Page 53 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

HeRItAge
Cavalry were the shock troops of the day. Winning the battle was often determined by the cavalry charging and driving off your opponent’s cavalry and then their ability to re-group and turn on the infantry.
Photograph – Levitt Parkes. The Sealed Knot.
coming from several directions at the same time. Following on behind were three pieces of artillery. this force blocked all roads into Wellingborough to prevent the town getting any outside help.
Captain John sawyer advanced along the road from Wilby upon Westende. edmund neale, a wealthy Wollaston family man was leading a Royalist force opposing him. John fired at edmund, calling him a ‘Popish rascall’ but missed. John was then in turn hit by ‘goose shot’ causing him to fall from his horse, and local women dived in to set about him with clubs. He would have died there and then had not another Mr gray, (oliver, nephew of Francis) taken pity on him and dragged him away from the attentions of these women they took him to a nearby alehouse run by a man whose wife was John’s aunt, but he died a day later.
Francis gray’s servant and another man held off, with their muskets, 80 – 100 dragoons at the lower end of town. this was probably by swanspool brook, at Brek Bridge, a very narrow bridge leading from sheep street to London Road, and a ford to the Doddington track. this area often floods, and would have been boggy, muddy and a good defensible position for minimal troops.
In the end, however, numbers outweighed the meagre force of ill-equipped Royalists. In his last act, the mortally wounded Captain John sawyer persuaded the Royalists to yield, saying that if they did not, artillery would bombard the town and force all to submit. In due course a letter was forthcoming from the Royalist defenders to Colonel norwich offering the surrender of the town and pleading for its safety.
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