Battle of Naseby

Background

By the spring of 1645 the First Civil War had run for nearly three years without a decision. Parliament's answer to its own divided, regional armies was the Self-denying Ordinance of December 1644, which pushed members of both Houses out of their commands, and the New Model Army: a single, centrally paid field army under Sir Thomas Fairfax, with Philip Skippon commanding the foot. Oliver Cromwell, though an MP, was kept on with a renewable commission as Lieutenant-General of Horse.

The Royalists could not agree on a plan. Prince Rupert wanted to recover the north; Lord Digby's faction put Oxford, the King's capital, first; others looked to the West Country. The compromise left the King's main army marching north from Oxford in May while some 3,000 horse under Lord Goring were sent west.

Fairfax, ordered by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to besiege Oxford, sat down before the city on 22 May with little result. To draw him off, the Royalists stormed Leicester on 30–31 May; over 700 soldiers and civilians were reportedly killed. Parliament released Fairfax, who marched north on 5 June. On 12 June his patrols met Royalist outposts near Daventry, and on the 13th Cromwell rode in with fresh cavalry, taking the army to about 14,000 men. That evening Ireton's horse surprised part of the King's Lifeguard in Naseby village. Rupert favoured withdrawing; Digby persuaded Charles to stand and fight on the rolling, open-field country between Naseby and Market Harborough.

The armies

The New Model Army had existed for barely five months. On 14 June it stood two lines deep: Skippon's foot in the centre, five regiments forward and three in support, with a forlorn hope of 300 musketeers out in front and eleven field guns placed between the regiments. Cromwell held the right with six and a half regiments of horse, Henry Ireton the left with five and a half. Colonel John Okey's dragoons, commonly given as 1,000 but about 676 on recent work from pay warrants, were posted on the far left behind the Sulby hedges. Fairfax commanded the whole.

The Royalist army was smaller and older. It formed in three lines with musketeers interleaved among the horse on each wing. Rupert and his brother Maurice led the right; Sir Jacob Astley commanded the foot in three tertias under Lisle, Bard and Bernard Astley, with horse in support; Sir Marmaduke Langdale held the left with the Northern Horse, about 1,500 to 1,700 strong. The King kept a reserve of his Lifeguard and Rupert's own foot regiment, the Bluecoats. These were veterans, but Cromwell's raids on draught animals had already hampered the King's artillery train, and on Langdale's flank the Royalist horse were outnumbered about two to one.

The battle

Morning: deployment (before about 10:00). Fog hid each army from the other at first light. The Royalists began on the ridge between Little Oxendon and East Farndon, south of Market Harborough, and then moved up to Dust Hill. Their scoutmaster failed to find the enemy, so Rupert went forward himself and called the army on. Fairfax had first drawn up ahead of Mill Hill and Fenny Hill on the higher ridge to the south, nearly 600 feet above sea level. Cromwell judged the northern slope too steep to tempt an attack and persuaded Fairfax to pull back and shift west to easier ground. Okey's dragoons went down to the Sulby hedges on the far left, where they could fire into the flank of any cavalry crossing in front of them.

The Royalist advance. The King's army came on in full order of battle across Broadmoor, the shallow valley between the ridges, horse and foot level so that they would strike together. They covered some 800 yards, part of it through ground full of furze bushes, and then climbed towards the New Model. The Naseby Battlefield Project puts Rupert's advance at about 9:00; CDB90 starts the battle at 10:00.

Rupert against Ireton. On the Royalist right Rupert's first line met Ireton's horse. Ireton's own regiment threw back the squadrons opposite, but Ireton then turned part of his force against the Royalist foot, was unhorsed, wounded and captured. Rupert's second line broke most of the Parliamentarian left; only the regiments at the far end, helped by Okey's fire from the hedges, held. Rupert had committed his whole wing and kept nothing back. His troopers pursued off the field to the Parliamentarian baggage at Naseby, where the guard drove them off, and it was a long time before they could be brought back.

The infantry fight. In the centre Astley's foot crossed the crest into Skippon's line. After a single volley the fighting was at push of pike and with swords and clubbed muskets. Skippon was wounded but stayed on the field. Astley's veterans broke the Parliamentarian front line and took six guns; the New Model's second line had to be fed in.

Cromwell against Langdale. On the other wing the horse faced each other for about half an hour before Langdale charged. His Northern Horse, outnumbered about two to one, had to go uphill over broken ground and a rabbit warren on what is now Lodge Hill. Cromwell's troopers routed them. Here was the difference between the wings: Cromwell sent two regiments after the fugitives and kept the rest in hand, then turned them on the flank and rear of the Royalist foot.

Collapse of the centre (late morning to about midday). With Cromwell on one flank and Okey's dragoons and Ireton's rallied regiments on the other, Astley's foot began to surrender. The Bluecoats stood until Fairfax led his own regiment against them. Musket balls found near Long Hold Spinney suggest this last stand was about a kilometre behind the original Royalist line. The King tried to lead his Lifeguard forward, but the Earl of Carnwath seized his bridle and turned him away, and the Lifeguard fell back. Rupert's returning horse could not be re-formed for another charge, and withdrew towards Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Pursuit (to about 13:00 and beyond). Some Royalists tried to rally on Wadborough Hill, about a mile and a half behind their start line. The rest fled north towards Leicester with Parliamentarian horse behind them. Many were cut down in the churchyard at Marston Trussell after taking a wrong road, and on Farndon field the pursuers fell on the Royalist women of the baggage train.

Aftermath

Charles lost his infantry almost entire. About 1,000 Royalists were killed or wounded and some 4,500 taken; the Naseby Battlefield Project gives 4,508 prisoners marched to Northampton on 15 June, and about 3,000 were paraded through London to Westminster on 21 June with 55 captured colours. The King also lost his artillery, stores and baggage. Parliament's losses were light by comparison: about 200 killed and 535 wounded.

On Farndon field Parliamentarian soldiers killed at least a hundred of the women following the Royalist army and mutilated many more; some had their faces or noses cut. London pamphlets praised the killings and called the women whores and the wives of Irish rebels. Historians have since argued that many were probably Welsh, their language mistaken for Irish, and that many were soldiers' wives and servants rather than prostitutes; one petition of 1660 records an elderly royal household servant killed there.

The King's captured correspondence, showing approaches to Irish Catholics and foreign powers, was published as The King's Cabinet Opened and hardened opinion against him. Fairfax retook Leicester on 18 June, beat Goring at Langport and took Bristol; within a year the war was over. Naseby is a registered battlefield, marked by an obelisk of 1823 and a 1930s monument, and the A14 now crosses it.

Wargaming it

Naseby is a good one-day, one-table battle: two armies, three clear sectors, and a result decided by what each cavalry wing did after its first charge. At brigade or regiment level (each base a regiment of horse or a division of foot) the whole field fits comfortably, and a game of six to eight turns, each of about twenty minutes, covers deployment to collapse.

The key terrain is gentle but decisive. Broadmoor is a shallow valley the Royalists must cross; the Parliamentarian ridge gives the defender the crest; the Sulby hedges on the Royalist right make a covered line for Okey's dragoons; and the furze and rabbit warren on the other flank should slow and disorder Langdale's uphill charge. A hidden-deployment or limited-visibility rule for the morning fog, and an option for Fairfax to step back off the forward slope, reproduce the opening.

The central rule question is control of horse. Royalist cavalry that wins should be hard to rally and liable to pursue off table, returning late if at all; New Model horse should rally more readily. Without that difference the Royalist veterans in the centre can win. The obvious what-ifs: Rupert holds a reserve; Goring's 3,000 horse arrive; the King commits his Lifeguard instead of being turned away; or Charles takes Rupert's advice and declines battle. A scenario designer should also decide whether to field the full 676 or 1,000 dragoons, since sources differ.

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