{ "slug": "marston-moor", "title": "Battle of Marston Moor", "status": "draft", "era": "1600–1760", "date_text": "2 July 1644", "start": "1644-07-02", "end": "1644-07-02", "war": "English Civil War", "cdb90_war": "ENGLISH CIVIL WAR", "place": { "name": "Marston Moor, between Long Marston and Tockwith, about seven miles west of York, North Yorkshire, England", "lat": 53.9623, "lon": -1.2542, "wikidata": "Q326417" }, "lede": "On the evening of 2 July 1644, in a thunderstorm, the allied Scottish and Parliamentarian armies overran Rupert and Newcastle west of York. The largest battle of the civil wars cost the King the North and made Cromwell's name.", "result": "Decisive allied (Scottish Covenanter and Parliamentarian) victory", "result_cdb90": "attacker win", "belligerents": [ { "role": "attacker", "name": "Allied 'Army of Both Kingdoms': Scottish Covenanters, Eastern Association and Northern Association", "commanders": [ "Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven", "Earl of Manchester", "Lord Fairfax", "Oliver Cromwell", "David Leslie", "Sir Thomas Fairfax" ], "strength": { "value": 28000, "low": 24500, "high": 28000, "source": "s2" }, "casualties": { "value": 300, "low": 200, "high": 300, "source": "s1" } }, { "role": "defender", "name": "Royalist army: Prince Rupert's relieving army and the Marquess of Newcastle's Northern army", "commanders": [ "Prince Rupert of the Rhine", "Marquess of Newcastle", "Lord Eythin (James King)", "Lord Goring", "Lord Byron" ], "strength": { "value": 18000, "low": 17500, "high": 18000, "source": "s2" }, "casualties": { "value": 5500, "low": 5500, "high": 5500, "source": "s2" } } ], "sections": { "background": "By 1644 the First Civil War had settled into a contest of regional armies. In the North the Marquess of Newcastle's Royalists had beaten Lord Fairfax at Adwalton Moor in June 1643 and driven the Fairfaxes back into Hull. Parliament's answer was the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scottish Covenanters, and early in 1644 the Earl of Leven brought a Covenanter army across the border.\n\nNewcastle split his forces to face both threats and lost. On 11 April Sir Thomas Fairfax stormed Selby, and on 22 April Leven and the Fairfaxes joined at Wetherby and laid siege to York, with Newcastle inside. On 3 June the Earl of Manchester's Eastern Association army arrived, and Leven took overall command of what was called the Army of Both Kingdoms, three armies of about 28,000 men.\n\nThe King sent Prince Rupert to relieve the city. Leaving Shrewsbury on 16 May, Rupert gathered strength on the way: he took over Byron's Chester army, stormed Bolton, was joined by Goring's Northern Horse, and took Liverpool after a five-day siege. A letter from Charles, ambiguous in its orders, reached him in mid-June; Rupert read it as a command both to relieve York and to beat the besiegers. With nearly 14,000 men he crossed the Pennines by Skipton and reached Knaresborough on 30 June.\n\nThe allies lifted the siege and drew up on Marston Moor to block the direct road. On 1 July Rupert instead swung north in a march of some 22 miles, crossing the Ure at Boroughbridge and the Swale at Thornton Bridge, and seized the allies' bridge of boats over the Ouse at Poppleton. York was relieved without a fight. Rupert, against Newcastle's advice, then went looking for a battle.", "forces": "This was the largest battle of the civil wars, with something like 42,000 to 46,000 men on the field. The allies were three armies under a single command. Leven's Covenanters were the largest contingent: six regiments of horse under David Leslie, Hugh Fraser's dragoons, and a mass of foot brigaded in pairs of regiments under William Baillie and Sir James Lumsden, with a large artillery train under Alexander Hamilton. Manchester's Eastern Association brought over 3,000 horse under Oliver Cromwell, including his double-strength regiment of 'Ironsides', and foot under Lawrence Crawford. Lord Fairfax's Northern Association supplied the foot of the right centre and the horse of the right under his son Sir Thomas.\n\nRupert's army was a fast-built mixture: his own and Byron's veterans from the midlands and Cheshire, Lancashire recruits, and Goring's Northern Horse. Newcastle's foot, the whitecoats, were the best Royalist infantry in the North. In all, the allies deployed over 14,000 foot and 30 to 40 guns in the centre; the Royalists had about 10,000 foot, 14 field guns, and horse wings of roughly 2,600 and 2,100 with musketeers interlined among them, plus Rupert's reserve of about 600.\n\nCommand was the Royalists' weakness. Rupert and Newcastle's lieutenant-general, Lord Eythin, had fought together at Vlotho in 1638 and blamed each other for that defeat.", "course": "**Morning and afternoon.** Early on 2 July the allied foot, guns and baggage marched south towards Tadcaster and Cawood, leaving Sir Thomas Fairfax's horse as rearguard. At about 9am the generals learned that Rupert had crossed the Ouse at Poppleton and was coming onto the moor. The foot, some already at Tadcaster, were hurriedly recalled and formed on the slope of Marston Hill and the cornfields south of the Long Marston to Tockwith road. Rupert drew up on the low, open moor to the north, behind a ditch and hedge marking the edge of the cultivated land, with musketeers lining it.\n\nNewcastle arrived about midday with only a troop of gentleman volunteers, and advised waiting for reinforcements. His foot, about 4,000 men, came out of York late, reportedly delayed by looting the abandoned allied camp, and reached the field only at about 4pm. Eythin criticised the Royalist line as too close to the enemy: a fold in the ground hid the allied front line. The allied guns opened at about 2pm and the cannonade ended at about 5pm. Rupert tried and failed to push Cromwell's horse off the rabbit warren of Bilton Bream on the allied left. As the evening drew on, the Royalists assumed nothing more would happen that day and stood many men down for supper.\n\n**The attack, about 7 to 7.30pm.** Leven saw the Royalists unready and ordered the whole line forward just as a thunderstorm broke. The allies came down the slope fast; archaeology suggests a short, intense firefight at the ditch.\n\n**The allied left.** Crawford's foot outflanked and drove back Napier's brigade at the ditch, and Cromwell's horse quickly beat Byron's first line, which had advanced to meet them and lost its order. Cromwell was slightly wounded in the neck and left the field for a time. Rupert brought up his reserve and rallied Byron's men; for a while his counter-attack gained ground. It was David Leslie's Scottish horse, in Cromwell's third line, that halted it and turned its flank. The Royalist right broke, and Rupert escaped capture by hiding in a bean field.\n\n**The allied right and centre.** Sir Thomas Fairfax's horse had to come forward down a narrow lane and through whins and ditches, and were taken piecemeal. Goring's counter-charge routed them; they fled, riding over their own foot. Eglinton's Scottish regiment of horse fought on for a while. Fairfax himself cut through with a small party to the allied left. Goring's second line under Sir Charles Lucas struck the open flank of Lord Fairfax's foot, who had crossed the ditch with Baillie's vanguard and taken at least three guns. Newcastle's foot counter-attacked and Blakiston's horse charged in the gathering dark. All of Fairfax's foot and six Scottish regiments broke, and early reports had Leven, Lord Fairfax and Manchester fleeing with them.\n\n**The Scottish stand.** The battle turned on what remained. Crawford-Lindsay's and Maitland's regiments held their ground, pikes levelled, against three charges by Lucas, who was captured in the third. Lumsden fed four regiments from the reserve into the gap, and the Scots in the centre kept their formation under Leven's direction.\n\n**Cromwell's sweep.** Cromwell, back on the field, rallied the left-wing horse and, with Leslie's Scots and Crawford's foot, swung across the moor behind the Royalist centre. Goring's horse, returning from the pursuit, were caught in a poor position and driven off. The Royalist foot, now attacked from flank and front, were overrun regiment by regiment.\n\n**The whitecoats.** Some of Newcastle's foot made a last stand in a ditched enclosure, usually identified as White Sike Close, though the register names Fox Covert. Fraser's dragoons broke them with musketry; about thirty survivors surrendered. The fighting had taken about two hours, and Goring's men reached York late at night.", "aftermath": "The Royalists lost about 4,000 killed and 1,500 prisoners, among them Lucas and Tillier, with all their guns and several standards. The allies admitted about 300 killed, among them Sir Thomas Fairfax's brother Charles and Cromwell's nephew Valentine Walton, whose death Cromwell described to the boy's father in a famous letter.\n\nThe Royalist North collapsed. Newcastle left for Scarborough the next day and went into exile in Hamburg with Eythin. Rupert gathered about 5,000 horse and a few hundred foot, left York and went back over the Pennines. York surrendered on terms on 16 July. Leven turned north to besiege Newcastle upon Tyne and Carlisle; he had runaways from the broken regiments returned, and under his Articles of War every tenth deserter was hanged. Manchester marched south, towards the Second Battle of Newbury.\n\nThe argument began at once. English Independent accounts gave the credit to Cromwell and the Eastern Association; the Scots minister Robert Baillie complained that David Leslie was being written out. Modern accounts give the Scots their due: Leslie's horse stopped Rupert, and the stand of Lindsay's and Maitland's regiments under Lumsden held the centre. The story that Leven fled rests mainly on a second-hand account published in 1679, which other eyewitnesses contradict. The battlefield, still farmland, was registered in 1995; an obelisk on the Tockwith road marks its centre.", "wargaming": "Marston Moor is a big but simple battle: two long lines, a ditch between them, and four sectors (two horse wings and a split centre) that each produced a different result. It suits brigade or regiment scale, with each base a regiment of horse or a paired brigade of foot; even so it needs a long table. A game of eight to ten turns of about fifteen minutes covers it from the allied advance to the whitecoats' stand.\n\nThe terrain decides most of it. The ditch and hedge line, lined with musketeers, is the Royalist first defence. Bilton Bream gives the allied left good going for horse, while the lane, whins and ditches on the right should break up Sir Thomas Fairfax's wing and leave it open to Goring. The fold of ground below Marston Hill hides the allied foot, and the enclosures behind the Royalist line give the last stand its setting.\n\nThe timing makes it unusual. A scenario can start with part of the Royalist army stood down, using a surprise or reaction rule, and night falling during the game. Rules for rallying horse after a charge matter more than charge strength: Cromwell rallied and returned, Goring's men did not.\n\nThe what-ifs are rich: Rupert attacks in the morning before the allied foot return; Eythin's men arrive on time; Leslie's horse is committed elsewhere; Lindsay's and Maitland's regiments break with the rest of the centre." }, "images": [ { "file": "File:A plan of the Royalist dispositions at Marston Moor, drawn up by Sir Bernard de Gomme.jpg", "kind": "map", "caption": "Sir Bernard de Gomme's plan of the Royalist dispositions at Marston Moor.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/A_plan_of_the_Royalist_dispositions_at_Marston_Moor%2C_drawn_up_by_Sir_Bernard_de_Gomme.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/A_plan_of_the_Royalist_dispositions_at_Marston_Moor%2C_drawn_up_by_Sir_Bernard_de_Gomme.jpg/960px-A_plan_of_the_Royalist_dispositions_at_Marston_Moor%2C_drawn_up_by_Sir_Bernard_de_Gomme.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_plan_of_the_Royalist_dispositions_at_Marston_Moor,_drawn_up_by_Sir_Bernard_de_Gomme.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "Sir Bernard de Gomme (Prince Ruper's chief of staff at the battle of Marston Moor) -- copied from a manuscript in the British Museum Addit. 16,370. f. 64.", "credit": "The life and campaigns of Alexander Leslie, first earl of Leven (1899) by Charles Sanford Terry, face page to 233.", "width": 2571 }, { "file": "File:Battle of Marston Moor 1644 by John Barker.png", "kind": "painting", "caption": "The Battle of Marston Moor, by John Barker (1811-1886).", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Battle_of_Marston_Moor_1644_by_John_Barker.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Battle_of_Marston_Moor_1644_by_John_Barker.png/960px-Battle_of_Marston_Moor_1644_by_John_Barker.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Marston_Moor_1644_by_John_Barker.png", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "John Barker (1811-1886)", "credit": "Cheltenham Art Gallery and; 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compiled by G. Foard and T. Partida, 2005)", "url": "https://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/civil-war/battleview.asp?BattleFieldId=24", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s3", "title": "Marston Moor: The Battle (The Battlefields Trust, Battlefields Hub)", "url": "https://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/battlepageview.asp?pageid=698", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s4", "title": "Battle of Marston Moor 1644, Registered Battlefield, Historic England list entry 1000020 (read via an Internet Archive copy, since the live site refused automated access)", "url": "https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000020", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s5", "title": "The Campaign for the North 1644 (The Battlefields Trust, Battlefields Hub)", "url": "https://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/campainview.asp?CampainId=77", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s6", "title": "The Battle of Marston Moor (British Civil Wars, Newcastle University Library with the National Civil War Centre)", "url": "https://britishcivilwars.ncl.ac.uk/weapons-warfare/battles-sieges/the-battle-of-marston-moor", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s7", "title": "Marston Moor: Order of Battle (BCW Project)", "url": "https://bcw-project.org.uk/military/english-civil-war/northern-england/marston-moor-order-of-battle", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s8", "title": "P. R. Newman and P. R. Roberts, Marston Moor 1644: The Battle of the Five Armies (Blackthorn Press, 2003)", "url": null, "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s9", "title": "Peter Young, Marston Moor 1644: The Campaign and the Battle (Roundwood Press, 1970)", "url": null, "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s10", "title": "Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (Pickering and Chatto, 2014)", "url": null, "kind": "book" } ], "cdb90": [ 21 ], "order": 8, "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/marston-moor/", "oob": [], "oob_lwtv": [], "scenarios": [], "orbat": null, "orbat_lwtv": null, "reading": { "prose": [], "history": [], "fiction": [], "poetry": [ { "work_id": "ia:rokebylordofisle00scot_0", "title": "Rokeby", "in": null, "author": "Walter Scott", "life": "1771–1832", "year": 1913, "kind": "poem", "library": "Internet Archive", "url": "https://archive.org/details/rokebylordofisle00scot_0", "language": "en", "contemporary": false, "subject": false, "references": 3, "page": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/reading/rokeby-87ad5c/" }, { "work_id": "ia:cu31924013293786", "title": "War songs of Britain", "in": null, "author": "Harold Edgeworth Butler", "life": "1878–1951", "year": 1909, "kind": "poem", "library": "Internet Archive", "url": "https://archive.org/details/cu31924013293786", "language": "en", "contemporary": false, "subject": false, "references": 1, "page": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/reading/war-songs-of-britain-bde0d3/" } ] }, "reading_lwtv": { "prose": [], "poetry": [] }, "photos": [], "photos_kind": "photographs", "newspapers": null }