Durdham Downs
This relatively peaceful, primarily agricultural, history was broken by disturbances in the 17th and early 18th centuries. During this period the Downs provided the assembly point for the Royalist army that captured Bristol in 1643. Two years later a Parliamentarian army gathered on the plateau to recapture the city. Parliamentarian victory was at Clifton’s expense, which was set alight by the Royalists in their defeat.
The Battles for Bristol
The king's nephew, Prince Rupert, will ever be remembered as one of the bravest of cavaliers, one of the most dashing leaders of men, but one of the most unreliable and unscrupulous of generals.
In March, 1643, Prince Rupert's army of 6,000 men occupied Horfield, Westbury-on-Trym, and Durdham Down. In July, 1643, Prince Rupert uniting with the victors of Roundway Down under his brother Prince Maurice, marched upon Bristol with a force of 20,000 men. Fiennes had but 2,300 soldiers, and his defences were weak and unfinished.
At three in the morning on Wednesday, July 26th, 1643, the Cornish Cavaliers led by the Marquis of Hertford, made a fierce attack upon Redcliffe, but were repulsed with heavy loss. At five other points the royalists attacked the lines, but nowhere with success.
Colston's Fort, or Jones's Fort, as it was then called, was boldly attacked by a handful of cavaliers armed with pikes, wrapped around with tow with which to make " wild-fire." They were badly repulsed, and sought the shelter of a stone wall hard by, while they waited for scaling ladders. Just then the dashing Prince Rupert rode up, and while he was trying to rally the men, his charger was shot in the eye by one of the defenders. With the courage that made him famous, the prince remained near the spot, urging on the assailants until another steed was brought him.
When all the other attacks seemed to have failed, Colonel Washington, with a force of three hundred dragoons attempted to break the line at a point near the present Blind Asylum. This was possibly intended as little more than a feint, but it proved successful.
It was here the line was weakest, for but a shallow ditch had been dug through the millstone-grit. Frightening with their " fire-pikes" the horses of the cavalrymen who defended the point, Washington's men levelled the low wall and dashed over it. It is said that just before the great attack upon the city was commenced, a private soldier pointed out to Colonel Fiennes the very place where Washington afterwards forced his way through. The governor, with his second-in-command, was riding around to make a final inspection of the whole of the works, and the trooper ventured to advise him to place a hundred men to specially guard the unfinished defence. "What doth the saucy knave prate about? " said the commander, who was either too haughty to take advice from a common soldier, or so anxious about the weakness of the position that he tried to conceal the danger.
Two years later when Prince Rupert held the city, this difficult part of the line was still incomplete.
Fiennes declared he would defend every inch of the ground from the outer line to the castle keep, and that if need came, he would make his flag his winding-sheet. His resolution was soon to be put to the test. The troop which made its way through Washington's Breach, occupied the little unfinished Essex Fort, which was close at hand. There the shrewd leader waited for reinforcements, which soon reached him. Then the cavaliers took possession of the Cathedral, and St. Mark's and St. Augustine's Churches, while some of them under Colonel Washington captured the Great House on St. Augustine's Back. But it is not likely they would have retained these positions had Colonel Fiennes shown the spirit of a soldier at that critical hour. He ordered the defenders to leave the outer barrier and shelter within the city walls.
The assailants within the lines, greatly increased in numbers, appeared before Froom Gate and threatened the inner defence. The harassed governor was urged by the mayor and many of the citizens to hold out no longer, but a body of brave women implored him to be true to his word and fight to the death.
These heroines of Bristol were led by Mistress Dorothy Hazard, a famous member of the Baptist community, and the wife of Matthew Hazard, the Puritan vicar of St. Ewen's since 1639. Many a local writer has enjoyed his laugh at this strong-minded lady of the olden times ; she was withal a true-hearted English-woman. Mistress Hazard was a witness at the governor's trial, and part of her evidence reads as follows :
" That when the news came that some of the enemies were entered within the line, this deponent, with divers other women, did with woolsacks and earth stop up Froom Gate, and when they had so done, the said women went to the gunners, and told them that if they would stand out and fight, they would stand by them, and told them they should not want for provision."
But Fiennes looked across the Froom, and seeing that the tide was out and the besiegers were ready to wade the stream, he surrendered the city.
It is said that less than a score of roundheads fell during the siege, while the royalists lost between 1,000 and 1,400 men in the attack, which a writer on the King's side declared to be " the hottest that ever was since the war began."
In the year 1643, when the talk was of " Bristol taking, Exeter shaking, Gloucester quaking," as the old rhyme has it, the hopes of the king's party ran high.
Exeter was indeed taken by Prince Maurice, and the king himself assailed Gloucester. Had that city fallen , the king' s fortunes might have been saved. The defenders were reduced to their last barrel of gunpowder.
After the disastrous Royalist defeat at Naseby in June, 1645, 0nly the West remained to the King. In July, Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell snatched Somerset from him. After taking Bridgwater, Bath and Sherborne they set about the recapture of Bristol, but not without misgivings, for it was known that the plague raged terribly within the walls, and deaths were occurring at the rate of a hundred every week, and they almost feared to approach such a place.
Prince Rupert, assisted by an able engineer, Sir Bernard de Gomme, had greatly strengthened the 'defences thrown up by Nathanael Fiennes. The Windmill Fort had become the Great or Royal Fort, a pentagonal stronghold, more reliable than the castle itself. Jones's Fort was re-named Colston's Fort, after its commander, William Colston, a relative of the great philanthropist, Edward Colston.
In August, 1645, the victorious army of Sir Thomas Fairfax, Commander-in-chief of the Parliamentarian forces, with the Lieutenant-General of Horse, Oliver Cromwell, drew near to Bristol. Prince Rupert sought to check their advance by laying waste the districts around the city. Parts of Clifton and Bedminster, and the College of Westbury-on-Trym, which Rupert had himself occupied three years before, were destroyed. The villages of Keynsham, Brislington, Hanham and Stapleton were barely saved, by a dashing advance of the roundheads.
On August 21st, Fairfax marched by way of Chew Magna and Keynsham, and slept at Hanham. Later he moved to Stoke House (Duchess's House), Stapleton, and then to Montpelier, making his headquarters at a farm which once stood at the top of Cromwell Road. Cromwell stationed himself first at Wickham Bridge, and then upon Ashley Hill.
Then the parliamentary army disposed itself about Bristol, hemming it in on every point. So tightly was the cordon drawn, that " not a pailful of milk or a basket of eggs" could be carried into the beleaguered city.
Prince Rupert expected King Charles would come to his relief, and believed he could hold the city against all comers for at least four months. There was to be no help, however. Although Rupert knew it not, the royal cause in England was utterly ruined, and thereafter, there was to be no greater battle in its behalf than that which raged about the outworks of Bristol.
The army of Fairfax and Cromwell was weak in artillery, almost the only large cannons being those placed in Montpelier. The city, with its 5,000 men, was well-manned and better gunned. Cromwell's report on the siege stated that no less than 140 pieces were captured, when the city fell. Within the walls, however, the plague and disloyalty raged. Heavy rains fell almost incessantly from August 23rd until September 4th. During this time, six dashing sorties were made by Rupert's men. In one of the first of these was slain Sir Richard Crane, who had commanded King Charles's cavalry at Marston Moor, in 1644. While the blockade was proceeding, the fleet of the parliament, commanded by Admiral Moulton, sailed into the Bristol Channel and captured the fort at Portishead. A detachment of bluejackets came up the Avon to assist the besiegers.
The parliamentary generals now decided to abandon the slow process of blockade, and to attempt to capture the city by storm.
On September 4th, the weather having cleared, the great guns upon Montpelier were directed against the Prior's Hill Fort, and their missiles flew across the valley through which Cheltenham Road now runs. On the same day Sir Thomas Fairfax sent a messenger to Prince Rupert, calling upon him to yield up the city. The prince asked permission to send to King Charles about this, but Fairfax refused.
From the 6th until the gih of September, negotiations between the commanders went on. The time of parley expired at midnight on the latter date, and at two in the morning of the loth, great bonfires on Montpelier and Ashley Hill blazed out the signal for a grand assault. All through the dark hours before dawn proceeded the combat, deadly and unnatural, between the sons of the same nation.
The defences at Stokes Croft, Lawford's Gate, and the Old Market Gate of the castle were soon taken. On the Somerset side the onslaught proved fruitless, so sound was the defence of the ancient wall of Redcliffe and Temple The Royal Fort and Colston's Fort were too strong to permit of serious attack. Prior's Hill Fort was the key of the position, and just before dawn, the men who had taken Stokes Croft entered it, by making their way along the inside of the rampart, up the steep side of Kingsdown, where Hillgrove Street now runs. Then Rainsborough's men climbed the slope of Cotham, and occupied Prior's Hill Fort, putting-nearly every defender to the sword.
The critical point of the outer defence was won. Generals Fairfax and Cromwell dashed up Ninetree Hill with their men, and established themselves within the lines. The loss of Prior's Hill was soon known to the garrison at the castle, and the great guns of the keep were brought to bear upon the captured post. One shot passed within dangerous distance of the Commander-in-Chief, and the future Lord Protector.
The city was set on fire in three places, by the desperate defenders, and then the disheartened Prince Rupert sent an offer of surrender, which the opposing general accepted. The siege had not been a long one. From first to last, it had occupied but twenty days. But when the victors entered the city, they found it in pitiable plight. Bristol was "so unlike what it had been formerly, in its flourishing condition, that it looked now more like a prison than a city, and the people more like prisoners than citizens, being brought so low with taxations, so poor in habit and so dejected in countenance, the streets so noisome and the houses so nasty, as that they were unfit to receive friends or foemen till they were cleansed."
On Thursday, September nth, the day after the capture, Prince Rupert gaily attired in scarlet and silver, and accompanied by a brilliant following' of ladies, lords and gentlemen, marched out of Royal Fort on his way to Oxford. Sir Thomas Fairfax journeyed across Durdham Downs with his fallen foe, and accompanied him two miles on his way. The soldiers had retained their swords, but had surrendered their firearms ; but Fairfax chivalrously lent them a thousand muskets, for he knew how likely it was that the retreating force would be attacked by the country-people, to whom the name of "Prince Robber" was a hateful one.
King Charles was so much grieved at his nephew's failure that he dismissed him from his service, although he afterwards forgave him.
Three days after the fall of Bristol, the Marquis of Montrose, the king's gallant champion in Scotland was crushed at Philiphaugh, and in the following May the unfortunate monarch was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies.
On September 17, Parliament ordered a national thanksgiving for the capture of Bristol, so decisive was the victory.
A BRIEF HISTORY FOR YOUNG CITIZENS. BY W. L. DOWDING, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
1 comment:
Thanks Tom I enjoyed the article.It is a remarkable period of Bristol history that I have overlooked. What great bravery was shown by those women! My 1977 study, from original sources for my final year at Redland College was on the subject of Jarrit Smith of Bristol, whose grandfather was a baker from Evesham and whose father John Smith was a soap manufacturer in Bristol since 1684. His father died in 1717 and Jarrit became a prosperous lawyer in 18th Century Bristol living in one of those houses along College Green near the Cathedral. He ultimately married into the Smythe family of Ashton Court who were in debt and running out of male heirs. He changed his own name to Smythe and became a baronet in his own right in 1763 (he was also a Jacobite in his sympathies. Of-course his own family ran of heirs in 20th Century and Ashton Court was a dilapidated ruin when I was in Bristol but the Council finally had it restored.
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