heard in towns such as Newark, which
45:03had stood steadfastly behind the king, had fought for his cause, and which had never
45:08fallen in battle to his enemies.
45:13Today, many of the people that live and work in modern-day Newark probably find it impossible
45:21to imagine the drama that unfolded in their town when it fought for the king's cause all
45:26those centuries ago.
45:28Newark reveres its remarkable history, and cherishes still the visible testimonies to
45:33its defiance during the dark days of the English Civil War.