The History Of Devereux's Regiment

Nicholas Devereux was a member of an ancient Anglo-Irish branch of the famous mainland Devereux family and claimed he was the only male of that branch not ‘tainted’ by Catholicism.  In the Irish rebellion of 1641 he appears to have served in the Government Army, possibly commanding local native levies.  Eventually he fled to England with his wife, Bridget, and their young children, leaving behind an estate devastated by the rebellion.

 

In July 1642 Parliament began recruiting a field army to protect itself from the despotic Charles I and chose for its first Lord General, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.  

Nicholas Devereux enlisted into the regiment of his illustrious cousin and was commissioned Captain of one of the three companies of firelocks which formed part of the Lord General’s Regiment.  By 22nd August 1642 (the day King Charles raised his standard at Nottingham, effectively declaring war), Nicholas Devereux had recruited 90 volunteers into his company.  The new army gradually left London and positioned itself in the South West Midlands, between the King’s base at Shrewsbury and the Capital.

Sometime in mid-October there was an attempt to convert the three firelock companies into dragoons of which the army was drastically short.  The young Scottish officer, John Middleton, was chosen to command the unit but, following the heavy losses at Edgehill, he was transferred to command Lord Fielding’s cavalry regiment and the firelocks were reduced back into one company of the Lord General’s Regiment.

Nicholas Devereux took up a new command in Colonel Thomas Essex’s Regiment at Gloucester, possibly as first captain.  By early December the regiment moved on Bristol to secure the second city of the kingdom and its Colonel, a man of unstable temperament, was made military governor.  For the next three months the regiment formed the backbone of the Bristol garrison and with the appearance of Major General Sir William Waller in the West, provided him with his only reliable infantry for his attack on Malmesbury and his spectacular capture of a small Welsh Royalist army at Highnam House, near Gloucester.  On 8th May 1643 Nicholas Devereux resigned his command in Thomas Essex’s Regiment and seems to have stayed at Gloucester.

We hear no more of Nicholas Devereux until the Siege of Gloucester during August and September of 1643 when several mentions are made of Devereux taking part in the defence of the city.  After the successful lifting of the siege on 5th September 1643, Devereux raised his own regiment of foot, receiving his commission as Colonel of Foot from the Lord General on 12th September 1643.  The energetic young governor of Gloucester, Colonel Edward Massie, now went on the offensive and moved Devereux’s Regiment to the old Bishop’s Palace at Prestbury as a counter to the Royalist garrison at Sudeley Castle.

During the Spring of 1644, in conjunction with Lord Stamford’s Regiment, Devereux made a series of lightning raids on Royalist outposts.  The force was successful in taking Westbury-on-Severn, Newnham, Little Dean, Beverston Castle and the fortress town of Malmesbury on 25th May 1644.  

 

 

Continued

Top: Ruins of Beverstone Castle, near Tetbury,  taken by Devereuxs