On 30 June 1643, in the First English Civil War, the Royalist army of the Earl of Newcastle defeated the Parliamentarians of Lord Fairfax on Adwalton Moor, near Bradford in Yorkshire. A charge of pikemen, made when the Royalists were close to retreating, broke Fairfax's line. Bradford fell within days, and only Hull was left to Parliament in Yorkshire.
Battle of Adwalton Moor
30 June 1643 · 383 years ago
A town that could not hold
In June 1643 the Royalist army of the Earl of Newcastle was marching on Bradford, the base of the Parliamentarian army of Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax. On 22 June it stormed Howley House, which Cavendish's editor places about halfway between Wakefield and Leeds. According to Newcastle's wife and biographer, Margaret Cavendish, he had already sent 7,000 men and a train of artillery to escort the Queen, a figure her editor, C. H. Firth, considers certainly exaggerated, putting the Queen's whole army at probably 4,500 or 5,000 men; the Royalist diarist Sir Henry Slingsby records the council of war that decided to send only part of the army with her, so that Newcastle could stay and fight Fairfax.1
Bradford had no proper defenses, and Lord Fairfax chose to march out and strike at the Royalists before they could besiege him. His son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, wrote in his memoir that they had not above ten or twelve days' provisions and resolved to attack Newcastle's whole army in its quarters three miles off with a body of 3,000 men.2
The figures differ. The Battlefields Trust gives Newcastle at least 9,000 men and Fairfax 3,500 or 4,000 regular troops with four field guns, plus a large number of "clubmen" with makeshift weapons. The Newcastle University site gives about 10,000 Royalists against roughly 4,000 Parliamentarians, and Sir Thomas put Newcastle's army at 10,000 or 12,000. Both the Battlefields Trust and Cavendish say that Fairfax had more musketeers than Newcastle; Cavendish adds that Newcastle's chief strength lay in his horse.3
Two armies on one road
Lord Fairfax set the march for four in the morning, but in Sir Thomas's account Major-General Gifford, who had the ordering of it, delayed it until seven or eight, "not without much suspicion of treachery". Newcastle was advancing along the same road toward Bradford, and the Battlefields Trust calls Adwalton a classic encounter battle, in which neither army knew of the other's advance until the last minute. Slingsby says the same: both sides resolved to give battle, and neither knew the other's intention. The Newcastle University site has the fighting begin at about nine in the morning.4
The advance parties met in the enclosed fields below the moor, and the Parliamentarians drove the Royalists out of them up the hill to their main body on the open moor. Sir Thomas commanded the right wing and Gifford the left; Lord Fairfax, in his son's words, commanded in chief, and the Newcastle University site places him in the center. Sir Thomas gives each wing about 1,000 foot, with five troops of horse on his own.5
Musketeers in the hedges
Fighting from behind the hedgerows, the Parliamentarian musketeers held the upper hand. "Ten or twelve troops of horse charged us in the right wing; we kept the inclosures, placing our musketeers in the hedges next the Moore; which was a good advantage to us who had so few horse," Sir Thomas wrote. Cavendish says the Royalist horse had nowhere to form but among old coal pits, and could cross a great ditch and high bank only two abreast, under musket fire.6
In Sir Thomas's account the Royalist horse charged his wing twice, and the colonels who led them, Howard and Herne, were killed. The Parliamentarian foot pushed the Royalists back toward their own cannon; Cavendish writes that they came almost to surrounding Newcastle's guns. Sir Thomas also tells of four of his men who stripped Herne naked as he lay on the ground while the fight went on around him; a cannon ball later fell into their troop and killed two of them, which he called "a remarkable instance of divine Justice".7
A stand of pikes
The Royalists came close to giving up. The Battlefields Trust has them about to retreat, and Sir Thomas writes that orders were given for it and some marched off the field. According to the Newcastle University site, Newcastle himself believed for a moment that he had lost.8
"Whilst they were in this wavering condition, one Colonel Skirton desired his General to let him charge once with a stand of Pikes, with which he broke-in upon our men," Sir Thomas recalled. The Newcastle University site names the officer as Colonel Kirton. Cavendish writes that the pikes, particularly those of Newcastle's own regiment, fell on the Parliamentarian left so furiously that the enemy "forsook their hedges, and fell to their heels"; a shot or two from the Royalist cannon disordered the enemy horse, and the Royalist cavalry got over the hedge and routed them. "So that in an instant there was a strange change of fortune, and the field totally won by my Lord," she wrote.9
The Parliamentarian reserves were not brought up. Sir Thomas wrote that they were commanded by some ill-affected officers, chiefly Major-General Gifford, "who did not his part as he ought to do". The left and center broke and fell back toward Bradford. Cut off on the right, Sir Thomas escaped along a lane that led to Halifax. The Newcastle University site says the battle lasted three hours.10
Counting the cost
According to the Battlefields Trust, the Parliamentarians lost three guns, 500 killed and 1,400 captured, while Royalist losses seem to have been very light. Cavendish claims about 3,000 prisoners and 700 horse and foot slain. Sir Thomas lists Captain Talbot and twelve men killed in the last fight on his wing, and writes that of those who fled about sixty were killed and three hundred taken prisoner.11
A wife on the road to Leeds
Sir Thomas got back into Bradford, and his father left for Leeds. That night Newcastle's army sat down before the town. Sir Thomas describes Royalist guns on the hills firing into it, two assaults beaten off, and a powder store down to one barrel, so the garrison decided to break out before daybreak.12
His wife, Anne, rode with the horse. "I must not here forget my Wife, who ran the same hazard with us in this retreat, and with as little expression of fear; not from any zeal, or delight in the war, but through a willing and patient suffering of this undesirable condition," he wrote. As day began to break, Sir Thomas writes, Royalist horse fell on his party, and she was taken with the officer Will Hill, behind whom she rode. Within a few days Newcastle sent her to her husband in his own coach. That act, Sir Thomas wrote, "gained him more reputation than he could have got by detaining a lady prisoner, upon such terms".13
Only Hull left
Lord Fairfax made for Hull, and his son joined him there. Sir Thomas writes that the governor of Hull had threatened to shut the gates on them, until the townsmen secured the governor and offered the Fairfaxes refuge. According to the correspondence edited by Robert Bell, Parliament, answering Lord Fairfax's letter of 5 July, appointed him governor of Hull in place of Sir John Hotham; Speaker William Lenthall's letter is dated 19 July 1643.14
Bradford was taken, and apart from Hull the Royalists now controlled all of Yorkshire. Cavendish adds that the Parliamentarians abandoned their garrisons at Halifax, Leeds and Wakefield. The Battlefields Trust, noting that Cooke described Adwalton as "the forgotten battle", ranks it after Marston Moor as the second most important action fought in the North during the Civil War.15
Battle of Domstadtl, 1758: the ambush that saved Olomouc
30 June 1758 · 268 years ago
In the Moravian village of Domašov, Austrian troops under Laudon and Siskovits attacked a large Prussian supply convoy heading for the siege of Olomouc in the Seven Years' War. The convoy was destroyed, Olomouc was saved and Frederick the Great had to leave Moravia.
Read the full story of Battle of Domstadtl, 1758: the ambush that saved Olomouc ›Also on this day
1862: in Virginia, Confederate divisions struck McClellan's Union army at the Glendale crossroads as it retreated to the James River; Longstreet and A. P. Hill routed the Pennsylvania Reserve division, but the Union line of retreat held, and the army reached Malvern Hill. See our article on the Seven Days battles.16
