28. The Successful Renaissance Commander Who Came to an Ignoble End
Sir Arthur Aston (1590 – 1649) was a professional English soldier from a renowned military family. He plied his trade as a mercenary commander in the era’s numerous European wars, and gained a fair measure of prestige and renown. By the time he returned to England in 1640, Aston was a highly experienced commander. He led a regiment for King Charles I in the Second Bishops’ War against the Scots, but Aston was a Catholic, and that became an issue.
Catholics were legally prohibited from a variety of public positions, and expressly barred from serving as army officers. The outcry forced Aston to resign, but as a consolation, Charles knighted him. When the English Civil War erupted soon thereafter, he served the king – who was hard pressed enough now to ignore Aston’s Catholicism – and lost a leg in the process. He got a prosthetic, but it ended up doing him in.