John Poyer, the Civil Wars in Pembrokeshire and the British Revolutions

Lloyd Bowen

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781786836564
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This is the first book-length treatment of the 'turncoat' John Poyer, the man who initiated the Second Civil War through his rebellion in south Wales in 1648. The volume charts Poyer's rise from a humble glover in Pembroke to become parliament's most significant supporter in Wales during the First Civil War (1642–6), and argues that he was a more complex and significant individual than most commentators have realised. Poyer's involvement in the poisonous factional politics of the post-war period (1646–8) is examined, and newly discovered material demonstrates how his career offers fresh insights into the relationship between national and local politics in the 1640s, the use of print and publicity by provincial interest groups, and the importance of local factionalism in understanding the course of the civil war in south Wales. The volume also offers a substantial analysis of Poyer's posthumous reputation after his execution by firing squad in April 1649.

CHAPTER 1

The Setting: John Poyer and Early Stuart Pembrokeshire, c.1606–1640

John Poyer’s origins are lowly and unremarkable. In this he resembles his opponent at the siege of Pembroke in 1648, Oliver Cromwell. However, where Cromwell was a ‘by birth a gentleman, living neither in any considerable height, nor yet in obscurity’, Poyer could not even boast a gentlemanly lineage or minor status among the landed men of his native Pembrokeshire.¹ Indeed, Poyer’s background was so lowly that we cannot even be certain of his parentage. Rather he was a man who worked for his living: in other words, the very definition of what a gentleman was not in this period, and his enemies would make much of his ‘mechanic’ origins and low social rank. As we shall see, he began his working life in a local gentleman’s household before becoming a glover and a merchant. He even tried his hand as a fuller, or one who dealt with the cleaning of wool before its processing. All accounts agree that Poyer’s origins, and indeed the vast majority of his relatively short life, are located in and around the borough of Pembroke. Before we consider Poyer’s early life and his activities prior to the civil wars, then, we need to consider the environment in which he operated and the nature of the society in which he moved.

Pembroke was the county town of Pembrokeshire in south-west Wales and commanded a position over a branch of the sprawling Milford Haven estuary. Originally of Norman foundation, the town’s most notable feature was its imposing castle, which was largely constructed during the late-twelfth and early-thirteenth centuries. The town was the administrative centre for the medieval earldom of Pembroke, a role which helped sustain its local importance.² Pembroke was famous as the birthplace of Henry VII who had landed near the town in 1485 at the head of the successful invasion force that took the crown from Richard III and founded the Tudor dynasty. This was a matter of considerable local pride, with one antiquarian writing that Henry’s Pembroke origins caused locals to ‘greatly rejoice’.³ As a recognition of special favour towards his birthplace, King Henry VII bestowed upon Pembroke a charter of incorporation in the first year of his reign, organising the borough’s government around its chief officer, the mayor, alongside a council composed of two bailiffs and twelve other chief burgesses.

Yet despite such favours from its most famous local son, early modern Pembroke was much reduced from its medieval heyday. The author who wrote of Pembroke’s delight in Henry VII’s origins, George Owen, was a Pembrokeshire man with considerable local knowledge. In the guise of a traveller roaming around the county during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, he cast his eye over the borough of Pembroke, observing,

your ancient shire town . . . though now greatly decayed, yet still does it carry the show of a good town, loving people and courteous, very civil and orderly. The decay of that town, being the head of your shire, and which was in such estimation as it has been in your country in times past, made my heart sorry.⁴

The Jacobean cartographer, John Speed, was rather less forgiving in his assessment of the borough. He described Pembroke as ‘more ancient in shewe than it is in yeeres, and more houses without inhabitants than I saw in any one city throughout my survey [of Great Britain]’.⁵ The place seemed to him an imposing shell, with impressive buildings hiding a malaise within. Its population at this time was somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 souls.⁶

Pembroke’s rather sorry state by the early seventeenth century reflected a decline in its economic significance. It had retained its position as the shire town of Pembrokeshire, the new county created by the Acts of Union (1536–42). This gave it a degree of prestige and importance and also bestowed the privilege of sending an MP to parliament. It was also the case, however, that the neighbouring town of Haverfordwest was becoming increasingly prosperous and influential at Pembroke’s expense.⁷ The shire town’s rather sorry state in the decades before the civil wars was caused by an economic downturn and the decline of its trading and mercantile sectors. The principal ‘industry’ of south Pembrokeshire, in addition to the farming of oats and wheat, was wool and sheep. The trading of finished woollen goods had been crucial to the local economy in the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, but by the end of Elizabeth I’s reign the export of raw, unfinished, wool dominated.⁸ Our Elizabethan antiquarian, George Owen, observed that the inhabitants of southern Pembrokeshire ‘vent and sell their wool to Bristol men, Barnstaple and Somersetshire, which come twice every year to the country to buy the wool’.⁹ This connection with southwest England helps to explain how we find the surname Poyer in Somerset as well as Pembrokeshire during the seventeenth century, although the exact relationship between these far-flung families is difficult to establish.¹⁰

The shift from the trade in finished wools to the export of the raw product, however, was linked to Pembroke’s economic troubles. The powerful body of local law and administration, the Pembrokeshire justices of the peace, wrote in 1607 how the decline of ‘townes in thies partes hath chiefelie growen by the losse and discontinuance of the trade of clothinge’, which they attributed to the underhand practices of illicit traders. These men, they claimed, took locally produced wool into

secreate and obscure places and there uttered and soulde underhand unto strangers who carrie and convaye away the same out of the countrye so as the . . . townes . . . are not imployed or sett on worcke . . . as in former tymes they have bin, to the hindrance and decaie of the . . . townes.¹¹

Before the civil war, the powerful local gentleman – who would later become an important associate of Poyer – Hugh Owen of Orielton, was elected mayor of Pembroke in 1632.¹² He took the office partly, he wrote, to advance plans for encouraging the business of wool manufacture in the area as well as ‘raysinge of trade which is now decayed’.¹³ As we will see, John Poyer was involved in the wool business before the civil wars, perhaps in an attempt to further such schemes for local rejuvenation. However, the recent economic shifts which left his home of Pembroke with so many empty houses, also produced a difficult situation for a merchant and trader to make his way in the world.

Despite Pembroke’s empty properties in the seventeenth century, contemporaries agreed that it remained an impressive military site. Although wars had not troubled the area for many decades, Pembroke’s imposing medieval castle, thick town walls and advantageous strategic position, made it a strong potential bastion even in the face of modern artillery. This defensive strength would be crucial to its role in the civil war and to Poyer’s importance as its mayor and the commander of its garrison. It is therefore worth spending a moment or two considering contemporary descriptions of the town’s defences. The cartographer John Speed, who also provided our best visual image of the seventeenth-century town in his 1611 publication The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain, noted that the walls around the town stretched for 880 paces, but at this time they were ‘indifferent for repaire’.¹⁴ He was impressed, however, by the ‘large castle’ at the west end of the town which dominated its prospect.¹⁵

A fuller description of the town and castle was drawn up by George Owen in the 1590s. Owen was a good Protestant Elizabethan and, like the rest of the country, at this time was concerned about the Catholic threat from abroad. This was the era of the Armada and the nation was on high alert and was particularly worried about coastal security. Pembrokeshire was especially important in this regard because of its proximity to Ireland. Ireland possessed a majority Catholic population, despite the best efforts of English monarchs to settle Protestants and Protestantism there. And Ireland loomed large and forbidding in the imaginations of men like George Owen. Anxiety about a possible Catholic invasion through the defensive weak point of Milford Haven was a concern in the 1590s and would resurface in a manner that energised John Poyer in 1641–2. Partly because of these worries, Owen drew up a memorandum about the defensive status of Milford Haven for the earl of Pembroke who sat on the nation’s governing Privy Council. As part of this ‘pamflett’, Owen turned his attention to Pembroke as an important link in the area’s defensive network.¹⁶ Although his description was rather outdated by Poyer’s time, it nonetheless provides the best near-contemporary account we have of his home and its defensive capacities, which would be vital in his resistance efforts during the civil wars.¹⁷

Owen observed that Pembroke was ‘all one streete in length without any crosse streetes’ and was ‘walled about with a stronge wall of lyme and stone’. It was, moreover,

compassed on each side with a branche of Milford . . . as a stronge mote, floweinge at every tyde in such sorte that noe accesse by horse or foote is permitted to the town but over two bridges, the town havinge three gates onlye and the towne walles being strongly defended with 6 flancker towres in such sorte as out of them the whole walles may be scoured and defended from approach of enemies.

He then considered the castle, which he described as ‘faire, stronge and large . . . standing strongelye walled with a mightie thicke wall all buylt of lyme & stone’. The castle contained inner and outer courtyards with numerous flank towers covering the approaches. The castle’s strength lay not only in its thick walls, he continued, but also in its location:

seated upon a high mayne rocke of 30 and in most places 40 foote high, naturally steepe in most places and the rest easily to be made in such sorte, that if the castle walles might be battered, as most thereof cannot be, yet were it not possible to ascend upp the said rocke to enter the breach.

This inaccessibility was augmented by the waters flowing at the rock’s base along with the ‘owse [ooze] and slyme’ deposited there which ‘mightilye defend’ the town from any potential enemies. In addition, the town and the castle had several sources of its own spring water which would assist in any siege. It also possessed the ‘greate’ Wogan’s Cave underground which was able ‘to receave a greate multitude of people, being a place free from all assaults’, and was furnished with its own water supply. Owen concluded that the castle ‘is thought allmost impregnable’, an assessment echoed half a century later by a participant in the siege of Pembroke in 1648 who described the town as ‘the strongest place that ever we sat down before, and the castle even impregnable’.¹⁸

We can see, then, why Pembroke was such a potential prize in any conflict, and particularly in a civil war such as that which broke out in 1642. A formidable defensive redoubt, the town and castle of Pembroke became Poyer’s base of operations. It was a place to which he could retreat when forces turned against him, and from which he could sally out and attack enemies when in a position of strength. Crucially, the town and castle could also be supplied from the estuary, and this would prove vital when Poyer’s enemies encompassed him on land in the early 1640s. In addition to his positive assessment of the town and castle’s defensive potential, however, Owen also observed that both were ‘unfortified’, which he considered ‘very perilouse’. Speed’s assessment of Pembroke’s walls as ‘indifferent for repaire’ also reflected many years of benign neglect. Much of the county armour was adjudged to be defective or inadequate; the area simply was not geared up for war, and the efforts of local gentlemen, like the puritan Sir James Perrot, to enhance the defences of Milford Haven and Pembroke in the 1620s had negligible results.¹⁹ However, Owen stressed that if steps were not taken adequately to fortify Pembroke, a hostile party could take the town ‘and [it] would be by them soe fortified and defended as it would be the losse of manye lyves to remove them from thence’. So it would prove in the 1640s, and, as discussed in later chapters, it was Poyer who took a good deal of the initiative to repair and augment Pembroke’s defences. The assessment of Pembroke Castle as ‘allmost impregnable’ would be proven correct. It seems that no military force managed to shift John Poyer from his Pembroke bolt hole during the first civil war. Crucial here, however, is the qualifying ‘allmost’, because despite a resolute defence in 1648, the refortified town, and Poyer along with it, would eventually fall before the onslaught of Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army.

The town of Pembroke sat within the ‘Englishry’ of early modern Pembrokeshire. This was the southern part of the county which had been settled by Normans and Flemings during the medieval period. As a result of their influence, a sharp cultural division had grown up between the English-speaking inhabitants of the south (where all the county’s major boroughs – Haverfordwest, Tenby and Pembroke – were located) and the Welsh-speaking populations of the north. This difference was captured most memorably once again by George Owen, who wrote of these two communities as separate ‘nations’. In his late-Elizabethan ‘Description’ of the county, Owen related how the inhabitants of southern Pembrokeshire ‘appear by their names, manners and language, speaking altogether the English, and differing in manners, diet, buildings and tilling of the land from the Welshmen [of northern Pembrokeshire]. And although this be now well near 500 years past, yet do these two nations keep each from dealings with the other, as mere strangers’.²⁰

Although Owen probably exaggerated the separation of the two communities somewhat, it is nonetheless striking that Poyer’s narrative, and that of the civil war in the county more generally, almost exclusively involves figures from the English-speaking south. This fact was noted by Arthur Leach in his history of the 1640s in Pembrokeshire written more than eighty years ago. Leach observed that beyond the Englishry ‘not a shot was fired, not a sword drawn throughout the war . . . The war was fought in the Englishry: its issues apparently divided only the English-speaking Pembrokians, and their Welsh compatriots took no ascertainable part in it’.²¹ Like Owen, Leach rather overstates his case, and it does not seem credible that the inhabitants of northern Pembrokeshire were either ignorant of the issues involved in the civil war or were wholly uninvolved in its events. There are suggestions, for example, that northern Pembrokeshire might have been more concerned with developments in Cardiganshire, which themselves are obscure and poorly documented, rather than issues in the Englishry.²² It is the case, however, that contemporary records make hardly any reference to campaigns in the Welshry or to any mobilisation of men and resources from the north of the county. The most detailed contemporary narrative of the civil wars in the county, for example, makes no mention of personalities from beyond the Englishry.²³ Poyer’s battles were fought out between neighbours who occupied his own, largely English-speaking, cultural and geographical community. It may be conjectured that southern Pembrokeshire’s readier access to news, information and controversy in the English language might have helped inform and animate them politically, and probably encouraged them to forge links with political and military figures in Bristol, London and elsewhere in southern England. Contemporaries from southern Pembrokeshire made no mention, disparaging or otherwise, of the disposition and activities of those from the north of the county. Because of this evidential black hole, it would be dangerous to speculate too much about the reasons for the absence of north Pembrokeshire from the story of the civil war. Nonetheless, it is striking that Poyer’s narrative can be told almost exclusively with reference to actors from the Englishry.

One of the aspects of Poyer’s story that makes it so compelling is that he was an ordinary subject living in a quiet outpost of the realm who was thrust into ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Map
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Chapter 1. The Setting: John Poyer and Early Stuart Pembrokeshire, c.1606–1640
• Chapter 2. The Irish Crisis and the Coming of Civil War, 1640–1642
• Chapter 3. Allies and Enemies: Poyer and Pembroke during the First Civil War
• Chapter 4. The Struggle for Supremacy: Poyer and Post-War Politics, 1646–1647
• Chapter 5. The Road to Rebellion, August 1647–March 1648 105
• Chapter 6. Poyer, Powell and the Prince, March–April 1648
• Chapter 7. The Siege of Pembroke, May–July 1648
• Chapter 8. Revenge and Revolution: Poyer, Print and Parliamentary Justice, August 1648–April 1649
• Chapter 9. Afterlives
• Appendix: Timeline of the Civil Wars in Pembrokeshire
• Notes
• Bibliography