Author Description

The experience of war is never confined to those who participate militarily: the consequences of warfare ripple out across their immediate families and communities, and the lives of countless civilians the combatants will never meet. The wives and children of soldiers could become destitute in the absence of their menfolk, and in the seventeenth century many sought refuge far from their homes or followed the army on its travels. Feeding and clothing an army, and supplying it with ammunition and other materiel, was a critical business; many women, and also many civilian men, provided services to the army baggage train and effectively became a critical part of its supply chain. The speakers at Helion''s third English Civil War conference focussed on a variety of aspects relating to both the personal experiences of warfare and the herculean efforts required to keep a conflict going. Keynote speaker Professor Peter Gaunt, focusing on the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, explores what is arguably the most gruelling and uncertain aspect of warfare, besides battle itself: the necessity of travel, often for great distances and to unfamiliar or even hostile places. Using case studies focusing on different parts of the country, Professor Gaunt draws upon surviving letters and printed or archival first person accounts to recount and analyse the experience of moving around during the wars, whether to pursue their objectives or to flee from their effects. The Lostwithiel campaign in Cornwall in 1644 took both King Charles''s and the Parliament''s armies on a lengthy trek to the furthest extent of England: Simon Marsh examines the disastrous consequences of the campaign on the Earl of Essex''s army, nearly destroyed as a fighting force, and yet how within two months it was able to recover and fight with distinction against the King''s forces at the Second Battle of Newbury. Mr Marsh also examines how effective the Parliamentarian supply system had become by 1644; logisti