193 



THE BATTLE (JF KOUNDWAY DOWN.i 



By the Rev. E. J. BoDiNCiTOX. 



{Read at the Meeting of the Society at Devizes, Jidi/ \i)th, 1012.] 



June and July, 1643, were among the most ciitical moments 

 of the war. As so often haj)pens, war had revealed the weaknesses 

 of the military system on hoth sides. On neither side as yet had 

 any great military genius arisen to create a new organisation. 

 That side on which he first appeared would have the hest chance 

 of victory. As everyone knows it was Cromwell's genius which 

 ultimately emerged and decided the war l)y creating th;it new 

 military method and machine known as the "New ^Model." It 

 was the failure, more conspicuous on the Parliamentary than on the 

 loyalist side up to the heginning of August, 1643, which prepared 

 the way for Cromwell's rise to supreme command. lioundway 

 Down Fight, small as were the numbers engaged in it, was one of 

 tlie final and decisive series of events leading up to this faihne 

 and new beginning; and in itself it was to a very considerable 

 degree final aiul decisive to the campaign in the West, which, l)y 

 liringing about the fall of Ih'istol, it ended in tlu^ King's favour. 

 The position at this time (July, 164-i) was as follows. Yorkshire 

 and the North, where Newcastle commanded, had already, to a 

 great extent, fallen under the power of the King. In the centre. 

 Essex, the best of the L^arliamentary g<MUM-als, facing the King and 

 Ills main army at Oxford had been puslicd to a staiidst ill apparent ly 

 helpless for some time at Aylesbury or Thame. In the West, Sir 

 llal])h Hopton coming up from Cornwall and Pevou had ellected 

 a j'unctaon with IT(M'tfor<l and Maurice at ("haid: and thir^had 

 been formed utulei- the coiuinand oi Heitfoid the third jiart nr 

 right think of a thr»Mtened converging at tack <.n I.nndMU and its 

 commerce, which was probably the King's j. Ian at this time. And 



' This paper, without the notes, was i)rinteil in the Wiltuhire Gazrtte, July 

 nth, 1912. 

 vol.. XXXVII. — Nn. CXVIII. 2 Z 



