Tea at Trianon: Battle of Sherburn-in-Elmet

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

Monday, July 25, 2022

Battle of Sherburn-in-Elmet

From Allegiance of Blood:

If you ask anyone about the most decisive battle of the English Civil War, they are most likely to answer Naseby, which took place in Northamptonshire on 14th June 1645. Considering this is where King Charles I’s veteran infantry were obliterated and his cabinet of private letters captured, then you can understand why. The royalist cause is billed as being irretrievably finished after Naseby and victory for Parliament merely a matter of time.

But … thousands of the King’s elite cavalry survived. His Lieutenant-General in Scotland, the Marquis of Montrose, had just secured that entire kingdom. New infantry recruits were due from Wales and more reinforcements expected from Ireland. Naseby was a decisive defeat for the King, but it was an almost forgotten battle at Sherburn-in-Elmet four months later that dealt the real killer blow.

Lord George Digby – an English Rasputin – had been King Charles’s Secretary of State since 1643. He was a silver-tongued, self-obsessed man with a devious streak and a hypnotic charm. Like an impervious cockroach, he would successfully crawl out from under the destruction he had wrought in the royalist ranks. The hard shell of this deluded politician had the King believe that every setback was someone else’s fault; and that there was always a silver lining just around the corner. It was Lord George Digby who was placed in command of the King’s elite cavalry. His last hope.

On 13th October 1645, at Welbeck, Digby’s fateful appointment as Lieutenant-General of the forces north of the River Trent was confirmed. It seems to have been the result of his private connivance, because none of the King’s officers – including the council of war – had any inkling that it was going to happen until the monarch revealed the decision in a speech to his cavalrymen. And well may Digby have wanted it this way, for the King had no less than 24 officers with him ranked colonel or above who could have filled the role, and the surprise prevented any coherent protest. Of course, Digby claimed never to have known that the appointment was coming and wrote, ‘At half an hours warning having (I protest to God) not dreamt of the matter before, I marched off from the rendezvous’.1 The experienced Sir Marmaduke Langdale was to support him. Typical of the two-faced Digby was the fact that he had described Langdale as ‘a creature of Prince Rupert’s’2 but now that he needed this ‘creature’ he embraced Langdale.

The Parliamentarian, John Rushworth, noted Digby’s next move. ‘It was agreed, that the northern horse, commanded by Sir Marmaduke Langdale, my Lord Digby … should march into the north, to join [the King’s Scottish general, the Marquis of] Montrose’.3 Once united, Digby and Montrose would restore royalist fortunes in England. The one snag, unbeknown to Digby, was that Montrose had been defeated several weeks earlier.

Nevertheless, Digby’s small force struck at Doncaster, beating up some of the enemy there and then scattered some more at Cusworth. Upon nearing Sherburn-in-Elmet, Digby ran into an infantry regiment of 1000 parliamentarians commanded by a Colonel Wren. The royalists went on to defeat Wren’s force, but no sooner had Digby taken them prisoner and had them hand over their arms and weapons, than he was informed of the approach of a second enemy detachment. (Read more.)