POLITICAL HISTORY 



falconets, instead, which he undertook to convey safely by byroads. 

 They were refused however, and he was told that the fortress must be 

 evacuated. He then rode down on a good horse alone, avoiding the 

 Royalist parties, to his own house. There he impressed some carts and 

 horses, and took them through the park to the castle, and managed to 

 bring away safely most of his stores and men. The Royalists shortly 

 took possession, and another poet, Sir John Denham, a Surrey man 

 living at Egham, was made governor. He was pricked as sheriff of 

 Surrey by the king for 1643. 



The county was now on the verge of the field of serious war. 

 The king's army was just north of the Thames and Rupert's cavalry 

 were south of it. He had tried to take Windsor Castle by a coup de 

 main, but found it impracticable and drew off. On November 9 his 

 headquarters were at Oatlands. Kingston was now held for the Parlia- 

 ment by Sir James Ramsay, a Scotch soldier of fortune from the German 

 wars, with 3,000 men. Sir Richard Onslow and the Surrey trainbands 

 had been withdrawn, from a view of the importance of the place, its 

 Royalist feeling, and the chance of certainly either infection or friction 

 between Surrey men of opposite politics. Strangers were more safe. 

 On November 10 Rupert had withdrawn his headquarters to Egham. 

 He crossed the Thames at Staines on the night of the i ith, and in the 

 early morning of the 1 2th fell upon the advanced guard of the Earl of 

 Essex's army left too far advanced in Brentford. 1 Though reinforced, 

 the garrison of Brentford were overpowered and badly beaten. On 

 November 1 3 the king's army was face to face with Essex at Turnham 

 Green. But there was no battle. The king had the smaller force, and 

 not enough powder as was afterwards known. 2 Essex was strongly 

 posted for defence, and Ramsay's force at Kingston on the king's flank 

 and rear if he were beaten made it impossible for him to venture much. 

 Ramsay indeed was intended at first to attack the king while Essex 

 manoeuvred round his left flank, but the idea was abandoned, and Ramsay 

 was brought round by a circuitous march over London Bridge to Turn- 

 ham Green, where he would have been too late for a battle if one had 

 been fought on the i3th. He arrived late in the evening. The king 

 fell back without fighting, but Essex did not follow. His force con- 

 sisted largely of trainbands from London, who were not to be quite 

 trusted for movements under fire in the face of an active cavalry. He 

 fell back close to the fortified lines which had been begun round London. 

 A bridge of boats was thrown across the Thames at Putney, to enable 

 him to march if necessary to stop the king from going east through 

 Surrey, and the ends of the bridge were fortified with tetes du font. The 

 remains of that on the Surrey side are said to have been traceable early 

 in the nineteenth century. 3 There had been a skirmish in Surrey, which 



1 For Rupert's movements see ' Journal of Prince Rupert's Marches ' in English Hist, Review, 

 October, 1898, and Clarendon, Whitelocke and Rushworth. The king's infantry advanced from 

 Colnbrook to Brentford, but Rupert had been south of the Thames and came across to join in the 

 attack. 



* Whitelocke's Memorials. s Faulkner, Hist. ofFulbam, says that it was visible in 1812. 



I 409 DD2 



