A HISTORY OF SURREY 



it calls upon those who dislike fighting to come out and fight and to 

 promote peace and order by violence. Holland plundered partisans of 

 his enemy in the neighbourhood of Kingston, seized some horses, but 

 gained few more adherents. Sir John Evelyn, who was stopped on his 

 way through the town, was released with an apology by Holland's orders. 

 On July 6 he started to march towards Dorking. Captain Pretty seems 

 to have arrived in Kingston after Holland had left it, took seventeen 

 stragglers of his force prisoners and returned with them to Windsor. 

 He probably remained to guard the line of the Thames, where all horse 

 ferries between Lambeth and Windsor were removed. 1 Holland mean- 

 while passed through Dorking to Reigate. There was some plundering, 

 and from evidence on the earl's trial it appears that one Reigate man 

 was shot by a Royalist for refusing to give up his pistols. But there 

 was neither strength nor purpose in the rising. Perhaps Holland meant 

 to join hands with the Sussex insurgents, perhaps to look for help among 

 the Surrey countrymen still smarting under the treatment of their peti- 

 tioners. Livesey and Gibbons on the same day were on their march 

 from Sevenoaks towards Reigate. For the brief campaign we have the 

 guidance of an actor, Major Lewis Audeley of Livesey's horse, evidently 

 an efficient officer and intelligent reporter. He was a Surrey man by 

 residence, married to the widow of Mr. Hawtrey of West Purley in 

 Sanderstead. He had been detached from his commander and was at 

 Hounslow with three troops when the rising was made. He was ordered 

 to rejoin Livesey, and on the way to disperse any gathering on Banstead 

 Downs. On the 6th therefore, while Holland was marching from King- 

 ston to Dorking and thence towards Reigate, Audeley, who would also 

 come over Kingston Bridge, was moving in a line north-east of him over 

 Banstead Downs towards the same point. There was no company 

 gathered on the Downs ; the 4,000 or 5,000 men whom rumour had 

 assembled there 2 were non-existent. Audeley approaching Reigate found 

 Holland already there with vedettes posted on Red Hill to observe the 

 road from Kent by which Livesey and Gibbons would arrive. Audeley 

 passed north of him and wheeled round to face him on Red Hill, with 

 his retreat secure towards the road by which his friends were coming. 

 He engaged the outposts on Red Hill and drove them in, but found 

 Holland's main body too strongly posted to be attacked in Reigate, where 

 they had possessed themselves of the half dilapidated castle then belong- 

 ing to Lord Monson the Independent. Audeley drew off apparently 

 northward or southward to guard the roads either to London or to 

 Sussex, but not eastward, for Gibbons coming up the same night from 

 Kent missed him. Gibbons pushed on into Reigate, finding it deserted 

 by the Royalists who had unaccountably retreated to Dorking. Gib- 

 bons again left it and bivouacked on Red Hill. Next morning, on the 

 7th, Livesey's whole force came up, Audeley joining them, and they 



1 See Montagu MSS. Hut. MSS. Comm. Report, A letter from Lady Winwood from Ditton, July 

 25, 1648. 



* Holland's Trial in Clarke Papers. 



418 



