Siege and Storm
In June 1640, the Second Bishop’s War began, a little known conflict that was part of the British Civil Wars of the 1600s. For this week’s blog post, Daniel has been taking a look at the capture of Newcastle by the Scots during the Bishop’s War and then again in the Civil War, especially the famous siege of 1644, and a small way in which that has left its mark on Newcastle Castle.
Prelude
Lord General Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven. Born the illegitimate son of the Captain of Blair Castle and a “wench of Rannoch”, he served as a soldier in Sweden, rising to the rank of field marshal before returning to Scotland to command the Covenanter army.
It may be a surprise for some to learn that Newcastle was occupied by Scottish forces at least twice in its history, both times only a few years apart. Even more remarkable was that the same person commanded the Scottish forces both times: Lord General Alexander Leslie. In a way, the events of the first occupation would also lead to the second one.
In the first instance, Leslie managed to take the town in 1640, during the Bishop’s War. Simply put, this conflict sprung from the English bishops attempting to assert religious authority over the Scottish, who became largely Puritan in the years following Henry VIII’s split with the Pope. The Scottish were quite happy to separate from Popish rule and weren’t keen to be placed in another form of it, under English bishops no less. Besides, Scotland has never liked it when the English have proven to be too big for their boots and tried telling them what to do. Naturally, they retaliated.
The location of and the Castle was constructed for strategic purposes to enforce this: high on a hill and overlooking the River Tyne, it was a perfect spot. The defences to the north were heavily fortified and ready to act at the first sign of potential hostility. Which was why it came as a surprise when Leslie struck from the south, taking the village of Newburn and marching on the town from there. With his force of 20,000 against 3,500, poorly trained English troops, there was no real contest.
They stayed in the town until August 1641. In the time they were there, they caused issues locally and nationally. Reports from the time tell of Scottish soldiers raiding homes for food for their horses. The capture of Newcastle also caused problems down south in London. Newcastle was not only a vital point near the border, but also the largest supplier of coal, which was part of the reason why Leslie attacked. He used it both for his own financial gain and to hold London hostage. By the time he left, King Charles I would request more money from Parliament because of the shortage caused by not having Newcastle’s coal tax. Parliament not only refused but voted unanimously to control the King which would lead to the First English Civil War in 1642.
Siege
So the lines were drawn for the Civil War: The Parliamentary Roundheads on one side and the Royalist Cavaliers on the other. Newcastle sided with the latter, for a few reasons. The principle one ties into the town’s longstanding hostility towards Scotland. The Scots shared the Roundhead’s Puritan beliefs and the recent occupation of Newcastle has reignited rivalries between them. It’s only natural that Newcastle would take the opposing side of their enemy, led themselves by the staunch Royalist and current Mayor, John Marley. He had already been preparing for a potential siege, reinforcing the walls, building some new forts and digging deep ditches. When Leslie arrived with his force of 30,000 Scots, Marley forbade him entry to the town, despite his own paltry force of 1,500. Initially, Leslie marched right on by to join the other Parliamentary forces at Marston Moor where the Royalists were soundly defeated in 1644. This marked a crippling blow for the Royalist cause, cutting them off from local support and entry into Europe from North ports.
Illustration of the storming of Newcastle by Morris Meredith Williams from the 1917 book Stories of the Scottish Border
Following this, Leslie turned right back around to repeat what he had done four years ago. Because of Newcastle’s importance for the supply of coal, they needed to take the town as quickly as possible. Employing some 3,000 local country folk, they began to dig under the walls. Letters would be sent from Leslie to Marley, urging the latter to surrender and prevent the needless shedding of more blood. In a rather dubious move, Marley responded to Leslie’s threat to blow up the spire of St Nicholas’s Cathedral by using a human shield of captured Scottish troops! Marley himself remarked that if Leslie did attempt to destroy it, then he would ‘bathe his hands in the blood of his own countrymen.’
In the end, despite the best efforts of the defenders, the Scots would breach the walls. On the 19th October, mines dug under Sandgate and White Friars were filled with explosives and detonated. The wall collapsed and the Scots surged into the town. Despite overwhelming odds, Newcastle’s troops ‘left nothing ‘unessay’d’ in the town’s defence, according to one of the Scottish troops. Marley and his remaining defenders would flee into the Keep. Stubborn as he was, even Marley seemed to recognise the inevitable at this stage and surrendered after trying to mount a defence there for two days. Once again, Newcastle was in Scottish hands.
Aftermath
The Scots were remarkably well behaved by the standards of the time. Having endured a long siege, many attacking armies in this period were known for indiscriminate pillage and massacre in the aftermath of the storming of a town. Newcastle was largely spared this, at least the houses of the wealthy were – the restraint of the Scots with regard to the homes of their ‘betters’ must have come as cold comfort to the poor of Newcastle. Records for the town after the siege, under Scottish rule, are lacking. However, we know that not long after, the King himself would be brought into Newcastle and held prisoner in the Newe House, a grand mansion within the town, until his eventual execution. Today, Lloyds Bank on Grey Street stands in its place and a grey plaque marks the former history of the site.
The reactions following the end of the siege and the overthrow of the monarchy were somewhat mixed. For some, like local mercer John Blakiston, they no longer had to hide their Puritan loyalties and could be free to practice them. As he’d been elected as the town’s MP in 1640, he was in a prominent position when things suddenly turned in his favour. Others, like local historian William Grey, deeply resented what had happened. He complains about how the Scots obtained English scarlet gowns during the conquest and paraded about in them, showing that ‘no English in authority’ was ‘worthy to wear them’.
Members of the Newcastle Garrison living history group portraying Scottish soldiers from the time of the siege
We know some of what happened to the key players. Leslie would return to Scotland in 1647, following a series of payments made to him while the North remained under his control. He would retire from active military service and it is believed that the nursery rhyme, the Crooked Man, is written in reference to him. Meanwhile, Marley was banished to the Netherlands after all of his possessions were sold, though there were calls for his execution following his human shield manoeuvre. He lived a rather destitute life abroad, but would return to the country and the town in his later years, following the Restoration of the Monarchy and the end of Parliamentary rule. He would later become MP for Newcastle.
This brings us to the modern day, where Thomas Cuthbert and John Danby have left their own token of the event in the Castle they briefly defended. Personally, I’ve always seen these marks as a very human thing to do. Neither of these men knew if they were going to live through the Siege. To this day, we don’t know if they did. So just to be certain that they would leave something behind, they left their names carved into the wall. It’s funny how throughout history, so many things change and yet more stay the same, isn’t it?