Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

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ARMY HISTORICAL RESEARCH

with spoil and prisoners, scarce a soldier without a led horse’. It is accepted by both sides that 120 prisoners were taken at Postcombe and Chinnor, which by deduction suggests 80 men were captured at Chalgrove. Essex stated that, ‘no prisoners of quality were taken by the Enemy’, yet the Parliament Scout maintained that 13 Captains and 18 more men of note were ‘murdered’ in Oxford gaol after the battle: ‘Captaine Austen, Captaine Stroope, Captaine Flemming , and ten Captaines had dyed (or rather murdered by the barbarous Marshall Smith ) and before eighteene men more of note, and dyed through cruell usage, viz . by having their necks and heeles tyed together’. 25 Contemporaries were satisfied that Hampden’s mortal wounding was by a brace of bullets through the shoulder, perhaps from a double-shotted pistol. 26 The reported bursting of his own pistol in his hand was suggested only in the eighteenth century by the antiquarian, Lawrence Echard. 27 Having lost so many officers besides Hampden, Essex retreated to London. As soon as he [Urry] return’d, he made another proposition to the Prince for attacking the Quarters near Thame; through which he had passed when he came to Oxford, and so was well acquainted with the posture in which they were, and assured the Prince, ‘that, if he went about it time enough, before there should be any alteration in their Quarters, which he believ’d the General would quickly make, the Enterprise would be worthy of it’. The Prince was so well satisfied with what he had already done, that he resolved to conduct the next adventure himself, which he did very fortunately. They went out of the Ports of Oxford in the Evening upon a Saturday, and march’d beyond all the Quarters as far as Wickham , and fell in there at the farther end of the Town towards London, from whence no Enemy was expected, and so no Guards were kept there. A Regiment of Horse, and of Foot, were lodged there; which were cut off, or taken Prisoners; and all the Horses and a good Booty brought away. From thence they march’d backward to another Quarter, within less than two Miles of the General’s own Quarters; where his Men lodged with the same security, they had done at Wickham, not expecting any Enemy that way; and so met with the same fate the others had done; and were all kill’d, or made Prisoners. III The account of Chalgrove in the 1702 version of Clarendon’s ‘history’ is as follows: 28

25 BL, Thomason Tracts, E96, THE PARLIAMENT SCOUT Communicating His Intelligence TO THE KINGDOME from Tuesday the 20. June, to Tuesday the 27 of June 1643 . 26 BL, E 55 (19). 27 Derek Lester & Gill Blackshaw, The Controversy of John Hampden’s Death (Chalgrove: Chalgrove Battle Group, 2000). 28 History of the Rebellion Book Vol. VII, pp. 202-03.