Fitz
speaker
397 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Oct 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Fitz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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After this, Brown campaigned with Chumley's army for a time, acquitting himself well on the battlefield and earning himself the captaincy of a warship, the Cavendish. If he distinguished himself well enough on land, he was to become a very terror on the sea.
Where once the London newspapers had delighted in the tales of his daring exploits as a roundhead, they now disparaged him bitterly as a perfidious pirate. He was to spend several years roving the British coasts, preying on merchant vessels in incredible numbers. Of all the royalist buccaneers, Brown Bushel's name was the best known and most feared.
Of all his exploits during this time, it's actually one of his losses that's the most memorable. On the 15th of July 1645, the Cavendish was intercepted and boarded. The Roundheads had captured their quarry at last. Except, Brown Bushel was able to make a characteristically daring escape.
Along with around a dozen of his crew, Brown jumped through a gunport on the opposite side of the ship and swam undetected the one and a half miles to shore. The First Civil War was to end around a year later, following the capture of King Charles I in June of 1646, and it's at this point that the story surrounding Brown Bushel becomes a little muddy.
Several sources state that Brown begged the pardon of Parliament and was awarded the captaincy of a vessel in the parliamentary fleet, only to turn traitor once again at the outbreak of the Second Civil War in 1648, handing over his latest vessel to Royalist control.
This has earned him the reputation of a flip-flopping scoundrel, but fortunately, author Jack Binns comes to the rescue of Brown-Bushall's character.
clearing up the many myths and misconceptions about this point in Bushell's life that seem to have occurred, as we've found in many other historical cases, from various authors over the centuries getting names and dates wrong, plagiarising others' incorrect work, sometimes seeming to just make things up completely, and compounding and expounding the misinformation in each retelling.
In reality, Brown Bushel never returned to Parliament service. In fact, unlike many other Royalists, he didn't even seek a pardon following the end of the First Civil War. He remained a privateer and took refuge in French ports or at Jersey until the outbreak of the Second Civil War, when he returned to British waters, still flying the royal flag.
This time, though, his luck was not to last and Brown Bushel was caught by the Roundheads. In one final act of daring he escaped his captors but a handsome reward was offered for his apprehension and five days later he was back in custody. Fearing another escape he was held in close confinement at Windsor Castle.
He was to remain imprisoned for nearly three years, but his trial at Westminster lasted only one day. The verdict? Guilty. His sentence? Death. Brown's execution was set to take place only four days later on Saturday 29th March 1651, the eighth anniversary of his meeting with Hugh Chumley at Scarborough's Gate, his surrender of Scarborough to the King and his betrayal of Parliament.
five o'clock on that fateful day brown bushel was brought from the tower of london to the place of his execution he smiled at the people that had gathered to witness his demise and addressed them saying that he had served parliament until his conscience had bid him join the king's forces and that he wished he had done so from the start of the war
Asking the executioner if the block before him was the very same that his king had laid his head upon, he was pleased to find that it was one and the same, as was the executioner's axe.
He doffed his cloak and doublet, pulled a cap from his pocket, placed it upon his head and handed the axeman twenty shillings, apologising that he had no other money to give and saying that he wished it had been more. There was then a bizarrely tender moment between executioner and condemned, as Brown asked him, How shall I lie?
Whereupon the executioner replied, I will show you, sir, and demonstrated the kneeling position that Brown should adopt, then handed him a scarf to place upon the block before resting his neck upon it. Brown then kneeled as he had been shown, uttering his final words, Lord Jesus, receive my soul, before raising his right hand to signal his readiness.
At this signal, the executioner sent him to the next world with a single stroke. I struggled a little to come up with a fitting epitaph for the formidable figure of Brown Bushel, and so here again Jack Binns comes to my rescue for his final paragraph, which I think cannot be exceeded. He writes... Captain Brown Bushel was one of nature's born adventurers.
He was a compulsive man of action, a maid of the stuff of schoolboy's heroes. He was a miniature version of the dashing Prince Rupert, bold, arrogant, rash and fearless. He lived in times of extraordinary danger and he relished them. Bushel regarded himself as a gentleman because he was the eldest son and heir of a gentleman.
As such, he would not make his living like his Bushel cousins and Newton in-laws in trade. As the son and heir of an impoverished gentleman, however, he had no estate to support him in the lifestyle that his status required. Without a rich patron or a profession of his own, there was little he could do except become a professional soldier.
He was too proud to live under his sister's roof and eat his brother-in-law's bread. Unlike his more famous Whitby contemporary, the navigator and great explorer Luke Fox, Brown Bushel did not have even the experience and skills of a seaman to recommend him. War alone gave him an acceptable opportunity for self-advancement and self-expression.
He died as violently and as courageously as he had lived. Historians might exhaust themselves and their readers in endless arguments about why Englishmen fought the civil wars, but Brown-Bushall's principal motive was that he enjoyed them.
And that, dear listener, is the end of this year's Hello Birthday Ween episode. Thank you so much for listening, for sharing your stories, for your likes, reviews and shares, and for supporting us on Patreon and Ko-fi. We literally couldn't do this without your support.
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