My Name Is Keyte…. Sir Hastings Keyte.
“My name is Keyte….Sir Hastings Keyte.
Or at least that’s what I was before the surrender.
My King, Charles 1, had given orders for Ashley to gather a field army, here in the Midlands. He had hurried between garrison towns in order to cobble together a fighting force with which to defeat the Partiamentarians….the traitors!
Unfortunately Astley had not been financed and he found it diffficult to coerce troops into his ranks.. I had command of a small troop of cavalry and with them we had, nonetheless, thrown in our lot with him. We had few alternatives left to us. It feels like we are losing this war.
Yesterday, his small army of about 3000 men…. A motley group… was drawn up for battle outside of Stow on the Wold. The enemy had come up from the South and from the North…. We had to fight.
It was a disaster. We had the numbers, as it turned out, but lacked leadership and the morale to have success. The parliamentarians came at us before dawn and routed us. I and some of my men hastened into the small market town of Stow, hoping to find water and sustenance for our horses, only to find that a running battle was taking place in the market square.
Joining the fray, we were eventually captured……. Such a humbling experience. I look over at my commander, now. I can hear him muttering to a subordinate. “You have done your work, boys, and may go play, unless you will fall out among yourselves”….
I feel we are finished and do not think that the king will win this war now.
Our wounded have been placed around the market cross and are being dispatched…. It is pitiful but necessary to cease their suffering.
It is a bad day.”
Today visitors to the small market town… the beautiful Cotswold town…. Often have no idea of it’s importance during a time of great upheaval in England. It had become the scene of the last great battle of the English Civil War. When visiting, take the time to stand next to the market cross and visit the church…….. be still and listen to your imagination as it conjures up the images and sounds that still hang over this place.