World’s first true Mercenary

Colonel Massey, who successfully held Gloucester for the parliamentarians for virtually the whole of the English Civil War was probably the modern world’s first true Mercenary.  By inclination he was actually a Royalist but had been a professional fighter all his life.  So he went to the King and offered to lead his troops and indicated that he expected to be paid.  The king refused.  So Massey went to parliament and made the same offer.  They agreed immediately and Massey held Gloucester against everything the King’s troops could throw against him.  One wonders - as one often does in similar circumstances - would there ever have been a Regicide and subsequent Commonwealth if King Charles I had accepted Massey’s offer.

- Brian T.

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