CROMWELL'S SCOTS CAPTURE A HEREFORDSHIRE CASTLE
The late proceedings of The Scottish Army: As also the taking of Cannon Froome. Certified By an Expresse from his Excellencies Quarters the Earle of Leven, Lord Generall. Dated at Ludbury the 23. of July 1645. Together with other Letters from the Kings Quarters to the Generall and Lieutenant-Generall, and Answers thereunto.
London.
Printed by M. B. for Robert Bostock, 1645.
First edition.
Quarto.
[2], 6pp. Modern navy morocco, lettered in gilt to spine, T.E.G. Marbled endpapers, early alternate manuscript pagination to upper corners. With a loosely inserted letterpress receipt from bookseller Frank Hammond addressed to Lord Cottesloe acknowledging payment of £12 for the book in 1961.
The sole edition of a decidedly uncommon news-book account of the actions of the Army of the Solemn League and Covenant - led by veteran Scottish Army officer Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven (c.1580-1661) - in the summer of 1645, reporting most particularly on their taking of a royalist garrison within the moated house at Cannon Froome, Herefordshire.
Following the defeat of a Royalist rebellion against the Covenanting-led Scottish Government in the Spring of 1645, the Scottish army of the Solemn League and Covenant - named after the 1643 treaty between the reforming parliaments in England and Scotland- led by the Earl of Leven marched south to assist their allies. As this news-book reports, a 'party of 4500 Horse, Foot, and Dragoons' en route to Hereford became aware of a Royalist garrison, led by 'Governor Colonell Barnold' in the small Herefordshire village of Castle Froome. After the Royalist commander refused to surrender the moated house, which had been reinforced with Irish volunteers after the battle of Newark, Leven, the 'Lieut. Generall...gave order for storming the place'. The heat of the battle is described thus, from a purely Roundhead perspective:
'The Grasses were about nine foot deep, and as broad, and in most places full of water; The Works above the Grasses were so high, that all the Ladders we could get were too short; the Enemy behaved themselves valourously, but it pleased the Lord to give our Souldiers to much courage, that after a hot dispute they were beate from their works, after which they fled to the house, where they fought desparately, till a great part of them were killed. We lost about 16. and 24. are wounded; of the Enemy were killed about 70. Colonell Barnold deadly wounded, Captain Briskoe, Capt. Houke, & thirty others taken Prisoners.'
ESTC records copies at just seven locations in the British Isles (Advocates Library, BL, Hereford Cathedral, Newcastle, NLS, Oxford, Trinity College Dublin) and just three further elsewhere (California State, Harvard, Texas and Yale).
Provenance: Recently dispersed from the Cottlesloe Military Library 'probably the most extensive private collection of early printed books focused on military matters'.
Following the defeat of a Royalist rebellion against the Covenanting-led Scottish Government in the Spring of 1645, the Scottish army of the Solemn League and Covenant - named after the 1643 treaty between the reforming parliaments in England and Scotland- led by the Earl of Leven marched south to assist their allies. As this news-book reports, a 'party of 4500 Horse, Foot, and Dragoons' en route to Hereford became aware of a Royalist garrison, led by 'Governor Colonell Barnold' in the small Herefordshire village of Castle Froome. After the Royalist commander refused to surrender the moated house, which had been reinforced with Irish volunteers after the battle of Newark, Leven, the 'Lieut. Generall...gave order for storming the place'. The heat of the battle is described thus, from a purely Roundhead perspective:
'The Grasses were about nine foot deep, and as broad, and in most places full of water; The Works above the Grasses were so high, that all the Ladders we could get were too short; the Enemy behaved themselves valourously, but it pleased the Lord to give our Souldiers to much courage, that after a hot dispute they were beate from their works, after which they fled to the house, where they fought desparately, till a great part of them were killed. We lost about 16. and 24. are wounded; of the Enemy were killed about 70. Colonell Barnold deadly wounded, Captain Briskoe, Capt. Houke, & thirty others taken Prisoners.'
ESTC records copies at just seven locations in the British Isles (Advocates Library, BL, Hereford Cathedral, Newcastle, NLS, Oxford, Trinity College Dublin) and just three further elsewhere (California State, Harvard, Texas and Yale).
Provenance: Recently dispersed from the Cottlesloe Military Library 'probably the most extensive private collection of early printed books focused on military matters'.
ESTC R200176, Thomason E.294, Wing L557.
£ 750.00
Antiquates Ref: 22725
