February 2018
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n HISTORY
THE BURNING OF BEDMINSTER
The destruction of Bedminster – a mere As the English Civil War tore the nation apart, a prince set fire to Bedminster, destroying what had been a prosperous town
W
AR IS terrible – but a civil war, where a nation is split and even members of the same family can be on opposing sides, is something worse. Today’s heart-wrenching wars in Syria and Yemen are so awful partly because even when or if one side “wins”, the conflict will not be over. Beliefs and desires don’t change at the point of a gun, and once a nation fractures into mass violence, the impact will be felt for generations. Consider then the effect on our own city of the English Civil War, actually a series of wars which tore the country apart from 1638 to 1660. It’s well known that Bristol was subject to not one, but two sieges as it passed first into the hands of the Royalists (the Cavaliers) supporting King Charles I, and then to the Parliamentarians, or Roundheads, under Oliver Cromwell. But talk of sieges won and lost, and the battle moving on to other towns, doesn’t do justice to the terrific impact of the wars on the people of Bristol, and its pivotal role in the conflict. Perhaps nothing can bring home the enormity of what happened than the mention of a mere footnote in the Civil War: the destruction of Bedminster. What was then an important town in its own right was razed to the ground. Look for a monument to this tragic event and you won’t find one. Yet this sideline in the big story was an event from which Bedminster took two centuries to recover.
T
he English Civil War was not one war, but three. It took place in all the nations of what is now the United
Kingdom. It was in many ways, a conflict about religion: it began with the refusal of Scotland to accept the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. When a Scottish army defeated the king twice, and invaded northern England, Charles was forced to ask the Houses of Parliament for taxes to fund a bigger army. This exposed several more faultlines. England had become a Protestant nation, rejecting the authority of the Pope in Rome more than 100 years before, in 1534. A nationwide Church of England gave the king great influence, but Charles was suspected of papist sympathies – he had married a Catholic, for one thing. The Scots were not at all fond of the powerful and wealthy English bishops. And in Ireland, then part of the kingdom, a largely Catholic population was ruled by a mainly Protestant aristocracy. Soon the fires of rebellion were lit there too, and Charles could not agree terms with his Parliament on how to fund and control the army to be sent to Ireland. In 1642 both king and Parliament raised armies against each other, and the civil war began in earnest.
T
he conflict was about more than religion, though. It was about control of land, and taxes, and the rights of MPs; it was also about the sharing of resources, in a nation where gold from the New World was beginning to devalue the currency, and the prospect of ever more wealth flowing into ports like Bristol prompted questions about who really owned the nation, and whether a king really was put in place by God. The King enjoyed support in many rural areas, including the West and the North of England. He had no control over London or the wealthy South-East. But in major centres such as Bristol it was not clear where loyalty lay. Often, landowners and aristocrats backed the king. Those who wanted religious or political freedom – and some merchants who wanted the freedom to trade – plumped for Parliament. The Royalists in the West, under Sir Ralph Hopton of
February 2018
n HISTORY
southbristolvoice
37
THE BURNING OF BEDMINSTER
footnote in the tragedy of the Civil War
entrance to Royalist troops. Months later a parliamentary leader, Sir Alexander Popham, sent 500 cavalry to billet in Bristol. But they got no further than Bedminster, where the city council ordered the militia to keep them at bay with muskets. In December 1642, after a two-day debate by the council, Newgate was opened to allow in two regiments of Roundhead infantry. There must have been many in the city who wanted to carry on their commerce; but increasingly all trade was benefiting one side or the other. Bristol had already sent ships full of provisions to the royal forces in Ireland. It was going to be impossible to remain neutral. A Royalist plot to open the gates to Prince Rupert was betrayed in March. A battle was looming.
Condemned: Nathaniel Fiennes was judged to have surrendered Bristol to the Royalists too easily and was sentenced to death, but he was later reprieved Witham Priory in Somerset, could raise few troops in the county, and so started their efforts in Cornwall. A steady tide of victories ended in a rout of Parliamentary forces near Bath in early July 1643; by the end of the month they were at the gates of Bristol. The arrival of Prince Rupert on the Royalist side, nephew to the king and a dashing cavalryman, was said to be worth half a battle in itself. Bristol, however, was the nation’s second city, its most important port, and was very expensively defended. Its governor, Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes, was afterwards to complain that he spent £1,000 a week (£2.5 million in labour costs today) on earthworks and fortifications around the city. The city was at several disadvantages, apart from the 15,000 troops Prince Rupert brought with him. Its defenders were only 1,800 strong, weakened by the loss of troops to other battles. The city’s leaders had pleaded not to be occupied by troops on either side. At first they were successful: in July 1642 the mayor, John Lock, refused
P
rince Rupert attacked the city’s defences head on, and with great loss. Ramparts had been dug all the way round the city, from Temple Gate (Temple Meads) north to Lawford’s Gate at Old Market, north west to Prior’s Hill Fort near Stokes Croft, and a line of forts across what is now Cotham, over St Michael’s Hill, to Brandon Hill and the River Avon. Fiennes may have lacked troops but he had the cannons and gunpowder he needed; and Bristol Castle was said at the time to be so strong it could resist attack for months. Cornish troops attacking the city walls at Redcliffe from the south suffered big losses; to the north the royalists were cut down in even greater numbers as they attacked the forts. The historian Clarendon said of the Royalist casualties: “Yet the king might very well have said what king Pyrrhus did: ‘If we win another at the price, we are utterly undone.’ And truly his majesty’s loss before this town is inestimable, and very hard to be repaired. I am persuaded there were slain, upon the several assaults, of common men about five hundred, and abundance of excellent officers.” Troops who led such an attack, trying to scale defences with ladders, were almost certain to die. To coax them into suicide, the “laddermen” were offered bounties: five or ten shillings,
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Mistress Hazard rallies the defenders at Frome Gate. A 1918 painting by Gerald Moira worth up to £2,000 in today’s purchasing power. Prince Rupert rallied his attackers. Near the northern ramparts, his horse was shot in the eye; he just got on another horse. The attacks continued, with hundreds of Royalist casualties. But one section of ramparts near Brandon Hill had poor foundations. The attackers managed to level it and gain entry; once inside they held the defenders at bay with fire pikes, great poles kept ablaze with tar to act like a primitive flamethrower. Some of the outer forts fell, but Fiennes was still in a strong position. A band of women converged on the inner Frome Gate and piled woolsacks and earth inside, telling the gunners “that if they would stand out and
fight, they would stand by them, and told them they should not want for provision.” These were the words of Mistress Dorothy Hazard, an outspoken Baptist and wife of a Puritan vicar. But Fiennes was an ineffectual leader, said to be given too much to prayer. He despaired of holding the city and surrendered on condition that his defenders could leave the city unharmed. This promise was kept by the victorious Rupert. But perhaps enraged by the loss of so many comrades, the attackers forgot their vow not to plunder the city. Bristol contained valuable ships, munitions and enough skilled workers to equip the entire Royalist army with new muskets. It was a valuable prize: but the cost to its citizens was
© Bristol Museums
uncounted. Many Parliamentary sympathisers were turned from their homes, forced to provide “mutton and veal and chickens, with wine and tobacco each meal” for the Cavaliers, who slept in Puritans’ beds and filled their homes with “blasphemous, filthy and wicked language,” according to one aggrieved citizen. Fiennes was court-martialled by his own side, and sentenced to death for his supposed neglect, but was reprieved. Historians have mostly judged he could not have held the city for long.
B
ristol was a beacon of prosperity, at least for some. Fortunes were made from trade and shipping, including the heinous (and centuries-old) transport of slaves.
Both sides in the war squeezed whatever they could from this wealth. Since the 1620s, Charles had imposed a ship tax on coastal towns to pay for the navy. In 1634, Bristol was billed £2,166 (equal to £97m today). But the king found the town was ever less willing to pay, and the tax harder to collect. The next year, Bristol was taxed £1,200; two years later just £800. If people refused to pay, their goods could be seized and sold, but by 1639 no-one would buy the seized goods, and the tax was enforceable. It was one precursor of the country sliding into conflict. More unrest was caused by Charles’s manipulation of monopolies. In 1631 the king gave the sole right to soap manufacture to a company in London. Several long-established Bristol soap makers faced ruin. They won the right to make 600 tons of soap a year, but Charles taxed them at £4 a ton. Later the king disputed the amount of soap made in Bristol, and summoned the soap makers to London – a long and expensive journey – where he fined them £20,000. Some Bristol traders made money from monopolies. One won royal approval to export 120,000 calf skins a year. Others paid a tax to be allowed a share in the export of Welsh butter, putting several Welsh traders out of business. It was said that most wealthy Bristol traders sided with the King, while the smaller ones backed the Parliamentarians. Once he had gained control of the city for the king, Prince Rupert spent more fortunes on shoring up Bristol’s defences. The Great Fort on St Michael’s Hill was rebuilt as the Royal Fort. This was the headquarters of the royal Western Army, an almost impregnable five-sided bastion stocked with supplies to last 150 men almost a year. The prince was determined to do better than Fiennes and not surrender the city too easily.But two years after the storming of Bristol, history was to repeat itself – this time with disastrous consequences for Bedminster.
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t’s little appreciated now that Bedminster predates the city of Bristol. East Street and West Street were an ancient Continued overleaf
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