The Treatment of Prisoners of War During The English Civil Wars
by The English Civil Wars took place during an era in which the treatment of prisoners of war did not have any set conventions or legal guidelines that were binding upon all the combatants involved in these conflicts. There were different concepts and contending notions as to how prisoners of war should be treated yet none of the competing sides during the English Civil Wars have to strictly adhere to legally binding ways of dealing with their captives. There were as will discussed in the following chapters and conclusion informal rules and procedures about how wars should or should not be conducted.
Therefore during the English Civil Wars between 1642 and 1651 prisoners of war were not generally treated well, especially by modern standards. The poor treatment of prisoners of war was partly caused by a lack of resources to look after them properly and sometimes a desire to make them suffer for fighting on the losing side. How well prisoners of war were actually treated was largely dependent upon who was captured and by whom they were captured. None of the military commanders in the English Civil Wars had to take prisoners of war if they had offered quarter and it had been refused. In many ways it was the ordinary soldiers that stood the greatest chance of being fairly or leniently treated as prisoners of war during the English Civil Wars. The Royalist propaganda certainly tried to portray their commanders as being more likely to take prisoners of war and subsequently treat them well than any of their opponents. Officers sometimes faced summary execution after being captured, as they were held responsible for the past actions of their own forces.
The New Model Army proved to be particularly brutal when it suited them, for instance, in Ireland especially at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649. The Earl of Newcastle’s White Coats had been cut down at Marston Moor as they had refused to surrender, whilst a thousand or so Royalists did become prisoners of war as a result of being defeated at Marston Moor. There were examples of surrendered soldiers being treated well as prisoners of war such as the Parliamentary garrison of Bristol after its capture by the forces of Prince Rupert. There were also atrocities such as the sack of Leicester by Prince Rupert’s army as well as the capture of Drogheda and Wexford by the New Model Army. Such events did not usually lead to the capture of prisoners of war at all. On balance the Royalists seemed more likely to treat prisoners of war well yet that was not guaranteed. The stunning victory of the New Model Army at Naseby led to the capture of thousands of Royalist prisoners of war that were publicly humiliated in London. Some of the Royalist prisoners of war from Naseby had wives that were killed when New Model Army soldiers had killed the women attached to the Royalist pay train.
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