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While going over details of the siege of Shelford House 1644-45, for research on the Queen's Lifeguard of Horse (where the defenders were all put to the sword after a vicious fight!), I noticed the following incident which involves one of the namesakes of a certain member in the reconstructed King's Lifeguard of Foot, namely Rob Slater. Therefore, I thought that this would interest and amuse readers, although, the relationship of the descendants is of course undetermined.
On February 17th, 1644, about thirty soldiers of the Royalist garrison of Shelford and Wiverton Houses, made another attempt at seizing Trent Bridge. As Colonel Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham Castle, the Parliamentarian commander of the area reported: "Sir, this design the enemy had against our bridges, which are the very key of our garrison. This being market day, Shelford and Wiverton had chosen out thirty of their men, who in disguises should come like women and market people, and with long knives, daggers, hatchets and such kind of weapons, as they had hid under their clothes, seize on the guards, and given a shout just when they had done, and then the rest of their horse and foot should have fallen on with those in the disguises, should have murdered the men at the bridge, and seized upon the gates next to the town."The Royalists were escorting a convoy of horses laden with sacks, which instead of holding country produce, were instead stuffed with pistols, powder and match. The plan was to overtake the guards on the bridge, then the rest of the Royalist horse and foot would charge across and surprise the Parliamentarian forces in the town. This scheme was foiled by advance warning, and twelve Royalists were captured on the bridge. Seven tried to swim the river, of which five drowned as they tried to escape, four more were taken out as prisoners, and their captain escaped by swimming across the river. The prisoners taken were all released later upon exchange except a deserter from the Parliamentarian forces (now on the Royalist side), called "Slater" who "this day was taken coming into the town with a montero pulled closed about his face". He was court-martialled for being a spy and traitor, and then executed. Colonel Hutchinson in fact, threatened to tie burning match to all of the prisoner's fingers to get all the details of the plot from them, and was even thinking of having them executed as spies, because they were caught in disguise. Well, its at least nice to see that "Slater" was not one of the thirty soldiers dressed as a |
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