Now! Then! Thomas Fairfax, the Rider of the White Horse, captures Leeds from the Beast with the help of Psalm 68

Excerpt

It was perceived by the forts on the south-side Aire, that if they could get some musketeers over the fields to the waterside without danger by the cannon, and musket from the bridge, they could force the great sentries from their works on the other side the river (in regard they had made no other defence against the south-side water) and so open an easy passage to Sergeant Major Forbes and his forces. Whereupon by single persons they got to the waterside, and hid them in a little lane (James Nayler, one of the dragooners, being first) whither they had no sooner got, then the demi-culverin from the bridge played near them, and about four muskets from that little lane, and two from under a stump of a tree, a little above by the water-side, discharged among the sentry, and one man being there slain, the rest perceived their error, and in conclusion fled apace out of the lower sentry, which being espied by those on the south-side Aire (Sergeant Major Forbes and his company not discerning them, for the height of their works hindered) a great shout from those on the south-side of the water, discovered it to the sergeant major, who with his forces coming down towards the water-side was helped by Lieutenant Horsfall, who lending him his shoulder to climb the top of the works, he most furiously and boldly entered the works single, him his said Lieutenant (wading through the river-side below the work) next followed most resolutely, them the rest followed, and Jonathan Scholefield (the minister at Croston Chapel in Halifax parish near Todmorden) in their company begun, and they sung the first verse of the 68th psalm, “Let God arise, and then his enemies shall be scattered, and those that hate him flee before him.” And instantly after the great shout on the south-side river, still informing of the enemies’ flight from the upper and next sentry (where about a hundred were) sergeant major entered that also, and Scholefield begun, and they sung another like verse.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

John Hodgson came over Woodhouse Moor:

We drew forth one night over Apperley bridge, by Rawdon to Woodhouse Moor, commanded by Sir Thomas, and there Hotham met us, it being designed to make an attempt upon Leeds, Sir William Savile’s quarters. And it proved such a tempest, that we could not draw up on the moor; but Sir Thomas drew us down into the bottoms towards Leeds, and by degrees we entered the town near the waterside, and our horse broke in on the other side, and met in the market-place and beat out their horse and foot, and put them all to run (Hodgson 1882).

A battlefield psalm was sung on achieving victory at Agincourt:

The heat of this battle continued three hours, and three hours longer did they continue to fight till such time as there was no more neither to kill nor take; so as about four in the afternoon a retreat was sounded, and by the prelates and chaplains, Te Deum, was sung, and the psalm In exitu Israel de Aegypto, and at the verse Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam, all threw themselves upon their knees.
(Biondi 1641)

Both this and the 17th century example above rest on Biblical precedent:

At the present going forward to charge, the trumpets did sound. This by God was appointed the only instrument; and these they used in onsets, as did Gideon, Abiiah, Machabeus in the time of the battle; in pursuit of the flying enemies, and in a retreat to call back from pursuing. The heathen Romans also used trumpets; but some other nations, as the Indians used cymbals and drums; the Saracens drums, the Lacedemodians, the flute and trumpet, the Cretans the harp.

Besides the trumpet, they used their voices, as shouting in the very sight of the enemy, and first charge, uttering words sometime, as the host of Gideon did, saying, The sword of the Lord and Gideon. They did shout at the routing of the enemy, and when they thought the enemy was come into their hands. Thus the Philistines shouted when Sampson was brought bound to them: and the Romans when they saw Josephus taken taken and brought prisoner into their sight. In the onset they also cried with prayers for help unto the Lord, when the trumpets sounded. When they went towards the enemy before they came to charge they would sing psalms, till they came near him, as Iehosophat did, and Judah with: him, yea the heathen used to go forward with trumpets and songs.
(Bernard 1629)

Both sources via Robert W. Daniel, who writes:

Though Parliament’s forces had not invented this type of battle praise, they were to capitalise on it. Several accounts of the 1640s aimed to create and shore up support, for what later became known as the ‘Good Old Cause’, by depicting psalms as the preferred battle songs of God’s people. This in spite or because of the reality that some of the enemies of the parliamentarians (the Royalists) and some of their erstwhile allies (the Scottish Covenanters) possessed psalm-singing soldiers or supporters, while some factions within the parliamentarian army even flat out refused to sing them at all.
(Daniel 2022/02/15)

As a child, I knew about King Billy on his white horse at the Battle of the Boyne, but not that the symbolism of the white horse was linked to specific verses from Revelation 19:

11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords.

17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;

18 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

If the Lord’s horse was white, the Devil’s was often black. Here‘s an – alas! – only vaguely dated example from August 1165, during Henry II’s disastrous war on the Welsh:

Due comete apparuerunt ante solis ortum mense Augusti, una ad austrum, altera ad aquilonem. Cometa est stella que non omni tempore sed maxime in obitu regis aut in excidio apparet regionis. Cum crinito diademate apparuerit fulgens regale nunciat letum, sed si autem ferens comas rutulansque sparserit illas, patrie monstrat excidium.

Tempestas magna fuit in eodem mense in provincia Eboraci. Antiquus autem hostis a multis visus est illam tempestatem in equi nigri et maximi specie præcedere, et semper ad mare fugiendo properare, persequente illo fulgure et tonitruo cum horrendis fragoribus et omnia devastante grandine: vestigia vero prædicti equi iniqui enormis magnitudinis sunt reperta, maxime vero de monte oppidi Scardeburch saltum ad mare dedit, ubi an singula vestigia tetre fosse in altum depresse patuerunt.

Que tempestas consumsit unum molendinum cum inhabitantibus super flumen Sabrine, excepto uno monacho, qui per ineffabilem Dei misericordiam salvatus est de incendio.
(Stevenson 1835)

Englished:

Two comets appeared before sunrise in the month of August, one to the south, the other to the north. A comet is a star which appears, not at all times, but principally at the death of a king or the downfall of a country. When it appears with a shining diadem of hair [i.e. tail], it heralds a king’s misfortune, but if with scattered tresses, it shows a country’s destruction.

In the same month there was a great tempest [it sounds like a tornado] in the province of York. And the ancient enemy was seen by many preceding that storm on a gigantic black horse, constantly hastening in flight to the sea, and pursued by thunder and lightning, with terrible crashes and all-destroying hail. Tracks of an enormous size of this wicked horse were found, particularly on the mountain of the town of Scarborough, whence it leapt into the sea, and where it could be seen that each track had been depressed into a deep furrow.

That storm consumed a mill with its inhabitants on the river Severn, with the exception of one monk, who was saved from the fire by the ineffable mercy of God.

If this translation is correct (and better than 18th and 19th century ones), where are the final tracks of the demonic horse to be found before its leap? Somewhere near Oliver’s Mount and Scarborough South Cliff? Or perhaps in the double valley just north of Silpho:

John of Fordun says that the comets foretell the death of Malcolm IV of Scotland, but I sense that I am boring you.

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Original

A true relation of the passages at Leeds, on Monday the 23 of January, 1642 [sic].

Sir Thomas Fairfax, son to the Lord General Fairfax, marched from Bradford (six miles distant from Leeds) on Monday morning with 6 troops of horse, and 3 companies of dragoons under the command of Sir Henry Fowles Knight, his Lieutenant General of the horse, and near a 1000 musketeers, with 2000 club-men, under the command of Sir William Fairfax Colonel, and Lieutenant General of the Foot. One company of these being dragoons under Capt. Mildmay, and about 30 musketeers and 1000 club-men, marched on the south side of the River of Ayr to Hunslet-more above half a mile from Leeds, on the south-east side towards Wakefield: and the rest on the north-side Ayr by Apperley-bridge (20 yards of Christall-bridge [Kirkstall] being broke down by the enemy) to Wood house-more. On the west-side Leeds about a mile thence; where they commending the cause to God by prayer, Sir Thomas dispeeded a trumpeter to Sir William Savile, who commanded in chief in Leeds, requiring in writing that town to be delivered him for the King and Parliament; which Sir William disdainfully answered and said, he used not to give answer to such frivolous tickets, being confident (it seems) that with the strength he had he could keep the town, wherein were about 2000 men, viz. 1500 foot, and 5 troops of horse and dragoons and two demi-culverins.

Sir Thomas approached nearer the south-west side of the town with his forts that came on the north-side Ayre, and coming within view of the towne with banners displayed (about 36 colours) sent another trumpeter to Sir William, who shortly after by a trumpeter assured him he should get nothing but by fight, whereupon he drew out of his companies 5 colours of his expertest soldiers, and appointed them to march down with Sergeant Major Forbes, Captains Briggs, Lee, Francke and Palmer, with his dragoons on foot, towards the water along the trenches, drawn two yards breadth and height from M. Harrison’s new church [St. John’s] along the south side of the town to the water, an inner trench being divided and drawn on the inside that long trench near the water-side, compassed about the declivity of the hill a little above the water. Near to and above which about a 100 musketeers were drawn out of the town, and about 2 of the clock in the after-noon, gave fire from the inside of the works upon Sir Thomas his musketeers, who approaching nearer shrouded themselves under a hill at the south head of the great fields before the great long trench, and let fly at the said sentry with no loss at all to either side, they within the trenches shooting too high, and the other at the trenches; meanwhile Sir Wm. Fairfax, Sir Tho. Norcliffe, and other captains leading their companies to the west side of the new church, and the troops of horse attending the enemies out-roads in the lanes and fields on the west, and north parts; and the forts of the south-side Ayre, approaching the bridge, forced the guarders to quit the works at the first sentry, placed on the outside the houses towards Beiston, brake through the works, and shot at the other strong sentry at the bridge end, where the forts discharged upon them without any loss to either side, but seeing the very near approach of the dragoons, musketeers and many club men and fearing the speedy forcing that place they instantly fetched to the bridge the demi-culverin. And after about an hour’s time spent in vain shooting between the forts within and without the works on the south side of the town, as aforesaid, Sergeant Major Forbes most bravely leading on his companies in the plain fields before the great trenches, his Lieutenant Horsfall of Halifax, Captains Lee, Brigg and Francke contended which should next follow, and Captain Chadwick’s Lancashire soldiers accompanied: the enemy shot most vehemently from the trenches, yet killed none.

It was perceived by the forts on the South-side Ayre, that if they could get some musketeers over the fields to the water side without danger by the Cannon, and musket from the bridge, they could force the great sentries from their works on the other side the river (in regard they had made no other defence against the south-side water) and so open an easy passage to Sergeant Major Forbes & his forces; whereupon by single persons they got to the water-side, and hid them in a little lane (James Nayler one of the dragooners being first) whither they had no sooner got, then the demi-culverin from the bridge played near them, and about 4 muskets from that little lane, and 2 from under a stump of a tree, a little above by the water-side, discharged amongst the sentry, and one man being there slain, the rest perceived their error, and in conclusion fled apace out of the lower sentry, which being espied by those on the south-side Ayre (Sergeant Major Forbes and his company not discerning them, for the height of their works hindered) a great shout from those on the south-side of the water, discovered it to the Sergeant Major, who with his forces coming down towards the water-side was holpen by Lieutenant Horsfall, who lending him his shoulder to climb the top of the works, he most furiously and boldly entered the works single, him his said Lieutenant (wading through the river-side below the work) next followed most resolutely, them the rest followed, and M. Jonathan Scholefield (the Minister at Croston Chapel in Halifax Parish near Todmorden) in their Company begun, and they sung the 1 verse of the 68 Psalm, Let God arise, and then his enemies shall be scattered, and those that hate him flee before him. And instantly after the great shout on the south-side river, still informing of the enemies flight from the upper and next sentry (where about a 100 were) Sergeant Major entered that also, and M. Scholefield begun, and they sung another like verse. So these works being gained, the enemy fled into the houses, and shot again furiously at those who had entered their works, who pursuing their victory, went up along the in-side the works to the third sentry at the lane near M. Metcalfes house, where fierce shot being made from a new house and all about, two men of Sergeant Major Forbes company were shot dead, here Captain Lee entering that sentry from the lane, leading from Chrystall-bridge, was shot in the leg above the ankle, some bones being broken and took out, he is likely shortly to recover. The victory they pursued, though with great difficulty; Captain Briggs drawing towards the old-church, was from an house shot under the chin near the throat, and in the arm, though not mortally, as is hoped. The enemy flying along a street or lane, from the 2 sentries near the water into the heart of the town, where the other demi-culverin lay to guard that passage, Sir William met them, and enquiring the cause of their flight, was answered that their works were entered, he called on them, go beat them out, promising to lead them, yet they denied: which he seeing, and that 12 musketeers, drawn on both sides that lane by Mr. Scholefield had gained that cannon by killing the cannoneer (though with loss of a gray cotes, the one whereof being shot, did fight beyond the strength of a man) he and the rest, perceiving the town lost, about an hour after the first sentry was entered) fled away, thinking to get over the bridge towards Wakefield, and some of them (upon occasion of the club-men’s beating back from that sentry by shot from any house near the bridge end) got, to the number of 40, by the south-side water, down toward Hunslet, but were many of them taken, amongst whom Captain Thirlwell Sir William seeing that way blocked, with many others fled amain back to the old church, by the south-side whereof by fine force they made way through clubs and fouling pieces along the north-side Ayre towards Pomfret [Pontefract]. Sir William being near drowning in the passages. Many ancients, drums and foot taken, and some slain here, viz. Captain Widrington, Maud of Wakefield, Hunsworth of Leeds, and others, captain Errington was drowned, so were M. Robinson vicar of Leeds and others, viz M. Calvery of Calvery, and M. Jackson of Leeds; and 460 common soldiers taken, with about 14 barrels of gunpowder, great store of match, 2 cannons and many muskets. So the town being taken about 4 a clock, notice hereof came to Wakefield about 6, the Garrison there about 12 quitted that place, and the malignants thereof, M. Nevile, Paulden, Reyser and the rest conveyed what goods they could to Pomfret, whence also the next night they fled away with 30 carriages, and all except about 200 who keep the castle; and captains Birkehead and Wilson with about 200 muskets and near 1400. club-men from about Almurbury, and 3 Troops from Leeds, entered vacant Wakefield the same Tuesday, and that night, and captain Radcliffe, and near as many musketeers and club-men on the next day from Quick, &c

As the musketeers and club men retreated from the water-side after the first a sentries were won, the cannon from the bridge played amongst them, and as they went on in the lane, leading to Beiston, it beat down the bars of a tenter which flew amongst them; and the next shot from it crushed the top of an house, yet did no more harm; these of Halifax Parish, viz. one Michael Woodhead, was shot upon his tin-buttons, and his doublet burst near his heart, and the bruised bullet fell down into his breeches and no more hurt; John Milne’s man, had his coat, doublet, and 2 shirts shot through to his collar bone on his back, whence the bullet rebounded and no hurt, but a little rotting of the flesh since; one Lilly, M. Tho. Lister’s man, had a bullet shot into the hilt of his sword, whereby the hilt was drawn out almost as small as wire where the bullet light and no hurt.

About 20 slain, 10. of Sir Tho. Fairfax part, whereof Sir Tho. Norcliffe lost 2 men, as they entered Leeds near new-church: The works cost about 500 lb. The 460 prisoners are all discharged (save about 20) upon oath taken never to serve against King and Parliament; and Leeds and Wakefield strongly guarded.

1746 words.

Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

23 January 1643: Thomas Fairfax, the Rider of the White Horse, captures Leeds from the Beast with the help of Psalm 68

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