The Herefordshire village of Canon Frome is difficult to find. It is well signposted enough, down a lane off the A417 to the east of Hereford itself, but one searches for the village in vain. In fact Canon Frome consists of a manor house, a parish church and a number of farms and houses scattered over several square miles of gently rolling countryside made up of a patchwork of fields and woods. It is about as quietly rural as a quietly rural area gets in 21st Century England.
It was not very different back in the 17th century, though if anything it was even quieter due to the lack of motorised traffic and tarmac highways. But in June 1645 bloody war came here as the closing stages of the English Civil War brought sudden death and bloody wounds to this quiet corner of England.
The Commanders at Canon Frome
The Royalist garrison at Canon Frome was commanded by Colonel John Barnard, a Royalist from Lichfield. Barnard had joined the king's army as soon as the war broke out, volunteering for the Earl of Chesterfield's Regiment. This was a mixed body of Horse and Foot, with Barnard serving in the infantry section. For the next 18 months Barnard had a fairly quiet war, commanding detachments of the regiment as they served in garrison duty at various places around Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
In 1644 Barnard and his detachment took part in the Battle of Newark. In December of that year Ferdinand Stanhope, son of the Earl of Chesterfield and colonel of the regiment, was killed in battle. The regiment was then divided in two. The Horse were kept by the King, but the Foot was put under the command of Barnard who was thus promoted to the rank of Colonel. Barnard's force was by this date very under strength, so the king gave him a hundred or so Irish volunteers as reinforcements and then sent him to Hereford.
Arriving in Hereford, Barnard set about reorganising the somewhat run down and relaxed condition of the local garrisons. This went down badly with the garrisons, who had been enjoying a peaceful war to this date, and even worse with the local population. Barnard's orders included an instruction to extract as much tax money as possible from the county for the king's coffers. He had full authority to levy fines on anyone he thought might be shirking his duty to the king, and many fines were levied. Adding to the financial annoyances, the local people were none too impressed by the behaviour of the Irish. They were Catholics in a Protestant land, spoke a foreign language and - or so it was said - drank too much. Barnard was not popular, but it must be admitted he did the job the king had sent him to do.
When Barnard heard that a Parliamentary army was approaching he decided to take refuge in the best defensive position to hand, and that was Canon Frome Manor.
The commander of the approaching Parliamentary army was Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven. Leslie was a veteran soldier with a formidable reputation. He had been born in 1582, the illegitimate son of Leslie of Balquhain and a woman described only as a "wench from Rannoch". His father gave him an education, then in 1605 packed him off to earn his living as a mercenary in European armies.
Leslie served for three years in the Dutch militia as a captain, then transferred to the Swedish army. By 1627 Leslie had worked his way up to be a full colonel and was knighted by King Gustav Adolphus. He was then sent to command the city of Stralsund, then under siege by the forces of the Holy Roman Empire. Having gained the victory there, Leslie returned to Scotland to raise an entire army of mercenaries for Swedish service.Back on the continent by 1636 Leslie won the Battle of Wittstock, inflicting a key defeat on the Empire. The battle involved Leslie sending part of his army on a lengthy flanking march which allowed them to erupt from a forest to attack the rear of the enemy army. This was a bold move, which cemented Leslie's reputation as a commander of skill and daring who was able to maintain strict discipline among his men.
In 1638 the Scottish government - at this date entirely separate from the government of England although both countries shared the same monarch - offered Leslie command of the Scottish army. Leslie returned to Scotland to take up his new and lucrative position. He brought with him Scottish veterans of the continental wars, together with a huge quantity of arms and ammunition.
Leslie found himself arriving in a tense and difficult political situation. King Charles I was seeking to impose English church organsiation and liturgy on Scotland. The Scots wanted none of it and riots broke out in several places. In 1640 Scotland went to war with England, technically meaning that the Kingdom of Scotland was in rebellion against its own monarch. Leslie led the Scottish army into northern England and won a series of small but impressive victories culminating in the Battle of Newburn Ford on 28 August 1640.
When the English Civil War broke out, Scotland was at first not involved. In 1644, however, Scottish Royalists rose in rebellion against the Scottish government which was providing material aid to the English Parliament. That uprising was put down by the spring of 1645, and the Scottish army commanded by Leslie now marched into England to fight against the Royalist forces. Leslie commanded the Scottish forces at the Battle of Marston Moor and Siege of York, before marching to the west to reduce and capture Royalist garrisons and so deprive the king of money and men.
Leslie's main objective was to capture Hereford, but as he marched toward that city he found his path blocked by the small garrison at Canon Frome.
Photo : By Bob Embleton, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13995896
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