On 2 July 1644 the armies of Parliament and their Scottish allies defeated the Royalist army of Prince Rupert and the Marquess of Newcastle at Marston Moor, west of York, in the First English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell's horse broke the Royalist right, and York surrendered two weeks later. In 1704 Marlborough stormed the Schellenberg.
Full story · ~12 min readBattle of Marston Moor 1644: Who Won and How the North FellOn 2 July 1644 the Scots, the Eastern Association and the Fairfaxes broke Prince Rupert west of York: Cromwell's charge, the Scots who held the center, the Whitecoats and the cost.Read the full story ›
Battle of Marston Moor
2 July 1644 · 382 years ago
Three armies before York
In the spring of 1644, in the First English Civil War, the Marquess of Newcastle held York for Charles I with the king's northern army. By June he was besieged there by three armies: the Scots, or Covenanters, under the Earl of Leven, Lord Fairfax's Yorkshire forces and the Earl of Manchester's army of the Eastern Association, whose horse Oliver Cromwell commanded. The historian C. H. Firth puts the Scottish army that had crossed into England that January at about 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse. According to the Victoria County History, the besiegers mined St Mary's Tower on 16 June and broke into the King's Manor before the defenders drove them out.1
The king sent his nephew, Prince Rupert, to relieve the city. In a letter of 14 June, as Firth prints it, Charles wrote: "If York be lost I shall esteem my crown little less; unless supported by your sudden march to me; and a miraculous conquest in the south". Rupert marched by Boroughbridge and along the north side of the Ouse, seized a bridge of boats at Poppleton and on 1 July camped outside York; the besiegers had drawn off.2
No battle before morning
Newcastle would rather have waited, his wife writes, but Rupert insisted on fighting, and Newcastle had to march out with him. On Tuesday 2 July 1644 the allies drew up facing the Royalists on the moor between Long Marston and Tockwith. Newcastle's infantry from York did not reach the field until about four in the afternoon.3
Firth, following Colonel Ross, estimates about 17,000 or 18,000 Royalists against 26,000 or 27,000 allies; John Cannon gives roughly 18,000 against 27,000, and the Battlefields Trust about 18,000 against about 28,000. Rupert told Newcastle he would begin nothing until early the next morning, and Newcastle went to rest in his coach. In notes that Clarendon drew up, which Firth quotes, the marquess called for a pipe of tobacco, and "before he could take it the enemy charged". Sir Hugh Cholmley, in a narrative Firth also quotes, writes that Rupert "was set upon the earth at meat a pretty distance from his troops".4
Stubble to our swords
Thomas Stockdale, in a letter read in the House of Commons, timed the allied advance at "halfe an hour past 7 a clocke at night". The Newcastle University site and the Battlefields Trust give 7 p.m., and Thomas Carlyle, editor of Cromwell's letters, has the battle fought "from 7 to 10 o’clock".5
On the allied left, Cromwell's Eastern Association horse, with David Leslie's Scottish horse behind them, charged the Royalist right. Leonard Watson, Manchester's scoutmaster-general, wrote that Cromwell's own division "had a hard pull of it" until "he brake through them, scattering them before him like a little dust". Rupert led reinforcements into the fight, but with Leslie's Scots joining the charge the whole Royalist right wing was routed. Cholmley writes that Rupert met his own regiment running and cried: "’S wounds, do you run; follow me".6
Cromwell was wounded and withdrew for a time; Watson calls it "a slight wound in the neck". Three days later he wrote of the Royalist horse: "God made them as stubble to our swords".7
The Whitecoats' last stand
On the other wing the Royalists won. Sir Thomas Fairfax's horse came under musket fire at the ditch and were routed by the Royalist horse of the left wing under Lord Goring; Newcastle's wife, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, writes that Goring and Sir Charles Lucas beat the enemy back "insomuch that they sounded victory". Firth concluded that the Parliamentary center "was entirely routed", while part of the infantry of the right held its ground. Many Scottish regiments stood firm; Firth names the Earl of Lindsay's and Lord Maitland's, whose pikemen beat off three charges of the Royalist horse.8
Cromwell and Leslie then led their horse right across the moor and routed Goring's returning troopers "at the same place of disadvantage where they had routed our horse formerly", as the Parliamentary <cite>Full Relation</cite> puts it in Firth's quotation; the Battlefields Trust also has Cromwell, back on the field, sweep across the moor. Watson wrote that "about nine of the clock we had cleared the field of all enemies".9
The last to stand were Newcastle's Whitecoats, named, Firth notes, for their undyed cloth. From a ditched enclosure they held off the horse until, in the story William Lilly tells on the authority of one of Cromwell's soldiers, "there was not thirty of them living". Lilly adds that Captain Camby, then a trooper under Cromwell, "protested he never, in all the fights he was in, met such resolute brave fellows, or whom he pitied so much". The Duchess wrote that they "were killed in rank and file".10
Counting the dead
Carlyle quotes a count of "Four-thousand one-hundred-and-fifty bodies" to be buried. Stockdale reported above 4,000 Royalists left dead on the field and about 2,000 prisoners. The Battlefields Trust gives about 4,000 Royalists killed and 1,500 captured, against 200 to 300 Parliamentarians killed, and the Newcastle University site 4,000 Royalists killed and around 1,500 taken prisoner, with the allies losing roughly 300 men. Cromwell's own guess was that "of Twenty-thousand the Prince hath not Four-thousand left".11
Cromwell's letter of 5 July went to his brother-in-law, Colonel Valentine Walton, whose eldest son had been hit by a cannon shot: "It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died". The young man told Cromwell that one thing lay upon his spirit: "That God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of His enemies".12
The north is lost
Late that night Newcastle met Rupert near York and told him that all was lost, the Duchess writes. In notes that Warburton printed from Rupert's diary, as Firth quotes them, Newcastle said he would go to Holland: "I will not endure the laughter of the court". Cannon writes that he fled at once to the continent, and the Duchess that he sailed from Scarborough for Hamburg. Rupert marched away with what was left of his army, and on 16 July York surrendered, its garrison marching out with the honors of war, colors flying and drums beating.13
Cannon writes that the north was lost to the royalist cause, though Charles I's success at Lostwithiel two months later masked the full significance. The credit was disputed at once. The Battlefields Trust notes that the Scottish contribution was considerable, but that English Parliamentarian accounts presented the victory as one won by the Eastern Association forces under Cromwell, which started the making of his name as a great commander. In a letter Firth quotes, Baillie objected: "They ascribe to him (Cromwell) the victorie of Yorke; but most unjustlie".14
Battle of the Schellenberg, 1704: Marlborough storms the Danube crossing
2 July 1704 · 322 years ago
Fighting the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough's allied army stormed the Franco-Bavarian defenses on the Schellenberg heights above Donauwörth. After costly failed assaults the hill was taken, giving the Allies a crossing of the Danube shortly before Blenheim.
Read the full story of Battle of the Schellenberg, 1704: Marlborough storms the Danube crossing ›
