David Cooke - The Road to Marston Moor

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Pen & Sword Military
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David Cooke 2007

9781783034581

The right of David Cooke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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(between pages 120121; all plates from the authors collection)

We have no other intention but by our government to honour Him by Whom Kings reign and to procure the good of our people, and for this end to preserve the right and authority wherewith God hath vested us. Charles I

Just after midnight on 20 January 1644 Colonel Sir Francis Anderson received a message from his scouts patrolling the border at Berwick: the Scots had crossed the border in force. The day before, he had been informed by other scouting parties that a body of Scots had crossed the Tweed at Coldstream and were now encamped in the villages surrounding Wark. The long awaited Scots invasion of Northumberland and the North of England was well and truly under way.

How had this come to pass? Why was a foreign army invading England in support of English rebels who had rebelled against their anointed King? At this period Scotland was a sovereign nation with its own Church and Parliament but ruled by the same monarch, Charles I. This being the case, the Scots were not only supporting a rebellion against the King of England but also rebelling against their own King. This was not the first time that the Scots had risen against King Charles. In both 1639 and 1640 English and Scots armies had manoeuvred along the Tweed in what has become known as the First and Second Bishops Wars. Why the Bishops Wars? Simple, the Scots did not wish to have bishops and the Book of Common Prayer foisted on to them by the Church of England and a King who, although born in Scotland, had visited their country rarely.

To find the root of the rebellion by both the Kings English and Scottish subjects one must go back a number of years. It is beyond the scope of this work to cover the causes of the Civil Wars in any depth but a brief explanation is necessary.

When Charles came to the throne in 1625 he strongly believed in the divine right of Kings to rule their subjects as they saw fit, as had his predecessors. Parliament was a tool through which this could be achieved. Nowadays, when Parliament rules the country and is a permanent establishment, it seems strange that the King could call Parliament and then dismiss it as and when he liked. Unfortunately Charless Parliaments did not agree with this. As a result Charles dismissed them in 1629 and carried on a personal rule for eleven years.

One of the main functions of Parliament had been to vote funds for the Kings use in governing the country. Without Parliament Charles had to find other ways to raise revenue. He began to sell titles and monopolies, raise his own taxes and expand existing ones. Inland counties became subject to Ship Money, a tax usually levied in coastal areas to cover the costs of their defence from seaborne attack, which caused much discontent. The King went on to exacerbate the problem when he introduced the Book of Common Prayer first in England and then in Scotland. In England a number of extreme Protestant sects, usually referred to as Puritans, viewed the Church of England as one step removed from Roman Catholicism and the introduction of the new prayer book seems to have reinforced this opinion.

If the King had managed to antagonise many of his English subjects he had made the situation in Scotland much worse. The Scots, staunchly Presbyterian in the main, refused to accept the new prayer book. Matters moved rapidly. The King began to raise forces in the North of England and the Scots, having signed the Solemn League and Covenant, also began to raise an army. Both armies closed along the Tweed. In June 1639 the King decided that he was not ready to fight the Scots and signed an agreement with them. Charles was to show his true colours. While his commissioners were in deep discussion with the Scots he began preparations for a war against them in 1640. With the cost of this war in mind he called Parliament.

On Monday 25 April the first Parliament for eleven years was opened. It proved to be as unruly as his earlier Parliaments and lasted for only three weeks and is, not surprisingly, referred to as the Short Parliament. During this period the first shots of the Second Bishops War were fired. From the English point of view this war was a disaster. Having failed to agree terms the Scots Army crossed the Tweed and advanced on Newcastle. On 28 August the English Army was defeated at Newburn (Clarendon called it that infamous, irreparable rout). On the 29th the remnants of the English Army abandoned Newcastle and on the 30th the Earl of Leven led his army into the city. For all intents and purposes the Second Bishops War was over.

The Scots continued to occupy Newcastle until an agreement had been reached, not with the King but with Parliament, at a cost of 850 a day in reparations. On 3 November 1640 the King called the final Parliament of his reign. The Long Parliament, as it has become known, would lead to his downfall. The Scots withdrew their army but retained possession of Berwick. With the Scots withdrawal the King might have thought things would settle downhe would have been wrong. Parliament continued to oppose the King during 1641. The hated Star Chamber was abolished and the Kings staunchest supporter, the Earl of Strafford, was indicted and condemned by the House of Commons. In November 1641 the Grand Remonstrance was passed by eleven votes in the House of Commons and as the year closed Parliament had the upper hand. On 4 January 1642 the King decided that his situation needed a drastic solution. Marching into the House of Commons, backed by a file of musketeers, the King attempted to arrest five of its members and Lord Mandeville, later the Earl of Manchester. The five members, John Pym, John Hampden, Arthur Haselrig, Denzil Holles and William Strode, and Lord Mandeville were not to be found. In the Kings own words: I see all the birds are flown.