Young Windebank

They shot young Windebank just here,
  By Merton, where the sun
Strikes on the wall. ’T was in a year
  Of blood the deed was done.

At morning from the meadows dim
  He watched them dig his grave.
Was this in truth the end for him,
  The well-beloved and brave?

He marched with soldier scarf and sword,
  Set free to die that day,
And free to speak once more the word
  That marshalled men obey.

But silent on the silent band,
  That faced him stern as death,
He looked, and on the summer land,
  And on the grave beneath.

Then with a sudden smile and proud
  He waved his plume, and cried,
“The king! the king!” and laughed aloud,
  “The king! the king!” and died.

Let none affirm he vainly fell,
  And paid the barren cost
Of having loved and served too well
  A poor cause and a lost.

He in the soul’s eternal cause
  Went forth as martyrs must-
The kings who make the spirit laws
  And rule us from the dust;

Whose wills unshaken by the breath
  Of adverse Fate endure,
To give us honor strong as death
  And loyal love as sure.

- Margaret L. Woods

The death of Young Windebank: Colonel Francis Windebank, shot at Oxford on the 3rd of May, 1645, following trial by Royalist Court-Martial, for the questionable surrendering of Bletchingdon House to Parliamentary Forces¹ the previous month.


Born c.1613, the son of Catholic Sir Francis Windebank once Secretary of State for Charles I, Colonel Francis had been raised as a Royalist, with both Royalist blood and Royalist connections. His paternal grandmother, Frances, was the daughter of Sir Edward Dymoke, and Anne ( née Talboys), and had herself royal blood from the descent of Edward III through the Percy line. Yet this thinning blood had lost its meaning, and the King himself, with the power to save Windebank as he had pardoned several others for similar offences, failed to act.

The Colonel, he who had been honoured for such bravery at the ‘Battle of Cheriton’ the previous year, was condemned to die for cowardice by the “councell of war”.

"Poor Windebank was shot by sudden court-martial, so enraged were they at Oxford; for Cromwell had not even foot-soldiers, still less a battering-gun. It was his poor young wife, they said, she and other ladies on a visit there, at Bletchington House, that confounded poor Windebank. He set his back to the wall of Merton College, and received his death-volley with a soldier's stoicism." - Carlyle's Cromwell


The Royalist Governor of Campden House, Gloucestershire, Sir Henry Bard, had written to Prince Rupert on the 28th of April 1645:
"The letter enclosed was sent to me from Oxford, to be conveyed with all speed possible. Pray God it comes time enough! It concerns a most unfortunate man, Colonel Windebank. Sir, pity him and reprieve him. It was God's judgment on him, and no cowardice of his own. At the battle of Alresford he gave a large testimony of his courage, and if with modesty I may bring in the witness, I saw it, and thence began our acquaintance. Oh, happy man had he ended then! Sir, let him but live to repair his honour, of which I know he is more sensible than are the damned of the pains of hell. And sure it will be a perfect means to his salvation. God and your Highness consult about it."
But Rupert never receive the letter, it having been intercepted by the enemy. The prince, ignorant of all knowledge, arrived in Oxford on the 4th of May - a day too late.

The Terrace Wall

Sure man's heart anguish ne' er hath broken here
This smiling air of natural repose,
Which over Merton's meadowed landscape glows
Yes, on this spot where the grey stone walls rear
Their hoary height, fell that poor Cavalier,
Who gave his post up to his monarch's foes
At iron Cromwell's summons, without blows,
Through gentle courtesy, not coward fear.

Perchance beneath where now I stand, he stood,
Setting his back against the college wall,
Baring his breast, not dabbled yet with blood,
A bold, unflinching mark for many a ball;
His young wife's name borne on his latest breath-
Short trial his, brief shrift and soldier's death.

- John Bruce Norton

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A few months short of ten years after that fatal day, Jane, the widow of Colonel Windebank, married Thomas Teyrrill, esq. in London. Their daughter, Frances Windebank, married Edward Hales in 1669.

Interestingly, the eldest son of the Colonel’s sister Margaret, Francis Turner D.D., would later become one of the ‘Seven Bishops’ (as Bishop of Ely) who petitioned King James II on his second Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London for seditious libel. Despite this, Turner remained loyal to the Stewart king, and following the ‘Glorious Revolution’ later that year, refused to swear an oath of allegiance to William and Mary, thus becoming one of the nine nonjuring bishops.

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¹ General Cromwell's Letter, that he had defeated Part of the King's Forces; and taken a House in Bletchington; commanded by Colonel Windebank, and articles, between General Cromwell and Colonel Windebank, on the Surrender of it.

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