John Jeapes

The city of Worcester had been beset with rumours for many days. Some suggested that the King expected his friends to provide reinforcements from Wales, so he would stand and fight. But when they failed to arrive, the people begin to speak openly of anarchy, and of the chaos that would follow if His Majesty’s army was defeated. Everyone knew that Oliver Cromwell would then enter the city, and even the King was preparing for the end. Would the unthinkable happen? Could the Parliamentarian army blow holes in the walls of the city and let in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops, bent on pillage and punishment? In the great and glorious city of Worcester, the Royalists had grown soft living under God’s protection, but such was the instability of the times that even they could not bring themselves to believe that their destruction was nigh. Rumours crept like bad smells through the streets, especially when the stonemasons shoring up the city walls told of a mighty army of Parliamentarians marching towards the city. But the joy of war always talks better than it plays, although the prospect of a battle that could be won by bravura was enticing enough to attract a few adventurers. On the evening streets, the city had closed up like a clam. Those with enough money had already left, leaving the rest to make do with locked doors and badly boarded windows.