Civil War in Barbados - 1648–1652

Topic: Gullah History
The end of hostilities in the English Civil War in 1647 did not bring peace.  Parliament still was divided between supporters of Charles I, Presbyterians, and Puritans. [1]  The fleet mutinied in May, because men had not been paid. [2]  Charles’ younger son, James, was given command of the rebel fleet when it reached Holland.  Francis Willoughby was named its vice-admiral. [3]

Meanwhile, Charles had concluded a secret treaty with the Scots.  They agreed to invade England, if Charles established Presbyterianism. [4]  The invasion began in summer of 1648.  Willoughby returned to command a unit. [5]  The uprising was put down in August, and leaders were treated as traitors. [6]  Most of the fleet returned to Parliament. [7]

Six ships remained with Willoughby when he returned to Holland. [8]  The son of Charles’ sister Elizabeth took charge of them. [9]  Rupert planned to turn them into pirates attacking English ships to raise money for his uncle. [10]  The cost of maritime insurance increased. [11]  Dutch ships were able to offer lower prices to planters in Barbados.

The New Model Army became alarmed when Presbyterian members of Parliament began negotiating terms for Charles to be restored.  Thomas Fairfax, mentioned in the post for 10 April 2022, enabled a coup led by Oliver Cromwell’s son-in-law, Henry Ireton.  Ireton then prevented the full House of Commons from meeting. [12]

The members deemed safe by Ireton tried Charles I for treason and hanged him in January 1649. [13]  The Scots declared his son, also Charles, their king in early February. [14]  When news reached Bermuda, it declared Charles Stuart king on July 5. [15]  Virginia, whose governor commanded the Royal army in Exeter, also supported Charles II of Scotland. [16]  The governor of Barbados, Philip Bell, kept the island neutral.

The Rump Parliament organized a Council of State to replace the king and his court. [17]  The navy was reorganized in February, and, in March, Parliament ordered new ships be built to combat piracy. Thereafter, it continued to add to the fleet. [18]

Parliament acted against Willoughby in December 1649, when it seized his estates. [19]  He left for Holland to get Charles Stuart to confirm his rights to Barbados. [20]  Stuart’s counselors saw the island as an important ally and recommended he appoint Willoughby governor, [21] on the condition he move there. [22]

Most news reached Barbados by merchant ships.  Since travel times could be two months or longer, reports from England always were obsolete.

Henry Walrond arrived on Barbados sometime in 1649, with his brother Edward. [23]  As mentioned in the post for 3 April 2022, his family’s land was in western Somerset.  He had connections with a more noble family in Devon, but his great-great-great-grandfather had been a younger son. [24]

Little has been written about Walrond on the island, until he began working to take control in 1650.  He probably did not arrive with the resources of Thomas Modyford.  This means he probably was not aware of land prices on the first landing in the Caribbean, nor that land was available on other islands.  Modyford’s original instructions had been to go to Antigua.  Only the yellow fever epidemic kept him on Barbados. [25]

Whether Walrond heard that Willoughby intended to take over the island for Charles Stuart, [26] or if he was driven by other forces is not known.  Apart from being unable to buy land, he may have been angry at men who had prospered while he was in jail. [27]  He also may have had a feudal view that only the gentry should become wealthy: the men he attacked were all self-made men who rose through talent and an ability to invent new ways of doing things.

In 1650, he engineered the removal of the treasurer appointed by the General Assembly, which gave him control of the arsenal. [28]  James Drax blunted his attempts to join Bermuda. [29]  In April, Walrond began organizing other young immigrants against Drax and others seen as supporting Parliament. [30]

Willoughby’s ship arrived on April 29, [31] but did not make its presence official until May 7. [32]  When Willoughby announced himself, he informed Bell that he now held the legitimate commission to be governor. [33]  Walrond convinced Willoughby to visit other islands in James Hay’s grant. [34]  They’d heard rumors Rupert was coming, and he might arrive anytime. [35]

With Willoughby gone, Walrond had the Assembly named Drax, Constant Silvester, and Thomas Middleton as disturbers of the peace. [36]  On May 11, he ordered all dissenters leave the island by July 2, a date before Willoughby’s planned return.  He reordered men out on May 23, [37]  and set up a commission to handle their estates. [38]  On June 13, he place Drax under house arrest. [39]  Drax left for London. [40]

Stuart landed in Scotland on June 23. [41]  Rupert finally headed for the Caribbean, but was foiled by a September storm near the Azores that sank one of his ships. [42]

Willoughby returned to Barbados on July 29, [43] and removed Walrond.  He then repealed the acts of sequestration, [44] and made peace with Modyford who had tried to negotiate earlier with Walrond. [45]  Willoughby also sent John Colleton to visit London merchants as his emissary. [46]

When Parliament heard news from Barbados, it passed as an act of October 3 forbidding trade with the island. [47]  It also ordered part of its new fleet to head to the island. [48]  The Dutch told the island about the fleet in February 1650, and Willoughby began strengthening the island’s defenses. [49]  He also reinstated the sequestering of estates and destroyed their livestock. [50]

Back in England, the New Model Army moved toward Perth, which allowed Stuart to invade England. [51]  A fleet, under George Ayscue, finally set sail for Barbados on August 5, with Drax on board. [ 52]

Cromwell defeated Stuart at Worcester on September 3, [53] but news reached Barbados in October that Stuart had been victorious and retaken London. [54]  Soon after, Ayscue sailed into Carlisle Bay and seized 14 ships from Dutch merchants. [55]  He took their provisions, and dispatched them to other islands to obtain water. [56]

Willoughby responded by stationing armed men around the island’s perimeter. [57]  Ayscue decide to blockade the island and starve it into submission. [58]

News reached Ayscue on November 12 that Stuart had been defeated.  He began sending messages to Willoughby, who still believed Stuart had won. [59]  When things remained stalled, Ayscue began trying to reach Modyford, who had learned the true state of affairs in England. [60]

Finally, on 3 January 1652, Modyford acted.  He and his regiment changed sides. [61]  Willoughby refused to negotiate until January 9. [62]  Finally, a treaty was signed on January 11 that restored everyone’s land to them, including Willoughby’s in England. [63]  Planters gained everything they had been demanding since the beginning of the war.  Daniel Seale became the governor. [64]

In March, the General Assembly banished Willoughby and Walrond for a year. [65]  Later the banishments were extended.  Willoughby probably went to the coast of Guiana where he had established a colony in what is now Surinam. [66]

Parliament was forced to accept that new status of the island on 18 August 1652. [67]  Soon after, Willoughby returned to England to resume ownership of his estate. [68]

Less is known about Walrond after his banishment.  On 5 August 1653, Philip IV granted him a Spanish title.  It is assumed he must have entered Philip’s service, perhaps in the Caribbean. [69]  A family genealogists notes these “‘vizcondados previos’ titles were created with fiscal purposes, as the beneficiaries had to pay a fairly large amount of money in order to obtain them.” [70]

Rupert finally made it to the Caribbean in March 1652, only to sail past Barbados.  Another hurricane struck his fleet, this one killing his brother Maurice on September 13. [71]  Rupert returned with the remains of his ships to France.  When he sold the ships and booty [72] in March 1653, his Stuart cousin took half the profits.  Charles saw it as his right as the oldest son of a king to take the earnings of an entrepreneur.  In a way, the war was fought to assert the superiority of the Stuarts and Walronds over self-made men like Drax and Silvester.

Rupert retired to the continent. [73]

End Notes
1.  “English Civil War.”  Wikipedia website.

2.  Ben Coates.  “The Impact of the English Civil War on the Economy of London, 1642-1650.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Leicester, June 1997.  152.

3.  Charles Harding Firth.  “Willoughby, Francis.”  62:31– 35 in Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Sidney Lee.  London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1900.  62:33.  Willoughby is introduced in post for 10 April 2022.

4.  N. Darnell Davis.  Cavaliers and Roundheads in Barbados.  Georgetown, British Guiana: Argosy Press, 1887.  3.

5.  “Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham.”  Wikipedia website.
6.  “English Civil War.”
7.  “Prince Rupert of the Rhine.”  Wikipedia website.
8.  Robert H. Schomburgk.  The History of Barbados.  London: Longman, 1848.  269.

9.  David Plant.  “Biography of Francis, Lord Willoughby of Parham.”  British Civil Wars Project website; last updated 19 January 2010.  The older sister of Charles I, Elizabeth, married Frederick V, Elector Palatine. [74]  The couple had thirteen children.  Rupert was the third son; Maurice was the fourth. [75]  Since they were not in the line of succession, they became mercenary soldiers during the Thirty Years War in Europe. [76]

10.  “Prince Rupert.”
11.  Coates.  36.
12.  “Rump Parliament.”  Wikipedia website.
13.  “English Civil War.”
14.  “Timeline of the English Civil War.”  Wikipedia website.
15.  “English Civil War.”

16.  Davis.  4-5.  The governor of Virginia was William Berkeley.  The commander at Exeter had been his brother, John Berkeley. [77]

17.  “Timeline of the English Civil War.”

18.  Rif Winfield.  British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1603–1714.  Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Seaforth Publishing, 2009.  1652.

19.  Firth.  62:33.

20.  The transfer of Hay’s grant for Barbados to Willoughby is mentioned in the posts for 23 January 2022 and 10 April 2022.

21.  Schomburgk.  270.

22.  Antigua and the Antiguans: a Full Account of the Colony and Its Inhabitants.  London: Saunders and Otley, 1844.  2:350.  The author is assumed to be Mrs. Lanaghan, possibly Francis T. Lanaghan. [78]

23.  “Humphrey Walrond.”  Wikipedia website.

24.  Bernard Burke.  A Genealogical and Herlardic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland.  London: Harrison, 1862.  1625.

25.  Richard Ligon.  A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes.  London: Peter Parker, 1673.  21.  “Our intention at first was not to stay long there, but only to sell our goods, cattle, and horses, and so away to Antigua where we intended to plant: but the ships being for the most part infected with this disease and ourselves being unprovided of hands for a new plantation by reafon of the miscarrying of a fhip, which set out before us from Plymouth a month before, with men victuals, and all utensils fitted for a plantation we were compelled to stay longer in the island.”  He arrived during the yellow fever epidemic mentioned in the post for 27 March 2022.  The original is:

“Our intention at firft: was not to ftay long there, but onely to fell our Goods, Cattle, and Horfes, and fo away to Antigoa: where we intended to plant: but the fhips being for the moft part infected with this difeafe and our felves bting unprovided of hands for a new Plantation by reafon of the mifcarrying of a fhip, which fet out before us from Plimonth a month before, with men victuals, and all utenfils fitted for a Plantation we were compelled to ftay longer in the
Ifland.”

26.  Davis believes the news probably had reached Barbados by then. [79]
27.  This is mentioned in the post for 10 April 2022.
28.  Davis, 140, and Schomburgk, 270.

29.  Davis, 141, and Schomburgk, 270.  Drax is introduced in the post for 17 January 2022.

30.  Davis.  138, 140, 141.
31.  Davis.  160.
32.  Davis, 161, and Schomburgk, 270.
33.  Schomburgk.  271.
34.  Davis.  161, 163.
35.  Davis.  138.
36.  Davis.  164.  Silvester and Middleton are discussed in the post for 27 March 2022.
37.  Davis.  166.
38.  Davis.  168.
39.  Davis.  171–172.
40.  Davis.  173.
41.  “English Civil War.”
42.  Davis.  195.
43.  Davis.  173.
44.  Davis.  174.
45.  Davis.  173.
46.  Davis.  175.
47.  Davis.  186–187, 189.
48.  Davis.  189.
49.  Davis.  196.
50.  Davis.  200.
51.  “English Civil War.”
52.  Davis.  193.
53.  “English Civil War.”
54.  Davis.  208.
55.  Davis.  210, 212.
56.  Davis.  214.
57.  Davis.  212.
58.  Davis.  215.
59.  Davis.  220.
60.  Davis.  233–234.
61.  Davis.  239–240.
62.  Davis.  243.
63.  Davis.  249–250.
64.  Davis.  255.
65.  Davis.  256.
66.  Davis, 203, and “Francis Willoughby.”
67.  Davis.  250.
68.  “Francis Willoughby.”
69.  “Humphrey Walrond.”

70.  Paige Miller.  “Humphrey Walrond (abt. 1602 - bef. 1693).”  Wiki Tree website, 15 December 2019; last updated 29 Nov 2021.  Miller also notes that “a primary source for this title is yet to be located.”

71.  Davis.  258.
72.  Davis.  259.
73.  “Prince Rupert.”
74.  “James VI and I.”  Wikipedia website.
75.  “Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia.”  Wikipedia website.
76.  “Prince Rupert.”

77.  Eugene A. Andriette.  Devon and Exeter in the Civil War.  Newton Abbot, Devon: David and Charles, 1971.

78.  Gregory Frohnsdorff.  “‘Before the Public’: Some Early Libraries of Antigua.” Libraries and Culture 38(1):1–23:Winter 2003.

79.  Davis.  137–138.