ANON., [SSNE 8053]
Text source
A rare reference to an act of kindness between two 'enemies' who had fought in the Low Countries. The following comes from the memoir of Major General Andrew Melville [SSNE 3071] and refers to his near capture after the Battle of Worcester, his rescue by two English women and then an incident with a Cromwellian soldier (who claimed to be a Royalist at heart).
Torick Ameer-Ali, ed., Memoirs of Andrew Melville, translated from the French, and the Wars of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1918)
p.127 The goodwife and her two daughters had been stripped by the soldiers, and whilst they were searching for some rags wherewith to cover themselves, they came upon me in the ditch into which I had been cast. They recognised me immediately, and remembering that I had, been recommended to their care, dragged me out of this grave in which I had been cast, and perceiving some slight signs of life still in me, carried me back to their house, laid me on some straw and covered me as best they could. I do not know what those kind women gave me, but consciousness soon returned, and after having informed them what had happened to me and how the battle had gone, I begged one of my rescuers to go into the town and enquire if General Douglas was among the prisoners. If she heard he had been taken, she was to try and speak to him and tell him my name and the condition I was in. The good woman who knew me from the first time I had been placed in her care, carried out my commission very adroitly. She learned that General Douglas was a prisoner and that he had lost one eye. She also found a means of speaking to him without, being observed, and told him all that I had asked her to communicate to him.
p.128 Douglas was a near kinsman of mine on my mother's side and my very good friend; he was much grieved at my misfortunes and sent his surgeon secretly the same night, who continued to visit me for four or five weeks. One evening as I was awaiting him as usual, I noticed him approach with a countenance that foretold what he had to say. He informed me that he had come for the last time, but as I was not yet cured he brought me the wherewithal to dress my own wound until I had quite recovered. He said he was obliged to follow his master, who was being transferred elsewhere, but did not know whither. As for the other prisoners, among whom was my brother, they had been condemned to work in the sugar and tobacco plantations in the Islands of America. These tidings caused me such violent sorrow that I could barely thank the surgeon and beg him to assure his ?master of my everlasting gratitude. He left with Douglas, of whom I never heard again, and I remained behind in the deepest desolation in the world. I stayed another three months, or more, in that house before I entirely recovered my health, with no means of preserving life within me but what two of the good women with whom I lived were able to beg for me from door to door while the third tended me.
p.129 One day when my charitable benefactresses were out on their usual mission, a soldier of the garrison which Cromwell had left in the city because he mistrusted it, took into his head, whilst walking round, to come and look into the house where lived. The door and windows were not very securely fastened and he could see that it was inhabited. He knocked, I cannot tell for what reason, and receiving no answer, he knocked louder, swearing that if the door was not opened at once he would force it in. My nurse was more dead than alive with fright and did not know what she should do. I told her to, let him in, as it was better for her to open the door than to allow him to break it open, and she obeyed me just at the moment the impatient soldier was about to carry out his threat. He burst in, hurling at both of us all the imprecations he could think of, and approaching me, asked who I was. I answered that I was a poor invalid who could tell him nothing that would satisfy his, curiosity. “No” replied he; “I can see you are a Royalist. You had better own to it at once." "As you say so," I replied, “I will not deny it. I have served in France and in Flanders, and when I went back to my home I was enlisted, I know not how, into the King's service, and I fought with it in the last battle." “I also
p.130 have served, in Holland, " answered the soldier and thereupon he spoke two or three words of Dutch, to which I replied in the same language, and we became the best of friends. He began by unburdening his heart to me, telling me that at bottom he also was, as good a Royalist as I, but that soldiers took which ever side they could engage on without any other?thought than the benefits to be obtained; and that to prove the sincerity of his words he would be happy to serve me in any way. Thereupon he asked the woman to go and fetch him some beer so that we might drink to each other. He also offered to share his purse with me, in which were four or five copper pieces;. and finally, after remaining in the house about a couple of hours he took leave, promising not to tell any?one that he had found me. He faithfully kept his promise and I never saw him again, nor anyone else, so long as I remained in that house ……
English Civil War
Service record
- THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, ANGLO-DUTCH BRIGADE
- Departed 1949-12-31, as SOLDIER
- Capacity SOLDIER, purpose MILITARY