Tower and Town, March 2015 (view the full edition)The Battle of MarlboroughThe Prisoners' March
The embers of the fire still remained. Our houses reduced to ashes in an inferno hotter than the depths of hell. The laughter of children silenced by the guns and the blades. They had charged upon the town from the north with their torches and muskets, swinging mercilessly with their swords. They were cold, ruthless killers, and now they stand here with their booming voices drowning out the clinking and clanking of our chains, weighing us down, our new companions made of metal. We were in chains to Oxford. It would be to die fighting or to be imprisoned. The struggle was pointless. We were a chain gang marching with heads hung in sorrow. The leader of our town, now the leader of our march, was a man once revered as royalty reduced to a petty prisoner. Oh what had become of us, said criminals, but innocent in nature. We stood held under the enemy and the word of the unjust King. But remember this, and remember it for years to come. We fought for what was right. To free those from corruption and to give them voice and choice, so they too would do what was right. (Following the Royalist victory many of the town's defeated citizens, including its Mayor, were taken to Oxford in chains). Larry Wyatt |
