The reign of Henry IV. is distinguished by the “Battle of Shrewsbury,” one of the most terrible battles recorded in the History of England. Henry was surrounded on all sides by difficulties and dangers. His nobles were animated by mutual hostilities. His subjects in Wales seized the opportunity which the discontent among the aristocracy of England gave them, and broke out in insurrection. Inspired and guided by Owen Glendower, the indomitable Welsh fought a long and tedious battle, in which the royal representative, Sir Edmund Mortimer, was taken prisoner. Mortimer’s nephew, the Earl of March, was also carried into Wales. Henry could not be persuaded to offer a ransom for the liberty of Mortimer. His refusal embittered the Percies, to whose assistance he owed his crown. During this unsettled state of affairs the Scots made incursions into England. The peers consented to attend the king in an expedition against Scotland. The expedition proved abortive. Henry found that Richard III. would not obey his mandate to do homage to him for his crown; he found that the Scots would not submit; he found that they would not give him battle. He therefore withdrew and disbanded his army. The Scots, resolved to punish Henry for this miserable attempt at subjugation, marched into the northern counties of England at the head of Earl Douglas. They were totally routed in the battle which ensued at Holmedon; and Douglas, with a number of nobles, was taken prisoner. Henry ordered the Earl of Northumberland not to ransom the prisoners. Northumberland had a right to ransom or return them. A dispute was the result. The relations between the sovereign and the Percies were more deeply embittered, and Northumberland was forbidden by Henry to enter the court.

Get thee gone, for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye.
O, Sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And Majesty may never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us: when we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.

The Earl was disgusted and indignant at the ingratitude of Henry. It was by his aid that Henry had advanced to the throne. Henry had conferred upon him some gifts in return, but Northumberland was not easily satisfied. Henry, on the one hand, was jealous of the power which had seated him on the throne; and the earl, on the other, was discontented with the compensation which Henry had made. The interference of the king with the right of Northumberland to dispose of his prisoners according to his own wish was deemed a fresh insult and injury. Northumberland determined upon revenge by overturning the throne which had been established principally by him. To this end he and his adherents proclaimed that Richard was alive, but that having been satisfactorily disproved, he planned a scheme for defending the claim of Mortimer to the crown. It was laid that the armies of Wales and Scotland should be united. Mortimer entered into covenant with Northumberland to bring an army into the Marches, which the Welsh, commanded by Glendower, were to join. The Earl of Worcester, brother of Northumberland, joined the forces, and in order to win over the Scots to the compact, Douglas and the other prisoners were set at liberty. At the moment when everything was ready for an engagement Northumberland was suddenly seized with a dangerous malady at Berwick. The conduct of the army was taken by his son Percy, surnamed Hotspur, this “Mars in swaddling clothes,” “this infant warrior,” who

Doth fill fields with harness in the realm
Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws,
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.

Hotspur, along with the magnanimous and martial Douglas, marched the troops towards Shrewsbury, where it was intended to join the forces of the Welsh under Glendower. The king, aware of the importance of celerity, hurried down to Shrewsbury before the arrival of Hotspur, whose design was to reach here first. Glendower had not brought his army up, but Hotspur nevertheless resolved to make a stand. He had a force of 14,000 carefully selected soldiers. He had, too, the advantage of choice of ground. The animosity had reached its height on both sides. A general engagement was inevitable. It was brought to a head by the impatience of Percy on the one side, and by the policy of the king on the other, the king believing that without the aid of Glendower the defeat of Percy was secure. On the evening previous to battle Percy sent to Henry a manifesto in which he renounced his allegiance, set the sovereign at defiance, enumerated the grievances of which the nation had abundant reason to complain. He upbraided him with perjury, with infidelity to the late monarch, with aiding the murder of that prince, with usurping the title of the house of Mortimer, with adopting the most crooked and cruel policy, with burdening the nation with unrighteous taxes, and with corrupting the Parliamentary elections. This added fuel to the flame. This intensified the quarrel between them.

These things indeed you have articulated,
Proclaimed at market-crosses, read in churches,
To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine colour that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurly-burly innovations.

When the morning of the 21st of July, 1403, dawned, the two armies were drawn up in array at a place then called Oldfield, Bullfield, and Haitefield, subsequently Battlefield, near Shrewsbury. Percy held the most advantageous ground, but the king, to balance the loss of superior position, made a most skilful disposition of his men. Hotspur addressed his men, telling them that they must either conquer or die an ignominious death. They replied with shouts of applause. The king sent the Abbot of Shrewsbury to offer pardon, but it was useless: Hotspur would not lay down arms. He was asked why he appeared to oppose his king? In reply he repeated the accusations of the manifesto. Henry counselled him to confide in his royal clemency. Percy peremptorily declared that he would not, and thereupon the standard bearer of the king’s army marched forward, and the battle commenced. Terrible was the shock of opposing forces. It was one of the most fearful actions in all our history. It began with a shower of arrows on both sides. The Scots followed with a rush of tremendous fury upon the front of the royal line, and put them into temporary confusion. The king, however, was in the thickest of the fight, and was known to his soldiers, although arrayed in a manner which effectually prevented his being recognised by his enemies. His presence lent new courage to his partially disorganised forces. Though foremost among the foremost Hotspur and Douglas tried in vain to discover him. A device of concealment had been adopted. Several were armed like the king, and thus it was impossible to distinguish the royal warrior. But at every one that was conspicuous Hotspur and Douglas furiously charged with swords and lances. The gap in the royal line had nearly decided the victory by disordering the king’s army. It was a daring and dashing move, and spread dismay among the disconcerted, but it evinced more impetuosity than judgment. It was one road to victory to force a way into the centre of the king’s forces, but it opened up a path into which Hotspur’s men were unable to follow. Seeing this, the king ordered his reserve to be brought up. The promise of triumph was lost to Hotspur. The reinforcements turned the scale. Hotspur’s army was defeated, and fled in great confusion, after a severe contest of three hours duration. Douglas performed feats of incredible valour. Hotspur sustained his fame for supernatural courage; but the moment he observed the certainty of defeat, he rushed into the hottest part of the battle, and was killed, some say by Prince Henry.

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,
Nor can one England brook a double reign
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.

The loss of life was fearful. The dead lay in heaps all around. There were slain no less than 2,300 gentlemen, and about 6,000 private men, of whom two-thirds belonged to Hotspur’s army. On the side of the king, who fought desperately, and was throughout the engagement in the very middle of the fight, slaying, it is said, thirty-six persons with his own hand, there were 1,600 killed and about 3,000 wounded. Among the killed were the Earl of Stafford, and ten new knights who had been knighted on the same morning, only a few hours previously. Douglas and Worcester were taken prisoners. Worcester on the following Monday was beheaded at Shrewsbury, at the High Cross, that is, at the top of Pride Hill. Sir Theobald Trussel, Baron of Kinderton, and Sir Richard Vernon, met the same fate at the same time. Douglas, who had fallen from a crag of a rock on Haughmond Hill before being taken prisoner, was treated with the courtesy due to his rank and noble qualities, and afterwards liberated. The body of Hotspur having been found was beheaded and quartered in Shrewsbury, and the quarters fixed upon the gates of the town. Many of the dead were buried upon the field of slaughter; while some of the most notable were interred in the Black Friars and St. Austin’s Friars, Shrewsbury. Subsequently the king built Battlefield Church in honour of his victory, and settled upon it a certain sum to pay two priests for praying for the souls of the slain.

—:o:—

In the middle of the 15th century the Duke of York raised an army at Shrewsbury, really for the purpose of dethroning Henry VI., whose feebleness in conducting the Government was beyond dispute, but ostensibly only for the purpose of removing the Duke of Somerset from the councils of the King. The Duke of York was subsequently killed in a battle near Wakefield, whereupon his son, Edward, Earl of March, afterwards King of England, to revenge the death of his father and the cruelties inflicted on his most attached friends, came to Shrewsbury, where 23,000 men flocked to his assistance. With these, principally Welsh borderers, he wholly defeated and dispersed the King’s forces at Mortimer’s Cross, near Hereford.When Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. arrived in England, and marched against Richard III. he was joined at Shrewsbury, by Sir Gilbert Talbot, High Sheriff of the county, who added 4,000 men to his small army. Henry, sensible of the material aid that was thus rendered him, paid Shrewsbury the compliment of visiting it shortly after he reached the throne; again in 1488 when he remained several days; a third time in 1490 when the King, Queen, and Prince Arthur were present at St. George’s Feast, which, strangely enough, was held in St. Chad’s Church, Princess Street; and a fourth time in 1495 when he was sumptuously entertained by the corporation—public men who, like Falstaff, had a hearty and deep affection for sack. Some of the charges for this banquet are most curious and amusing. There was bread which cost £2; there was bread for the Queen 2s. 8d.; there were four oxen, £3 6s. 8d!—there could have been no controversy about the high price of butcher’s meat; there were twenty-four wethers £1 12s.—talk of the “good old times,” what farmer, badly off as he is in these days, would wish them back again?—there were twenty-four bottles of wine for “the King and the Lords in the Castle,” 16s., eightpence a bottle!—there was wine to make Hipocrass for the Queen, 4s.; there was a tun of wine £8, and six hogsheads of ale £2 6s. The bread, oxen, and wethers cost £7 1s. 4d., the ale and wine for the King, the Queen, the guard, the King’s gentlemen, and the minstrels cost £13 15s.! That was a truly English entertainment! The Prince had 10s. spent on bread for his wants, and £4 on “half-a-tun of wine” for his refreshment and enlivenment. Rewards were given to children, footmen, players, and serjeants-at-arms. The total charge was £39 17s. 6d. Do hotel keepers sigh for the return of the ancient days?

For upwards of three-quarters of a century after the last visit of Henry VII. Shrewsbury received no royal attentions. After the lapse of eighty-five years, however, a representative of royalty in the person of Sir Henry Sidney favoured the town with a visit. Sir Henry Sydney, who had been educated at Shrewsbury School, was Lord President of the Welsh Marches; and in that character he kept St. George’s feast in Shrewsbury, on the 24th of April, 1581. Dr. Taylor’s account of his reception, and of the manner of the feast, is most amusing. Sir Henry “most honourably came from the Counsell House there, in hys knightly robes, most valiant, wyth hys gentilmen before hym, and hys knights followyng hym, in brave order.” In the rear of the knights were the bailiffs, aldermen, and “companyes of all occupations in the sayde towne, evrie company followinge in good and seemely order, towards St. Chadd’s Churche,” in Princess Street. At the church Sir Henry was seated, or “stallid,” as the manuscript reads, in the chancel, where the knights of the garter passed and repassed, “dyng as much honour as thoughe the Queen’s Majestic had been present.” By command of the Lord President, divine service was performed “to the gloryfying of God.” Connected with “the gloryfying of God,” at least in the narrative of Dr. Taylor, was the feast, which Dr. Taylor records supplemented the religious gloryfying. The procession was so long that when Sir Henry entered the church, “the last end of the trayne was at my Lord’s place, the Councill House.” A week later there was more feasting. The masters of the Grammar School, “the free scoole,” Dr. Taylor significantly calls the institution, provided it. Their names were Thomas Lorrance, John Barker, Richard Atkys, and Roger Kent. They were feeders unquestionably, for they made “a brave and costly bancket after supper, on the first daye of Maye.” The “dyshes” numbered forty, and “every scoole presented ten dyshes, with a shewer before every scoole.” The following day, in a spirit of elation, the scholars of the school, who numbered 360, “marched braveley in battell order” to the Gey in the Abbey Foregate, where they met the Lord President. The general and captains renewed their allegiance to the sovereign and valiantly declared that they “would feight and defend the countrey.” Sir Henry paid them the necessary compliment for their eloquence. He appears to have won the affection of the students. His departure was mourned as if it were an irreparable loss. He left the town on the 13th of May in a barge, and at a certain point along the shore of the river were stationed a number of melancholy scholars “apparelyd in greene, and greene wyllows upon theire heads,” for the purpose of making lachrymose appeals to him to remain, of reciting doleful ditties upon his departure, of lamenting the end of the halcyon days of “brave and costly bankets” and of delivering eloquent orations on their eternal fidelity to the constitution. One elegist pitifully affirmed that his “woe was greate,” that out of the intensity of his grief he was compelled to rend his garment. The same inconsolable spirit ventured to implore the Severn to “turn its stream quite backe.” Another burst out wailingly—“O woeful wretched time, O doleful day and houre;” another declared that the sight of Sir Henry’s leaving gave him “a pinching payne that griped his hart;” while another uttered the sensible wish that “we could like fishes swyme that we myght wyth thee goe.” It can readily be believed, as Dr. Taylor says, that all this lugubration caused “my Lord hymself to change countenance!” The bailiffs and aldermen, however, preserved a different spirit—a spirit which may be readily appreciated from the fact that after the scholars had done their lamentations they “dyned altogether in the bardge uppon the water when they came to Atcham!” Aldermen without a doubt and of a truth.

Nothing of moment occurs in the history of Shrewsbury after this until we come to the reign of Charles I. Charles had to remove his standard from Nottingham. On the 19th of September, 1642, he mustered his forces at Wellington. He placed himself in the centre, and addressed the soldiers in a vigorous tone. The next day he reached Shrewsbury. One of his first acts was to borrow £600 out of the Grammar School Treasury. His next was to re-establish the mint for the coining of the sinews of war. His next was to raise an army. He was joined by Prince Rupert, Prince Charles, and the Duke of York who, with several Shropshire noblemen and gentlemen, quickly formed a force for the defence of his cause. Those who could not obtain horse or foot contributed plate to be coined at the mint. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge presented him with a quantity of plate. Thomas Lyster, Esq., of Rowton, gave the king a purse of gold, which the sovereign acknowledged by elevating him to the rank of knighthood. Sir Richard Newport, in return for his services, was advanced to the honour of a Baron of England by the title of Lord Newport. Sir Richard, fully appreciating the King’s wants, presented him with £600. The people, it is said, were enamoured of Charles. Large numbers of them enlisted as volunteers, and some were rewarded with knighthood for their loyalty.Charles made Shrewsbury a garrison town. Under his direction Lord Capel built a strong fort on the Mount to prevent any enemy from planting cannon there. It was called Cadogan’s Fort. Two years after, in 1644, Colonel Mytton, a valorous officer who governed a small garrison at Wem, and was general of the Parliamentary forces in Shropshire, made two unsuccessful attempts to reduce Shrewsbury. The first occurred on a Saturday, when he attacked the fort at the Mount, but was repulsed. The second effort was made on the following Saturday, about midnight. Mytton brought his forces to the Old Heath, but the darkness was against them. They mistook their way, and marched in the direction of Pimley and Atcham. On the succeeding Saturday the third attempt took place. General Mytton’s forces consisted of 250 foot and 250 horse drawn out of the garrisons of Wem and Moreton Corbet. To these were added the same number of foot and horse of the Staffordshire army, under the command of Colonel Bowyer. Sir William Brereton gave valuable assistance. They arrived at Shrewsbury on Saturday morning, February 22nd, 1644. They landed under the Castle Hill, on the east side. Half a hundred troopers dismounted, and, led by the Rev. Mr. Huson, Captain Villiers, and Lieutenant Benbow, stormed the town with pistols. Musqueteers followed along the Severn side, under the Castle Hill, near the Council House, and entered the town at the gate of the Water Lane, which now runs into Raven Street. The musqueteers were succeeded by about 350 foot. These marched to the Market Square; and meanwhile the remainder of the Parliamentary army reached the Gates, which then stood on Castle Gates. The royal guard had fled, and the horse under General Mytton and Colonel Bowyer entered the town unresisted. Dreadful consternation spread among the inhabitants. Mytton’s men came down “like wolves on the fold.” They plundered goods; they pilfered plate; they stole whatsoever they could. Distress immediately prevailed. Shrieks and lamentations were heard far above the din of the contending parties. The people were devoutly loyal to their monarch. Their sufferings were painfully grievous. The Castle and the fort at the Mount held out for some time with great bravery, but at twelve o’clock at noon the Castle was delivered up upon condition that the English march to Ludlow, but the Irish remain as the conquerors’ prisoners of war. About midnight the fort could no longer be defended, and was handed over to the Parliamentarians. The whole of the garrison surrendered upon bare quarter. It is remarkable that the loss of life on both sides amounted to only two: one Parliamentarian, Richard Wycherley, of the Clive, Grinshill, and one royalist, the captain of the main guard, who was killed at the Market Square. Among the prisoners taken were eight Knights and Baronets, forty Colonels, Majors, Captains, and other officers, with a large quantity of ordnance. Colonel John Benbow, who had joined the king in Shrewsbury in September, 1642, was in 1651 condemned by Court Martial at Chester for corresponding with the king. He was sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried out on the 15th of October, 1651, in the Cabbage Garden, afterwards the Bowling Green, near the Castle, Shrewsbury. On the 16th the body was buried in St. Chad’s churchyard (old St. Chad’s). The stone which marked his grave was re-cut in the year 1740 at the expense of Mr. Scott, of Betton, “to perpetuate his memory.”

Charles II., visited Shrewsbury. Struck with surprise at the width and cleanliness of the streets, he expressed, a wish to elevate it into a city. The burgesses, who appear to have left their first love, and to have degenerated in their affections for kings, refused his offer in such an independent spirit that they obtained for themselves the designation of “Proud Salopians”—a designation which is often applied to us as a term indicating that we are haughty, stiff, conceited. Is there not something honourable in it? The title means that once upon a time we performed the courageous feat of declining the wish of a king—we said “no” to a sovereign—we rejected the proffered compliment of being exalted by a monarch. Strange but re-assuring phenomenon from the descendants of the zealots of Richard II., and from the devotees of Charles I.!

The last royal visit to Shrewsbury—and, as we have seen, there was a number of them, chiefly of either a disturbing or a worthless sort—was made by James II. in August, 1687. Of course, the indispensable feasting, which is a fundamental element in our glorious British Constitution, was held in great style. A magnificent court was kept in the Council House on August 25th; and the next day the King left this town for Whitchurch. With his departure end our stories of the calls of kings on their subjects at Shrewsbury.