ABSTRACT
The risings began in late 1644 in the counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire, culminating there in the great siege of the royalist city of Hereford by about 12,000 countrymen. By the time that this series of risings had been overcome by Prince Rupert and his brother Maurice, unrest had grown to a pitch in Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset, although in these latter counties it assumed certain partisan characteristics from the outset. The risings in the Welsh border area appear to have been aimed at the restoration of local authority and the demilitarisation of the counties. Although some have tended to equate upland, pastoral region Clubmen movements (such as those on the Welsh border) with proparliamentarian feelings, and lowland, arable region movements as essentially pro-royalist, it seems to have been the case that the border Clubmen were merely defensive and wishing to be out of the war, whilst the Clubmen in Dorset and Wiltshire, by contrast, were overtly pro-royalist and those in Somerset proparliamentarian.
