Tea at Trianon: Battle of Naseby

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, February 6, 2022

Battle of Naseby

https://www.worldhistory.org/img/r/p/500x600/14000.png.avif?v=1620717029

Charles I at Naseby

I am still researching my next novel. The blog helps me to keep track of the information. It is better than taking notes. From World History:

The Royalists were commanded by Charles himself with his nephew Prince Rupert (1619-1682) and George, Lord Digby (1612-1677). Their army consisted of between 8,000 and 10,000 troops, a little more than half of which was cavalry. Fairfax, meanwhile, commanded some 14,000 to 15,000 men (with a little over 6,000 of these being cavalry). Both armies had the usual cavalry on each wing and the infantry troops arranged in two rows of squares like a chessboard in the centre of the battlefield. The Parliamentarian dispositions may have been more compacted given the natural features of the terrain on their side of the battlefield and their greater numbers. Both sides would have wanted to avoid the parish border hedges on one side and the boggy ground caused by two streams on the other. Each infantry block was composed of a central core of pikemen with flanks of musketeers. The job of the pikemen was to protect the musketeers, and at this stage in the war, the typical ratio was one pikeman to every three musketeers.
Battle commenced around 10 am. First, there was an unusually short artillery barrage, perhaps because the Royalists were not yet ready and the Parliamentarian commanders did not generally favour this method of attack anyway. It may also have been that the uneven terrain meant sighting for artillery was poor. There then followed the inevitable clash of men at arms.
The Royalist cavalry led by Prince Rupert gained success on the right wing, driving the left wing of the Parliamentary cavalry towards Naseby. This wing of the Parliamentarian cavalry was led by Henry Ireton (1611-1651) who had only a limited experience of commanding large bodies of troops. Early on in the battle, Ireton was wounded and even briefly captured by the enemy. Meanwhile, in the centre of the battlefield, the Royalist infantry, led by Jacob Astley, initially outperformed the numerically superior Parliamentary infantry, led by the vastly experienced Philip Skippon (c. 1600-1660), forcing them to lose ground. This may actually have been a disadvantage for the Royalist infantry as they moved forward and exposed their flanks to the wings of the Parliamentary army, particularly as they were numerically inferior. Caught on three sides, the Royalist infantry was obliged to withdraw from the pocket, which disrupted their formation and exposed the men even further.

Crucially, Oliver Cromwell's cavalry on the right wing of the Parliamentarian army crushed the opposing cavalry, led by Sir Marmaduke Langdale (1598-1661), forcing them to flee the field completely. Cromwell then led his men to attack the Royalist infantry in the centre. Prince Rupert, not for the first time, was unable to match Cromwell's tactics since his cavalry became embroiled in a skirmish with the Parliamentarian baggage train far behind the enemy lines. Whether Rupert was personally involved here or by this time had returned to the king's side to command his own infantry regiment, the Bluecoats, is disputed. Rupert's cavalry did not manage to completely drive the Parliamentarian cavalry (their left wing) from the field, and those that remained assisted Cromwell in attacking the opposition infantry at their now fully exposed flanks. (Read more.)