Sir William Waller and Malmesbury. 



181 



But T cannot on the present occasion follow him in his "retreat" 1 from 

 Lansdown, where, to use his own language, " he escaped a shower 

 of balls," or subsequent defeat at Roundway, and the mazes of his 

 long and eventful life, for I must return to Malmesbury, and pass over 

 its re-occupation by the Royalists, to notice the re-capture by the 

 Parliamentary forces under Colonel Massey, May, A.D. 16i4, and 

 we have this interesting record of it, which should be compared 

 with Sir William Waller's letter of the previous year : — 



" The next day Massey faced Malmesbury, and summoned it for the King and 

 Parliament ; but Colonel Henry Howard, the Governor, returned answer ' That 

 he kept it for the King and Parliament assembled at Oxford, and without their 

 command would never part with it.' And for further answer fired upon them 

 gallantly. Massey's foot got into the suburbs, and broke their way through the 

 houses, till they came almost up to the works, and the only place of entrance into 

 the town, which is built upon the level of a rock ; Massey caused a blind to be 

 made across the street, to bring up the ordnance within carbine shot ; but in the 

 heat of business the fancy of an alarm seized upon his men, that those in the 

 town were sallying out upon them, which was nothing so ; and yet so prevalent 

 was this panic fear that those very men who at other times would brave it in the 

 face of an. enemy, venture on breaches, and almost to the mouths of discharging 

 cannons, now were smitten with such distraction and fear, that they all fled when 

 none pursued them, and left their ordnance in open street. The garrison, by 

 reason of the blind, perceived not this advantage, which otherwise had proved, 

 fatal to the assailants. Massey had much to do to rally his amazed soldiers*, 

 but at last they recovered both their courage and their ground. Yet by this 

 means the pretended assault was put off till the next morning ; when at break of 

 day a forlorn hope, seconded with a good reserve, advanced to the only passage 

 that had no drawbridge, but only a turnpike : to which they came up, and flung 

 in their granadoes. Those within made a shot at random, but by the disadvantage 

 of a rainy night their musquets lying wet on the works were little serviceable ; 

 so that Massey's men thronged in, and got possession of the town. Colonel 

 Howard was taken at the works, making as brave a resistance as was possible, 

 having received three several shots in his clothes, yet all missed his body. Upon 

 the first entrance Massey gave strict orders that the town should be preserved 

 from plunder ; nor would he at any time suffer his soldiers to ransaek any place 

 they took by storm, giving this reason, ' That he could not judge any part of 

 England to be an enemy's country, nor an English town capable of devastation 

 by English soldiers.' 



" Colonel Devereux was left governor of the town, and hia regiment quartered 

 there. (Rushworth, Hist. Col., Pt. III., Vol. 2, pp. 738 and 739.)" 



How Malmesbury was garrisoned by the Parliament after this 



1 Tn the MS. of Waller's " Memoirs " he says " upon the retreat." In the 

 published edition this becomes " when I made the retreat from Lansdown." 



