Archaic and variations in spelling have not been modified. (etext transcriber's note) |
THE
JOURNAL OF JOACHIM HANE
CONTAINING HIS ESCAPES AND SUFFERINGS
DURING HIS EMPLOYMENT BY OLIVER
CROMWELL IN FRANCE FROM
NOVEMBER 1653 TO
FEBRUARY 1654
EDITED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT IN
THE LIBRARY OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD
By C. H. FIRTH, M.A.
OXFORD
B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 & 51 BROAD STREET
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE
M DCCC XCVI
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
INTRODUCTION
Joachim Hane, the author of the following journal and the hero of theadventures recorded in it, was a German engineer in the service of theCommonwealth. During the Civil War there were many foreign soldiers inthe armies both of the King and the Parliament. Readers of Carlyle'sCromwell will remember 'Dutch Dalbier,' from whom, according toCarlyle, 'Cromwell first of all learned the mechanical part ofsoldiering'—a soldier who first served the Parliament but met his deathat St. Neots in 1648 while heading a royalist rising against it. AnotherDutchman in the Parliament's service was Vandruske, who like Dalbierwent over to the royalist cause, and ended by seeking his fortune in theservice of the Czar. A third of these foreign adventurers was SirBernard Gascoyne, or Bernardino Guasconi, a Florentine, condemned todeath with Lucas and Lisle at Colchester, but spared to be rewarded byCharles II and to be employed by him as English envoy at Vienna. Therewere many others of less note in the two armies, but it was not merelyas fighting men that the services of foreign soldiers were desired andvalued. What made officers bred abroad necessary to both parties wastheir knowledge of the scientific side of warfare, a subject of whichhome-made royalist and parliamentary colonels knew little or nothing.Each party found these scientifically trained soldiers indispensable asengineers and commanders of artillery. When the king first establishedhis headquarters at Oxford, and proceeded to fortify the town, heappears to have had no qualified engineer in his army. According to Woodthe first fortifications about the city 'were mostly contrived by oneRichard Rallingson, Bachelor of Arts of Queen's College,' who wasrewarded by Charles with promotion to the rank of M.A. Such amateurengineers might be employed at a pinch, but the chief engineer in theservice of Charles I was Sir Bernard de Gomme, another Dutchman, whosecareer is excellently sketched by Mr. Gordon Goodwin in the Dictionaryof National Biography. The plans of the castle at Liverpool and thecitadel he designed for Dublin, with his diagrams of the battles ofNewbury and Marston Moor, are now in the British Museum.
Dutch and German engineers also abounded on the parliamentary side. Oneof the best known is Lieutenant-Colonel John Rosworm, who fortifiedManchester for the Parliament, helped to capture Liverpool Castle, andwrote a narrative called Good Service hitherto ill-rewarded, settingforth his difficulties in obtaining his pay. In Essex's army PhilibertEmmanuel du Boys held the post of Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance,whilst in the New Model Peter Manteau Van Dal