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to raise troops to be commanded by Sir William
Waller.65 By the defeats he inflicted on the royalists Sir
William Waller prevented them from penetrating into Sussex and Kent, but
his action was hampered after the battle of Airesford, March 1644, by
the utter refusal of the auxiliary regiments of London and Kent to march
farther.66
The royalist cause suffered a severe loss, in June 1644, by the deaths
of two Kentish colonels, Sir William Boteler and Sir William Clarke,
gentlemen of fair fortunes, who had raised and armed their regiments at
their own charge and were both ‘killed dead upon the place ‘at the
battle of Cropredy.67 In April 1645 ‘there was an
insurrection in Kent by some soldiers that were prest ;68 in the
following September, the governor of Dover Castle wrote that he had hard
work to keep his men from mutiny, their pay being 50 weeks in arrear.69
Rioting in Canterbury against the parliamentary ordinance
forbidding the observance of Christmas Day, which lasted the whole of
the last week of December 1647,70 was followed by ‘a perfect storm
of indignation’ in the whole county in the following May, when a
special commission sat at Canterbury to try offenders, and endeavoured
to suppress a petition drawn up by the grand jury71 which had thrown out
the bill against them. The county rose and ‘swept away the
parliamentary authorities from its northern and eastern seaboard ‘;
Rochester, Sittingbourne, Faversham, and Sandwich were taken by the
insurgents in the king’s name ;72 a mutiny began in the ship of the
vice-admiral in the Downs, and seven others declared for the restoration
of monarchy. Though the insurgents were finally out-manoeuvred and sailed
for Holland, they first recovered for the royalists Deal, Walmer and
Sandown Castles.73 On 22 May, at a great meeting held at
Rochester, many of the local gentry agreed to place themselves at the
head of the movement,74 and the command was given to the Earl
of Norwich by the Earl of Holland, who had been commissioned
commander-in-chief by the Prince of Wales.75 According to
Clarendon their zeal was great, but the numerous assembly was disorderly
and full of local jealousies; the Earl of Norwich was no soldier; the
country. gentleman ‘soe zealous of the esteeme of their courage and
judgments that they will not endure the assistance of experienc’d
soldiers,’76 and the leader sent against them by the
Parliament was Fairfax. The 30th was fixed for an armed
gathering of the county at Blackheath, from which place the royalists
intended to attack London. By that date Fairfax occupied Blackheath,
sent Major Gibbons through the Weald to the relief of Dover, then moved
on with the bulk of the army, 8,000 strong, to Rochester, which he found
strongly prepared against him, and finally engaged with the royalists at
Maidstone which he, after a sharp struggle, captured. The Earl of
Norwich with his forces rode
65 A Kentishman, son of Sir Thomas Wailer, lieutenant of Dover.
66 Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebn. viii,
15. 67 Ibid. viii, 66.
68 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vii, App.
453. 69
Ibid. vi, App. 7
70 Gardiner, History & the Great Civil War,
iv, 4, 5.
71 Ibid. 132.
72 Ibid. iv, 133.
73 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1648-9, p.
85.
74 Gardiner, loc. cit.; Clarendon, xi, 26, 7.
75 Samuel Kern, writing from Rotterdam, 4 Dec. 1648, mentioned that
’to-morowe the Kentish gentlemen depart this place for England, and have
taken their leaves of the Prince . . . they resolve for Whitstable in
Kent . . . to live privately till they see how things go.’ Hist.
MSS. Com. Rep. iv, App. 275.
76 Ibid. Rep. xii, App. ix, 19. |