The struggle for control of the country between King and Parliament lasted nearly nine years, beginning with King Charles raising his standard at Nottingham on 22nd August 1642, and ending with the battle of Worcester on 3 September, 1651. In much of the west of England, Cornwall and Wales were Royalist strongholds, although Plymouth remained in Parliamentary hands throughout the conflict. The Royalist forces in Cornwall would repel multiple invasions by the Parliamentary forces and even contribute their strength to other military expeditions in the west.
In Cornwall, at the outbreak of the Civil War Sir Bevill Grenville had proclaimed the king’s Commission of Array at Launceston assizes, and also persuaded the grand jury of the Duchy to declare their opponents guilty of riot and unlawful assembly. In 1642 the Cornish-Royalist Army was formed by Ralph Hopton, 1st Baron Hopton.
When King Charles raised his standard, Sampson Manaton was serving as an Ensign in Captain Christopher Burgh’s company in Colonel William Bamfield’s Regiment of Foot. This Sampson was most probably Sampson Manaton (1616-1687) , son of Pierce Manaton. Originally raised for service in Ireland in Lord Wharton’s Army, Bamfield’s regiment did not serve in Essex's army instead serving Parliament in the West Country. In October of 1642, the regiment was quartered at Bath & Bristol. By December it was quartered in Plymouth where it may have been disbanded and absorbed into the Plymouth garrison. However, Sampson Manaton must have deserted as we find that he served as a Captain in the Royalist forces. We then find Sampson Manaton serving as a Captain in Lord Mohun’s Regiment of Foot, a regiment of the original Cornish Army raised in November of 1642 that served in all the western campaigns of 1642-3.
Pierce Manaton (b.1593-1666/7), Sampson’s father, was a Captain of the trained bands, where he had served as an officer for some twenty years and risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His sons Captain Sampson Manaton and Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Manaton were Royalist officers in the Civil War.
Sir Richard Buller of Shillingham (1578-1642), Kt, M.P., brother-in-law to Pierce Manaton by his marriage to Margery Buller, was a leader in the parliamentarian forces who made their withdrawal to Plymouth in October of 1642. At the start of the conflict he was allied with West Country puritan leaders including Lord Robartes, and with Robartes and Sir Alexander Carew he emerged as a leader of the parliamentarian forces in Cornwall at the outbreak of the Civil War. In the early stages of the siege of Plymouth Buller died unexpectedly, sometime between 17 and 30 November. Negotiations with the royalist forces occupying Saltash for his body to be returned home proved unsuccessful, and he was buried in Plymouth on 1 December. His sons Francis, George and Anthony continued the parliamentary cause.
Ambrose Manaton (d. 1651) served in regiments organized from the training bands in Cornwall that were tasked primarily with the defense of the county. Ambrose is found as a Captain in Colonel Jonathan Trelawney’s Regiment of Foot. This was a trained band regiment based on the Hundred of West. It may have been originally commanded by Lord Warwick Mohun. Trelawney was made colonel of the regiment in summer, 1645, and subsequently led it in the blockade of Plymouth and at the battle of Torrington. Ambrose Manaton also served as a Captain in Sir William Coryton’s Regiment of Foot. This was a trained band regiment based in the Hundred of East. It performed local defenses throughout the war.
Colonel Piers Edgcumbe (1609-1667) was nephew to Ambrose Manaton. Colonel Piers Edgcumbe’s Regiment of Foot was also a trained band regiment based in the Hundred of East. The regiment guarded the west bank of the Tamar throughout the war and took part in the Lostwithiel campaign of 1644.
The first incursion of Hopton’s Royalists into Devon in November – December 1642 was a failure, but it did manage to secure the Cornish side of Plymouth Sound and this posed a serious problem for Parliamentarian forces. There were also various sorties were made by the Parliamentarians into the north of the duchy.
At the start of 1643, the Royalist position in Cornwall was threatened by the advance from Devon of two parliamentary armies under the Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford and Colonel Ruthin. Sir Ralph Hopton, commanding the Cornish Royalists, whose most charismatic leader was Sir Bevill Grenville of Stowe, decided to strike at Ruthin before he could join forces with Stamford. Hopton found the Parliamentarians deployed on Braddock Down, near Boconnoc, midway between Lostwithiel and Liskeard on 19 January 1643. In the battle that ensued, between 1,250 and 1,500 Parliamentarians were captured, together with their baggage train and ammunition, and as many as 200 were killed resulting in a victory for the Royalists. Details of individual participation are lacking, but Captain Sampson Manaton should have been at the battle with Lord Mohun’s Regiment.
Later in the year Parliamentarians led by The Earl of Stamford moved into North Cornwall and took up a strong defensive position at Stratton. On 16 May the Battle of Stratton took place and Grenville’s local knowledge of the terrain enabled Hopton to mount a surprise dawn attack on Stamford’s position. After a struggle, the Royalists succeeded in defeating the Parliamentarians again, leaving 300 dead on the field, and taking 1700 prisoners, among whom were Major-General Chudleigh and thirty other officers. Again, Captain Sampson Manaton should have been present with Lord Mohun’s Regiments. In a letter dated the day before the battle describing the disposition of the Royalist forces and a list of its officers there is a Captain Manaton and a Sergeant-Major Manaton identified among the list of Royalist officers.
Cornwall was once more firmly in the hands of the Royalists. Plymouth remained under siege. While the victories for Hopton with the Cornish army provided the impetus for campaigns in Devon and Somerset. Command of Mohun’s regiment was transferred by Lord Mohun to his brother Sir Charles late in the summer of 1643. Sir Charles was killed in the attack on Dartmouth in October and John Digby assumed command leading the regiment at the siege of Plymouth during October-December 1643. Mohun’s regiment remained at the Plymouth Siege in 1644.
Other Cornish regiments campaigned in Taunton and Bridgwater, which were taken by the Cornish army. At the Battle of Lansdown in Somerset and Hopton was seriously wounded, but Bristol fell to Hopton’s Royalist troops, followed by Exeter. Mohun’s left Plymouth later in 1644 to take part in the Lostwithiel and Newbury campaigns that year.
In 1644, Essex had been misled into believing that he could expect substantial support from the people of Cornwall. When he had reached Bodmin on 28 July, he found that there was no chance of supplies or recruits, and he also learned that the Royalist army was at Launceston, close to his rear, blocking his line of retreat. He withdrew to Lostwithiel, covering the port of Fowey, hoping for support or evacuation by the Parliamentarian fleet. Essex had previously arranged to rendezvous at Fowey with the Parliamentarian fleet under the Earl of Warwick, but no ships appeared, Warwick being unable to leave Portsmouth because of westerly winds.
King Charles’s army had been reinforced as it marched, and outnumbered that of Essex by nearly two to one. The night before the first fighting began, King Charles was at the house of Ambrose Manaton of Trecarrel, and the whole army lay around this house in the fields . The first clashes took place on 2 August, but little action took place for several days, as the King waited for all his forces to arrive and Essex waited for the fleet. On 4 August, as the King marched to Liskeard, the troop of life guards marched six miles further to South Hill under the command of Lord Bernard who quartered at Mr. Manaton’s of Manaton.
On 13 August, the Royalists began to attack in earnest, occupying several outposts on the east bank of the River Fowey, making it even more difficult for help to reach Essex. A Parliamentarian attempt to send a relieving force under Lieutenant General Middleton was defeated at Bridgwater in Somerset. On 21 August, the Royalists attacked Essex’s positions north of Lostwithiel, capturing the ruins of Restormel Castle. Royalist cavalry threatened to cut the Parliamentarians off from Fowey. Essex realised that there was no hope of relief and ordered his cavalry to break out of the encirclement. Under Sir William Balfour, they broke through the Royalist lines on the night of 31 August, eventually reaching Plymouth 30 miles to the east.
The increasingly demoralised Parliamentarian infantry fell back towards Fowey in pouring rain. They were forced to abandon several guns which became bogged down in the muddy roads. On 1 September, the pursuing Royalists captured Castle Dore, another ruined fortification which the Parliamentarians were using to anchor their lines. Essex left Sir Philip Skippon, his Sergeant Major General of Foot, in command while he himself escaped to Plymouth in a fishing boat. On 2 September, Skippon, having been told that his infantry were unable to break out as the cavalry had done, and having been offered generous terms by the King, surrendered 6,000 infantry and all his army’s guns and train. The disarmed soldiers marched to Portsmouth in continuing bad weather, being continually robbed and threatened by local people. About 1,000 died of exposure and hunger, and 1,000 more deserted or fell sick. Charles meanwhile wheeled about and marched toward London. Parliament was once again expelled from Cornwall.
By December, the Royalists returned their attentions to Plymouth where they began a heavy bombardment of its northern defences but with little effect. Sir Richard Grenville, 1st Baronet, having previously declared for Parliament, invited his troops to follow him into the King’s service and parliament proclaimed him a traitor.
In 1645 Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed the Parliamentary commander of the New Model Army. The Royalist army was also reorganised with Prince Charles becoming the Commander-in-Chief. Mohun’s regiment was at the siege of Taunton in 1645 and the battle of Langport. The regiment then appears to have returned once again to the siege at Plymouth. The Royalists suffered a notable defeat at Naseby in Northamptonshire, where the Royalist army was annihilated, and there were further Parliamentarian gains in the south and west of England. Prince Charles spent a great part of the autumn and winter in Cornwall, principally at Launceston and Truro.
In 1646 the Prince gave Lord Hopton command of the Royalist forces, Hopton advanced from Stratton towards Exeter, reaching Torrington but was confronted by Fairfax’s men, and fell back to Stratton. Mohun’s regiment was present at the battle of Torrington in February 1646, where Digby was wounded. Sir Chichester Wray may then have assumed command. The Parliamentarians proceeded into Cornwall, reaching Launceston on February 25, and Bodmin on March 2nd. Hopton’s army was in disarray but he refused to surrender. He camped for some nights at Castle-an-Dinas while considering the possibility of surrender. On March 5, Cornish Royalist leaders realized that they were losing the war and surrendered the east of Cornwall to the Parliamentarians at Millbrook. The regiments in which Ambrose Manaton served surrendered there as did Colonel Piers Edgcumbe’s Regiment of Foot. News at Bodmin of an imminent Irish invasion damaged the Royalist cause locally and Fairfax sent a summons of surrender to Hopton who replied on March 8th that he was willing to negotiate terms. Fairfax agreed and on March 15th 1646 both sides met at Tresillian Bridge. Hopton surrendered and agreed to move his army to St Allen as a gesture of trust and goodwill allowing Fairfax to occupy Truro.
The Prince of Wales sailed from Falmouth to the Isles of Scilly, and from there he escaped to Jersey; the garrisons at Restormel, Falmouth, Little Dennis and St Michaels Mount fell in the following months. In May, Charles surrendered to the Scots who handed him over to England. Pendennis Castle, on the 17th August 1646, was the last Royalist stronghold on the English mainland to fall.
In late 1648 Charles was tried before a tribunal of 135 judges who voted by one vote that he be executed. This was carried out on 30th January 1649.
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Henry Manaton, chose to live in exile. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in Captain Wijlden Sr.'s company of the Dutch Regiments He died in Holland before 1666 when his widow, Mary Fludde was buried at the church of St. John, Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. Their son, Ambrose Manaton was a Lieutenant of Captain Wijlden Jr.'s company of the Dutch Regiments. He married Margaret Dinghwel. It appears that Ambrose did not return to Cornwall after the Restoration choosing to remain in Holland.