Clubmen were bands of local defence vigilantes during the English Civil War (1642–1651) who tried to protect their localities against the excesses of the armies of both sides in the war. They sought to join together to prevent their wives and daughters being raped by soldiers of both sides, themselves being forcibly conscripted to fight by one side or the other, their crops and property being damaged or seized by the armies and their lives threatened or intimidated by soldiers, battle followers, looters, deserters or refugees. As their name suggests, they were mostly armed with cudgels, flails, scythes and sickles fastened to long poles. They were otherwise unarmed.[1]
Initially Clubmen gatherings came together spontaneously in response to the actions of soldiers in their localities but as the war went on Clubmen in some areas were organised by the local gentry and churchmen and were a force which both sides in the war had to take into account when planning a campaign and garrisoning some areas, particularly in the south and west. The Clubmen, distinguishing themselves by white ribbands,[2] were of a third party, neither Royalist nor Parliamentarian, and they were repressed severely by the authorities on both sides. Though Lord Fairfax met with Clubmen and negotiated with them, eventually he moved against them.
- ^ Godwin, George (1904). The Civil War in Hampshire (1642–45) (2nd ed.). p. 314.
- ^ Rev. Hugh Peters, riding with Fairfax in July 1645, found the Clubmen out in force at Salisbury, "wearing white ribbands in their hats, as it were in affront of the army, not sparing to declare themselves absolute neuters, or rather friends to the enemy" (quoted in Godwin (1904), p. 315).