MY PERSONAL SEALED KNOT
ENGLISH CIVIL WAR BATTLE RE-ENACTMENT REPORT – YORK RACE-COURSE AUGUST 29-31
2009
PREVIOUS BATTLE – WESTON-SUPER MARE
2009 NEXT BATTLE – NANTWICH 2010
HISTORIC BACKGROUND
York was extremely important to both sides in the first ENGLISH CIVIL WAR. . Charles 1st left London, and failed to gain entry to Hull in 1642, he quickly set up his main headquarters in York. The city was heavily fortified and therefore easily defended until losses and setbacks weakened the King’s forces considerably.
Though they had made sporadic attacks on York in passing to other engagements, the main Parliamentary relief attack on York came in spring 1644, and over the course of a month, Parliament captured many towns on the outskirts of York, and completely surrounded the city, holding it under intense siege and bombardment.
The Royalists held out well, against the forces led by Fairfax, Cromwell &The Scots, but the 2cd of July 1644 battle of Marston Moor changed everything, severely weakening the Royalist hold on the North, and Sir Thomas Glenham, who was in charge of the defence of York surrendered on July 16th 1644. (the King was not trapped in the city)
Many stretches of the city walls still show the scars of battle and damage from cannon shot
The Sealed Knot re-enactment was
to focus on the Marston Moor battle which was to be essential to the relief of
the North, and the biggest land battle ever fought on British soil. It was to be won by the shrewd tactics of
Oliver Cromwell, now beginning to make a name for himself after relative
obscurity, and the deployment of the Scots on Parliament’s side.
FRIDAY 28th AUGUST 2009
This was to be our biggest major battle of the year, preceded by the Sealed Knot Society AGM. There had been various Sealed Knot events in the city over the month preceding this, so it was to be the culmination of a very ambitious and successful series of events. I travelled on the Friday, with Alec Bickerton (coming in specially from Switzerland) and Michelle Day. We left Manchester at about 3.15 pm, in cloudy weather, and hit heavy M62 traffic with the beginning of the Bank Holiday and a major rock festival taking place in Leeds. We tried diverting through Halifax and got completely gridlocked there for a while before breaking free to relatively clear roads and eventually rejoining the motorway. .
We reached the racecourse about teatime, and quickly started putting up our tents as it looked as if it could rain, and we still had some daylight to work with. I had my tent up well enough to fill it with my luggage, and that was when disaster struck. There was a sickening snapping sound and the main central pole collapsed in two – I’d managed to hit it with my kit bag and break its spine. The tent went down like a lousy soufflé. There was a ‘that’s not good’ moment of awareness of something serious having taken place.
Various regiment members helped to try to repair it, Michelle Day & Mark Cullen in particular, and with some wire from an old coat-hanger, a tent peg inserted into the pole, and gaffa tape (or should that be ‘gaffe tape given my blunder?), the pole was temporarily repaired, but it looked fragile and as I half-suspected, it wouldn’t last too long.
I got some food from the traders, we had drinks in our camping area for much of the night and went to the beer tent for the last few hours there. The Beer Tent had a very friendly atmosphere and it was very crowded. The bar was very small, and it became practical to buy beer in the two-pint carry out cartons, as opposed to the usual plastic glasses). I soon got used to drinking from an oversized milk carton, and began to think the idea was a good one.
I was one of the last to leave the Beer Tent, and I returned to my fragile tent quite late on.
SATURDAY 29th
AUGUST 2009
I was woken at about 6 am by the breeze collapsing the tent over me. I was sleeping in a virtual canvas shroud now. I made some quick repairs which lasted all of about thirty minutes before it all caved in again. I knew now that my tent was doomed.
We had a very relaxed morning, and afternoon. I got breakfast on Traders and bought a pot cup for use as a campsite-drinking vessel. The pace of life was to increase by the evening, when Skippons were to throw their annual Barbeque and other activities took place.
The main event was The Race meeting, with a large racetrack laid out; looking initially like a vast hop-scotch grid, but these were the lanes and fence points of the makeshift temporary race-course that had been built within a real race-course.
The races were really a series of dice-dictated games, with human horses and jockeys picked to serve as counters. This was to be run for a wheel-chair campaign for Gavin Howdle, one of the Skippons Brave Boys. The riders and horses were bid for by various owners, who picked by colour (green, blue, white, pink, etc), and the owner then chose a horse and rider within a certain age range (though in most races the age limits were ignored). I was almost picked as a horse for the first race, but someone else was found instead. (if I were a horse I’d have been shot and turned into glue years ago). Richard Howarth later chose me as a horse in the final hurdles race,, with a friend being picked as my rider, and with pikes being set across our track as jump-fences. Horse & Rider moved in unison as the dice were thrown, with two large cardboard box dice being used – one for colour of horse & Rider (and one for the number of furlongs to be moved up the track. There was no skill involved. We were entirely at the mercy and whim of the dice. We barely made it a quarter of the way up the track before the winner was announced. Richard Howarth kindly handed us both beer for taking part on his behalf.
Various members dressed up for the night, some in kit, others as though attending a race meeting, with several ladies dressed as if for Royal Ascot. The main theme for the Sealed Knot’s fancy dress was Highwaymen, and I dressed as a pirate, the highwaymen of the sea-lanes. I carried my Shamanistic Totem effigy of the Flying Spaghetti Monster too. (This being a spoof religion, believed to have been spread by pirates). I was pleased that so many people recognized the FSG rather than just seeing a pair of tennis ball eyes shrouded in elastic band pasta tendrils.
Coinciding with the racing, Jo Hazle, Mark Scoular & others served the regiment with various increasingly powerful cocktails, which went down all too easily and well. The race-meeting was followed by the annual regiment barbeque, with lots of sausages, burgers, and cakes on offer. There were even some burgers left over for people to take (uncooked) to self-cook and use for breakfast.
From there, we went to the beer tent for more drinking, and soothe night wore on.
With my tent lying in a heap, and all that was in danger of getting rained on already moved out, I was given permission by Alec & Michelle to sleep in their car for the night, which I was happy to do. Various people also offered me tent awnings and spare tent space for which I was also very grateful.
SUNDAY 30th AUGUST 2009
A busy day now, with drill, parades and battles to fight.
I got breakfast and got into kit (though I already had much of it available from the pirate gear the night before). It was a cold morning, with some light rain early on.
We formed up about 10 am as the Sun came out and marched to the main battle-field arena, where we joined much of the Parliament army We were not doing a full battle drill as I had expected, but rehearsing for a complicated set piece pre-battle display. We were to march forward directly towards a group of enemy cannons, and with each cannon volley, we had to take casualties. With the deceased at our feet, the survivors had to march on, and take the positions of the fallen. There were three cannon-ball shots, followed by a final grape-shot volley that decimates much of the regiment. The survivors, including myself, were then to charge the canon crews before they could reload, and kill them off. We ran through it step by step and then as a full rehearsal too.
There was now a parade of the regiment, with kit inspection and a presentation by the Lord General of the Parliament army, Richard Boyce. We now had about an hour before the pre-battle activity would be staged properly.
The pre-battle battle went well enough, though there were extra cannons and a few changes in the numbers who had to die. I still survived to help slaughter the cannon crew ahead of me and we took a few prisoners as well.
With the main battle itself only twenty minutes or so ahead of us, we decided to go to the Living History camp instead of back to the plastic campsite area. We relaxed and chilled out, chatting to the public and refreshing ourselves before being called to arms. As we had a few new recruits we did some basic battle drill while there was still time to spare.
After much ‘hurry up and wait’ time we marched to the field, and took on Hoghtons & Lisles’s pike block. The first attack on us was quite sneaky. It looked initially as if they were engaging us in a point attack, but at the last instant, they switched to a push formation, and almost caught us unawares. It was a great ambush tactic that could obviously only work once. From there on in, it was push, push, push, and hard work it was too, especially when we divided the big Midlands Block into two teams. My boots were actually dragging turf, which was clogging up in a perfect plug between the studs. It made my feet slip around quite a lot. The pushes were tough and I went down a few times – often landing on poor Jo Hazle, and at one point when on the front line, I cleaved a fissure in the enemy lines and I fell clean through the gap created in their midst. .
Many of our pushes were successful, though were rather clustered in reform with people changing positions to get further back or forward in the lines as they wished, and forming up on the outsides, making it tougher for those arriving back a little later to get into the middle rows and columns. Sometimes arriving back first, I still found myself shunted further back in the lines which was quite frustrating.
After a parley, more pushes followed and the Scots got to annhilate Newcastle’s Whitecoats, an event that really happened at Marston Moor. The total decimation of a regiment was quite a rare event. The Whitecoats literally had no survivors.
After that, we marched off, and the event was followed by an informal regiment meeting for Skippons, with praise for Michaela Davies’s work on the regiment newsletter, (for which she deservedly earned the Roger Hole spur, an awarded spur belonging to one of the regiment’s founders and its earliest commanding officer.
We sat around the camp drinking, and enjoyed it enough to disregard the rain. Granny Carol was kind enough to loan out several umbrellas to us to keep us all dry.
Only after it went dry again did we head for the Beer Tent, mostly sitting around just outside.
As their car creaked a lot with a restless insomnia-suffering sleeper in it, and the car was right next to their tent Alec & Michelle asked if I could use one of the other offers of a place to sleep for the night. Gail-Patricia Paley had a spare bed in her very luxurious camper van, which I was welcome to use and even her dog, Sandy, seemed happy for me to move in for the night.
BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY 31st AUGUST 2009
Along with about seven members of the regiment, I volunteered for the 8 am to 10 am guard duty shift. Sandy woke me up by licking my face and I had no idea what time it was. I was about an hour early, as I found out from other early risers on the campsite so I went back to bed for a while before heading to meet Amy Senior (who had made the arrangements for our shift) and the other guard duty members.
The first hour was very quiet, though many early morning joggers were passing by, and though Living History wasn’t open to the public until 10.30, people were arriving up to an hour ahead of time. There was also a TV crew filming some celebrities who were joining us for the day. They were Rory McGrath & Paddy McGuinness who were filming season two of their Channel Five TV series Rory & Paddy’s Great British Adventure. They would be fighting in pike blocks in the afternoon, though Skippons brave boys sadly never got to challenge them.
Though we briefly got to re-engage Lisle’s, our main opponents were Newcastle’s, and though we had the upper hand in much of the battle they fought with great energy and sportsmanship. Seeing that in one push with me on the front line, that my lid had slipped so that the chin strap was jammed in my mouth like a horse bridle, one of them asked me if I wanted to yell man down. I insisted not though it came out as ‘mmmmm grrfff’. Overall though, I stayed upright much more than I had on the Sunday. At one point, the blocks shifted and I found myself falling forward for trying to push against nothing and seemed to throw myself at the ground and at no one which looked and felt odd. My red coat took some damage during some of these pushes too. Hopefully it is not beyond mending like my tent.
We got to wipe out an entire regiment, not Newcastle’s. Most died quickly, though one lad stood looking perplexed as several pikes and musket butts prodded him, and even the corpses around him were hissing at him to take a hint and fall down. I asked him if he was some sort of zombie. He eventually lay down. The last standing opponent was an officer standing just outside my pike reach and I couldn’t give chase as we were ordered to keep the lines so I pointed my pike and yelled 'bang!'. He clutched his chest and fell down on cue, though muskets were going off so he may have been reacting to those, but I like to think I shot him with my pike. I can but dream.
We marched back to camp in triumph, and after a short break, we tidied up the camp, took down the tents (easy in my case), said farewells and prepared to leave, though many were staying for one last night too. My dead tent was thrown into a skip and Alec & Michelle dropped me off home at about 7.30 pm. It was the end of a great battle weekend, and for me, the close of the wonderful 2009 season.
IN GRATITUDE
Lots of people to thank as ever, including Alec Bickerton & Michelle Day, for transportation, Mark Cullen, for assistance in the first night tent repairs, Alec & Michelle for letting me use their car on the Saturday night, the water carriers, Granny Carol, for use of her umbrellas, Glenham's, the event host regiment, Lisle’s, Hoghtons, Gerrard's, Newcastle’s & various other sporting opponents on the field, Nick Gregory, Jo Hazel & Mark Scoular and others for their work on the cocktails, all our officers for the exceptional barbeque feast, Our German & Dutch guests for making the event all the more special.
PHOTOS TAKEN BY MYSELF OVER THE BATTLE WEEKEND 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150
LINKS
THE SEALED KNOT http://www.thesealedknot.org.uk/
PHILIP SKIPPONS REGIMENT OF FOOT http://www.skippons.co.uk/
A
TYPICAL RE-ENACTMENT BATTLE CAPTURED ON YOUTUBE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFhHsez0CR8&feature=related
RORY
& PADDY’S GREAT BRITISH ADVENTURE
http://demand.five.tv/Series.aspx?seriesBaseName=RoryPaddysGreatBritishAdventure
Youtubes of the battle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p1Xf_IVbEc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDaJPQBmO_g
PREVIOUS BATTLE – WESTON-SUPER MARE
2009 NEXT BATTLE – NANTWICH 2010
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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