27 October in military history: the Battles of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, 1622, and Newbury, 1644

The Huguenot fleet of La Rochelle under Jean Guiton attacked the royal fleet of the Duke of Guise off the Île de Ré. It grappled two fireships to Guise's flagship, which caught fire before the blaze was put out, and the fighting went on until dark. Guiton's fleet escaped in the night. A royal account claimed a victory, while the 18th-century historian Arcère judged that Guise had deserved a success he did not obtain.

The Huguenots at Montpellier accepted the king's peace on 18 October 1622, but the news had not stopped the fleets. Guise was preparing a new attack when letters reached him confirming the peace, and Guiton then laid his flag at the duke's feet.

Late on 26 October 1644 and through the night Sir William Waller led most of the army on a march of 10 to 13 miles round to the west of the Royalist position, while the Earl of Manchester waited east of Shaw House. Waller's men stormed Speen in the afternoon of 27 October, but Manchester attacked only as darkness fell, and his assault failed.

Essex's infantry found some of them in Prince Maurice's works at Speen. Skippon reported nine brass guns taken, six of them guns his men had left in Cornwall, and Edmund Ludlow recalled the soldiers clapping their hats upon the touch-holes, which Gardiner explains as a way of claiming the guns as their own.

The king escaped in the night and came back on 9 November to carry off his guns while Manchester refused to fight. Cromwell's quarrel with Manchester followed, and in 1645 Parliament created the New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax and passed the Self-denying Ordinance, which removed Essex, Manchester and Waller from command.