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English Civil War Cropredy Bridge

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Grumpyjaywit (U2986749) on Wednesday, 11th February 2009

  I wonder how much use historians make of Parish Records in the Civil War period?
  
  I am an escapee from the Family History message board and I have been looking at the parish records of Cropredy in Oxfordshire.
  
  The battle of Cropredy Bridge took place on 29/6/1644
  
  
  For that period the PR's show the following burials.
  
  30/6/1644 5 soldiers (no names)
  
  6/7/1644 Edward Webb manager of the King's horses ( mentioned in the link)
  
  Now at that time would just the Royalist casualties be given a Christian burial and the Parliamentarians just be left to be buried by their fellow soldiers where ever they could?
  
  Looking at what I can find online that battle is the only mention Cropredy gets in the Civil War but again looking at the records the following burials are shown
  
  30/10/1642 2 soldiers buried (no names)
  30/10/1642 Captain Morrow buried
  
  5/11/1642 A Welshman buried
  
  20/7/1643 A soldier a Shropshire man buried
  
  18/7/1645 Robert Webb a soldier
  
  14/3/1646 ( this one is slightly dodgy ) Griffen Flnellin buried. I have included this one as it appears to be someone's idea of a Welsh name.
  
  Now in the whole of 1640 there were 8 people buried in the village so although I have not come up with large numbers they do in proportion appear to be quite large.
  
  Am I reading too much into this or was it possible there were more actions than the Battle of Cropredy Bridge?
  
  

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  Posted by colonelblimp (U1705702) on Wednesday, 11th February 2009

  There's an excellent study of the Civil War in the South Midlands by Philip Tennant ("Edgehill and Beyond"), which mentions that a large number of soldiers seem to have been quartered at Cropedy before the battle of Edgehill (23 October 1642). I'ld guess the 3 men buried on 30 October and the Welshman on 5 November were wounded at Edgehill and carried back to Cropedy, where they later died. The Welshman, at least, would almost certainly have been a Royalist and it's likely the others were, because the King's army were the ones occupying the area after the battle. Dr Tennant says that Edward Bathurst, the rector of Cropedy, was "a distinguished Royalist academic" but regardless of where his sympathies lay, stray casualties from both sides would probably have been buried in the churchyard, if only because they couldn't very well be left lying around and ad hoc burials dotted around the fields would have been a bit inconvenient! It was a different story after a major battle, of course: the 1500 or so men estimated to have been killed on the battlefield of Edgehill would mostly have been dumped with little ceremony into burial pits.
  
  Nearby Banbury Castle was a Royalist garrison from just after Edgehill up to 1646. Much of the fighting in the Civil War involved cavalry operating from strongholds like this ranging the surrounding countryside and asserting their side's authority by levying contributions from (and blatantly plundering) local communities. They would often bump into their counterparts on the other side engaged on the same mission and skirmish with them. There's a tale by an eyewitness, often quoted ("The History of Myddle", in Shropshire), of a young officer shot through the body in one of these clashes being carried into a cottage and laid on the floor, and begging for a mattress. The owner of the house pointed out that he himself had earlier ripped open her feather mattress out of sheer spite and chucked it in the village pond but she had it dragged out, soaking wet, and he was lifted onto it. The witness, a small boy at the time, remembered years later seeing the man's blood running onto the floor: he died the next day. The other men listed may have died in similar circumstances, or simply by accident or disease.
  
  To answer your first question, I have a list of military burials I transcribed years ago from Ashby-de-la-Zouche parish register, in Leicestershire record office. (The castle there was another Royalist garrison.) I was going to say a list of names but a lot of them are just listed as "a souldear". However, there are quite a few officers, listed by surname and rank, but I never had any luck in tracing any of them at the time through published sources (this was pre-Internet). Like your Griffen Flnellin, some of them are dodgy in the extreme, such as the one which, no matter how long I scratched my head over it, appeared to be "Cornite [Cornet] Sich harbor". And then there's "Joynes that was slain yt came from hartshorn".... I also consulted the Hinckley parish register for an article I wrote on a skirmish there, and found the burial of a Captain Adam Manwaring, who I was able to identify as an officer of Lord Campden's Horse garrisoned at Belvoir Castle.
  
  Now I've dug the list out, inspired by your posting, I may just try looking into it again. Thanks!

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  Posted by Grumpyjaywit (U2986749) on Thursday, 12th February 2009

  Colonelblimp Thank you for your reply. I have found another one from the battle as well in an adjoining parish Wardington. Of course at that period you are totally relient on how the vicar recorded PR entries and the vicar of course whatever his own personal sympathies was relient on whoever was paying him and I guess would word his entries to suit his patron. The Wardington one says buried on 30/6/1644 John Burrell cornet to Col. Richard Neville slain the day before in a smart battle against ye rebels. Definatly a royalist supporter there.

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  Posted by petes (U3344676) on Thursday, 12th February 2009

  I'm no expert but I note a 'cornet' is the name still given to the leading figure in a riding chase. Some presumably it was some sort of 'rank' at the time of the civil war.

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  Posted by flipacross (U9997641) on Thursday, 12th February 2009

  Cornet was the lowest commissioned Officer rank in the cavalry. Like the infantry equivalent of Ensign, it was officially abolished in the 1871 Army Reform Act. The modern equivalent of both is 2nd Lieutenant.
  Although it is no longer officially a rank, some cavalry regiments still use the term. See for a reference to a well known one.

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• Message 6

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  Posted by colonelblimp (U1705702) on Thursday, 12th February 2009

  Grumpyjaywit,
  
  This account covers the fighting that the Earl of Cleveland's cavalry brigade (which included Richard Neville's regiment and John Burrell) was involved in during the day on which Burrell was killed:
  
  
  
  "[Cleveland] gave command to charge, & by his singular valour & resolution (seconded by the Officers of his Brigade) he routed all those Horse & foot & chased them beyond their Cannon all which (being eleven peices) were then taken, & 2 Barricadoes of wood drawn with wheels in each 7 small brass & leather Guns charged with case shot."
  
  I've got one or two "probables" trying to find IGI baptism entries for people mentioned in my Leicestershire burials:
  
  Buried at Ashby-de-la-Zouche 25 June 1643 - "Anna, daughter of Robert Wright, souldar". Perhaps the Anna Wright, daughter of Robert and Catherine, baptised at Leicester St Margaret's on 26 Mar 1638.
  
  Buried at Ashby-de-la-Zouche 20 Dec 1643 - "a quarter master at William Gladwin's". The man the un-named quartermaster was billetted on was probably the William Gladwine baptised at Ashby on 28 Sep 1606.
  
  Buried at Leicester St Martin's, 6 Mar 1643 - "Michael Boulter a souldier". Possibly the Michael Bolter baptised at Leicester St Leonard's, 7 Jul 1622.
  
  It's interesting to be able to fill in even just a little of these people's backgrounds and be reminded that they weren't just names.

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  Posted by Grumpyjaywit (U2986749) on Thursday, 12th February 2009

  Colonelblimp It is interesting to be able to fill in details.
  A few weeks ago someone on the Family History message board asked if it were possible to find out which side their ancestors were on in the Civil War as there was a battle in Yorkshire were they were living.
  My thoughts at that time and still now are that your ordinary working man ( mine were weavers, the Yorkshire ones shoemakers) in those situations kept their heads down, agreed publicly with whatever the lord of the manor said and carried on with their work. No such thing as freedom of speech for the ordinary working man in a small village you had to just get on with your work.

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• Message 8

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  Posted by Essexroundhead (U5331128) on Sunday, 22nd February 2009

  Up to a point, The Fairfax family (Lord and his son Sir Thomas) were major Parliamentarian landowners and the Earl (later Marquis) of Newcastle occupied much of Yorkshire for the Royalists until the Scots invaded in 1644.The textile producing centres such as Leeds and Bradford had strong Presbytarian and therefore Parliamentary leanings and were not subject to 'Lord of the Manor' control.There were many battles and sieges in Yorkshie inc. Marston Moor, York, Hull, Seacroft Moor, Leeds, etc but many of the soldiers would have been from outside Yorkshire

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  Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Sunday, 22nd February 2009

  Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:28 GMT, in reply to Essexroundhead in message 8
  
  There were many battles and sieges in Yorkshie inc. Marston Moor, York, Hull, Seacroft Moor, Leeds, etc but many of the soldiers would have been from outside YorkshireΒ 
  
  The Parliamentarian's Northern Association Army was under the control of the Fairfaxes, so it's reasonable to assume that many of their troops were drawn from in and around their lands. The bulk of the English Parliamentarians at Marston Moor, however, would probably have been from East Anglia, since they belonged to the Army of the Eastern Association - most famous for being home to Cromwell's Ironsides. The other main bulk of the Army, of course, were not strictly speaking Parliamentarians at all, but Scots Covenanters. The main Royalist force came from down south, on detached duty from the Oxford Army. The origins of Newcastle's famous Whitecoats are uncertain.

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