page_title: Francis Ottley
section_title: Royalist reorganisation and retrenchment
hierarchical_section_title: Francis Ottley / Royalist reorganisation and retrenchment
caption_attribution_description: See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG.
context_page_description: Sir Francis Ottley was an English Royalist politician and soldier who played an important part in the English Civil War in Shropshire. He was military governor of Shrewsbury during the early years of the war and later served as the Royalist High Sheriff of the county and helped negotiate the surrender of Bridgnorth. His final years were spent in a prolonged and complex struggle to free his estates from sequestration.
context_section_description: The royalists were now feeling much more threatened militarily and were not rising well to the challenge. 17 March brought requests for reinforcement from Sir Vincent Corbet in the wake of a defeat at Middlewich. Two days later William Blunden, Ottley's cousin and commander of the small royalist cavalry force from Bishop's Castle, wrote to him in confusion, trying to find out what his orders were. He enclosed a letter for the sheriff, asking Ottley to open it if necessary, and in this he reported that his troops were completely out of gunpowder and ammunition. The very next day brought news of the inconclusive Battle of Hopton Heath, in which the royalist commander, Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton, had been killed. Orlando Bridgeman wrote to get Ottley to redistribute shot, grenades and artillery, both to make the best of their insufficient supplies and to protect them from capture, and he revealed that they still needed to pay for much of what they had. Ottley duly saw to the transfer of cannon between royalist forces and also used his powers as governor to appoint Richard Millward as an ensign to train an infantry company, commanded by Richard Ottley, his own brother.
  However, the royalist government had realised that local and informal initiatives were proving ineffectual and, by 1 April, had appointed Lord Capel as regional commander, with the title of lieutenant general. Capel wrote to Ottley to introduce himself and to arrange for the storage of gunpowder at Shrewsbury, sending his own troops to guard it. At a council of war, held in Shrewsbury on 3 April, Ottley was made responsible for the safety of the magazine. Capel began to harass Ottley for funds. First he asked him to ensure that those who had promised to maintain the Shrewsbury dragoons produce what they owed: some of the soldiers had failed to turn up for service. He followed this by insisting on a systematic survey of the resources of the townspeople to see what could be extracted: he deputed the lawyer Arthur Trevor to oversee the process: he attached a postscript demanding a huge quantity of musket ammunition. Within a week the king wrote demanding he procure supplies of flax and hemp to make matches for the muskets and artillery.
  The more vigorous military and organisational measures seem not to have steadied royalist nerves and Parliamentarian forces used propaganda skilfully to keep their opponents on edge. On 6 May, William Waller, commanding Parliament's forces in the south-west, issued a demand to the clergy of Shropshire that they take an oath to parliament, intimating that he proposed to drive right across the Midlands to join Brereton. On 16 May Sir Richard Leveson wrote to ask Ottley's help in moving his household goods from Lilleshall Abbey into Shrewsbury for safe keeping, in view of the vulnerability to attack in the countryside. On the same day Capel wrote, apparently to put Ottley on guard against possible disturbances or attacks under cover of the May Fair, as his next letter congratulated the governor on his precautions. Four days later he ordered Ottley, with the help of Sir John Mennes and Sir Thomas Scriven, to carry out a thorough review and upgrade of the fortifications, security arrangements and supply situation. Shrewsbury was to be equipped to resist a siege of at least six months.< He was given plenary powers over the inhabitants to implement his plans. It seems that Capel was at this time acquiring considerable regard for Ottley's efficiency and he kept him informed of wider developments: an account of his attempt to save Warrington from capture stressed success in minor skirmishes after the event rather than the loss of the town to the Parliamentarians. However, there was soon news of royalist success in driving back the Parliamentarians in Worcestershire.
  Capel continued to put the region on a war footing. On 13 June he demanded two horses from each gentry family Apparently a good deal of casual requisitioning was going on and Sir Paul Harris, an enthusiastic but unpopular royalist soon wrote to tell Ottley that so
caption: William Waller, Parliamentarian commander in the south-west
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