Talk:Thomas Coventry, 2nd Baron Coventry

Col. Sandys and Worcester

Though sourced from W. R. Williams' Parliamentary History of the County of Worcester, and indeed copied verbatim from it, the statement "In 1642 he defended Worcester against the Parliamentary army, but was defeated by Col. Sandys." doesn't really accord with the actual history of this period. As one of the commissioners of array for Worcestershire, it is perfectly plausible that Coventry was in either the city, or at least the general area in 1642. Worcester at this time was a royalist stronghold. But there's no record of him having command in the city that I can tell, or the command of any of the military forces in the area. One of the first clashes of the wars did take place in the area, but involved Royalist cavalry under Prince Rupert clashing with a Parliamentarian force attempting to intercept a Royalist convoy (the Battle of Powick Bridge) on 23 September 1642. One Colonel Sandys, specifically Edwin Sandys, son of Edwin Sandys (died 1629) was present as a junior commander of the Parliamentarian force. But the encounter went badly for the Parliamentarians, who were defeated and repulsed. Sandys was mortally wounded in the action. The Royalists then withdrew from Worcester, shortly before its occupation by the Earl of Essex's Parliamentarian army a few days after this clash. The statement that Coventry was somehow defeated by a Col. Sandys seems hard to square with this. By October 1642 Coventry had submitted to Parliament, and appears to have taken no further part in military undertakings, though he was suspected of being a Royalist sympathiser at various points in the 1650s. 77.96.115.80 (talk) 14:53, 17 February 2017 (UTC)