The English Civil War took place between 1642 and 1651. It was divided into three periods – 1642-46, 1648 and 1650-51. King Charles I was executed in 1648, but he and his army passed through the parish of Wickhamford in 1644.
Movements of King Charles’ Army
In May 1644, the King was in Oxford and two Parliamentary commanders – Sir William Waller and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex – were trying a pincer movement to trap the King there. He escaped the trap and on 5th June retreated across the River Avon into Evesham with an army of 7,000 men and a baggage train including 30 carriages carrying the ladies of the court and their baggage. The army was tracked by Waller, who had halted in Broadway. King Charles had arrived in Evesham the day after another Parliamentary force, under Edward Massey, had taken Tewkesbury. The King felt vulnerable in Evesham and the loyalty of the population was questionable. They resented having to feed his army and the existing garrison of 550 men.
On the morning of 5th June, the King retreated further, to Pershore, but before he left, he ordered the bridge between Evesham and Bengeworth to be destroyed. The one at Pershore was also destroyed, but in the process forty local men and soldiers died when it unexpectedly collapsed.
The King then arrived in Worcester, but departed again on 12th June to return to Oxford. In the meantime, the citizens of Evesham had repaired their bridge and that allowed Waller to enter. He remained there only from 11th -12th June. On 16th June, the King passed quickly through Evesham, only stopping to fine the people £200 and 1,000 pairs of shoes for his soldiers. That was punishment for the citizens for repairing the bridge to allow Waller through. King Charles took the mayor and some aldermen as prisoners with him as he returned to Oxford, and once again destroyed the bridge behind him. He went via Broadway, then Chipping Campden, Stow-in-the-Wold and Burford to Oxford.
Waller set off to follow the King’s army and arrived in Evesham on 18th June, where he levelled the town’s defences. These had been constructed to form a barrier at Green Hill between the two sections of the River Avon, north of the town, to protect it from attack from that direction. He then marched to Tewkesbury to get reinforcements from Gloucester and finally fought the Royalists in a battle at Cropredy, near Banbury, on 29th June, where he was defeated. The King then returned to Worcestershire and stayed in hard-pressed Evesham for nine days, from the 4th until 17th July, in a house in Bridge Street.
Wickhamford village onlookers
As today, in 1644 within Wickhamford parish boundary, is the main road from Evesham to Broadway, along which the Royalist and Parliamentary armies would have marched. At that time there were a number of houses in the field at the junction of this road and the village street going to the Church of St John the Baptist and Wickhamford Manor. The inhabitants would have watched in awe, and perhaps fear, as King Charles and his men passed close by during that Summer on two occasions. Wickhamford Manor was then owned by Sir Samuel Sandys, one of King Charles’ generals and Governor of Evesham in 1642 and later Lieutenant-Governor of Worcestershire in 1644, at the time of the events described here. His father and grandfather are buried in the parish church. Whether King Charles or any of his men went to Wickhamford Manor as the Royalist army passed through the parish is not known.
In 1637, George Sandys had married Hanna Borton in Badsey. In the February of 1647 she died in Wickhamford and so did her new-born daughter, Margaret. It is likely that this Sandys family were living at Wickhamford Manor at the time of the events described above, in 1644. The Wickhamford parish records for the period 1640-1650 have about 40 different surnames recorded, so the population of the village at that time was likely to have been in the region of 120-150.
Future events
King Charles I was eventually captured, tried and then finally executed on 30th January 1649.
Sir William Waller died on 18th September 1668.
Sir Samuel Sandys’ estates were seized in 1646 and he was imprisoned for a while in 1651. After the Restoration, his lands were restored to him and he was elected an MP in 1660. He died in 1685.
Tom Locke, January 2025
Acknowledgement: The Civil War in Worcestershire, by Malcolm Atkin, published in 1995