Preface
Part of the Annual Marston Moor Memorial march is a short talk entitled “The Story of Marston Moor”. When called upon to do this I try to pick a different theme on each occasion. The following is last year’s effort (2024). It is not intended to be a definitive, academic account, rather an attempt to reflect the experiences of some of the lesser figures involved. The main source for this was the Civil War Petitions website (www.civilwarpetitions.ac.uk) along with Henry Westby’s Account book which can be found in Sheffield Archives.
The Talk
Anyone familiar with the Battle of Marston Moor will know the names of the senior commanders involved and the background as to why the battle was fought on 2nd July 1644 in the fields around the monument. For those who do not, a quick recap:
Situation at the end of 1643
By the end of 1643, it was looking like the victory of King Charles I and his Royalist forces was more than likely. In the North and Yorkshire in particular, the army of William Cavendish, the Marquess of Newcastle was dominant. The troops of the Parliamentarian Northern Association under Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas were either penned in Hull or over the border in Lancashire.
Entry of the Scots
This all changed following the entry of the Scots into the war in late 1643. The intervention of their large army commanded by the Earl of Leven and David Leslie meant that Newcastle had to take the greater part of his field army northwards to meet the threat, leaving the defence of Yorkshire and York in particular, in the hands of the local Royalists.
Impact of Selby
The Fairfaxes saw this as an opportunity and, to cut a long story short, brought their forces together and inflicted a serious defeat on the Royalists under Sir John Belasyse at Selby on 11th April.
The news of this defeat led Newcastle to abandon the fight against the Scots and hurry south to secure York, arriving there on 16th April. By the 3rd of June York is completely surrounded, not only by the forces of the Fairfaxes and the Scots, but also by the Army of the Eastern Association, which had moved north from its operations around Newark. This army was commanded by The Earl of Manchester with Oliver Cromwell commanding the cavalry and Lawrence Crawford the Foot.
Rupert Marches
The news of this led King Charles to direct his nephew, Prince Rupert, to march with his army to relieve the city. Cutting long story short again, the approach of Rupert led the Allied army, as the combined besieging forces are known, to decide to break off the siege on the 30th June and concentrate on Marston or Hessay Moor as it was known at the time. This duly happened on the following day.
The morning of the battle
Come the morning of 2nd the Allies had started to withdraw southwards and were strung out with their lead troops almost in Tadcaster. In the meantime Prince Rupert had seized a bridge of boats at Poppleton and his Army started to appear on the moor. In turn this led to the Allies urgently issuing a recall.
The bulk of the 2nd July was therefore spent by both sides gathering their forces on the moor. This was completed by 4.00pm with the late arrival of the Marquess of Newcastle’s infantry and the final regiments of the Scots coming into line.
Royalist decision
The lateness led Rupert and Newcastle to the conclusion that nothing would happen until the next day and so stand their men down. This decision was not shared by the Allies!
Focussing on individuals
Traditional battle narratives tend to focus on generals and the overall picture. But what of the experience of lesser officers and the ordinary rank and file?
One of the first, if not the first, casualty was Roger Houghton, who was probably a captain in the Royalist Sir Thomas Tydlesley’s regiment. At about 2pm the Allies opened an artillery barrage to cover the return to the field of their troops. It was this that killed him and may well have killed and injured others in his regiment such as John Hilton from Wheelton and Thomas Preston of Forton both Lancashire, along with a Henry Bradley. That being said these casualties may have come later as result of the general Allied assault which came simultaneously with sudden summer thunderstorm at around 5pm.
The Battle commences
There is some indication that Cromwell on the Allied left was the first to move in response to Royalist artillery fire. Certainly, after the battle he reported the death of his nephew Valentine Walton who lost his leg from a cannon shot.
Whatever the sequence of events as they were stood down the Royalists were taken by surprise and on their right their first line of Horse was quickly swept away. The troops Prince Rupert led up in his unsuccessful attempt to rectify the situation included the Prince’s own Horse regiment. Serving under him was one Rowland Harrison of Whitby who was a long standing Royalist having enlisted with the Prince when King Charles raised his standard Nottingham. Thereafter he fought at Powick Bridge, Edgehill, Brentford later was captured at Cirencester. Despite this he was either released or escaped in time to be back with his regiment at the battle and was one of those who managed to get away apparently unscathed. Unfortunately, one Edmund Sudell in Molyneux’s regiment which was also part of Rupert’s manoeuvre, was not as lucky, as his wounds led to him being blinded.
Across the whole of the line the Allied forces attacked. In the centre, they in turn were counterattacked by at least some of Newcastle’s infantry and also a small contingent of cavalry including Newcastle himself. Involved in all this were George Hancocke of Mountagu’s regiment and John Donge of Overton’s regiment. The latter was seriously injured, losing the use of his left hand which caused problems in later life as he was brick layer by trade.
The cavalry on the Allied left was commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax. Despite his personal success, most of his regiments were very badly handled. We know that Thomas Hughson, a Trooper in Sir William Fairfax’s lost his life as did Edward Birberb, Henry Green and Richard Elliot of Henry Westby’s company. Hughson was a shoemaker by trade.
Collapse of the Royalist centre
After his defeat of Rupert Cromwell managed to keep his cavalry under command for the greater part, unlike the victorious Royalist Horse on their left wing which careened off in pursuit of their beaten opponents and to raid the Allied baggage. So when Sir Thomas Fairfax appeared on his wing having ridden through the Royalist Army after taking his field sign from his hat, he was in the position to be able to be able to start rolling up the Royalist army.
Various people and regiments were caught up in this. Many will have been killed but others were wounded and captured. Examples are Robert ap Edward from Wales, Hugh Lewis, James Richardson, John Roberts, Peter Jones and William Stoakes who all arrived on the field with Prince Rupert. Newcastle’s infantry was also hard hit. Again we know the names of some of these: James Stockton, Thomas Cowpland, Thomas Edwards, Edward Bagshaw, Francis Petty and Robert Rowell to name but a few.
Quite quickly, Marston Moor being a short battle compared to others in the Civil Wars, the Royalist Army infantry disintegrated and the returning cavalry of their right wing found the battle lost.
The Last Stand
That being said there were two units who stood their ground. One was probably the green coats of Henry Tillier’s regiment with Tillier himself being captured. The other was the Whitecoats of Newcastle’s own regiment under their colonel Posthumous Kirton. These died almost to a man, with only 30 being taken prisoner and that against their will. It is just possible that one of these was James Moore of Letwell. In January 1699 at nearly 80 he petitioned for relief. The start of his petition reads:
“That your Worships’ poor petitioner, being taken by the commission of array from Letwell aforesaid for the use of his Majesty’s service, King Charles the First, of blessed memory, under the command of his Grace, William Duke of Newcastle. In which said service, at a battle fought upon Marston Moor, he received many wounds in his head, especially one by a pistol shot, which bullet doth sit in his neck, which is very apparent to be seen and is both painful and very troublesome to him, being very near eighty years of age.”
He was granted 40s a year.
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Petition of Frances Hughson (daughter of Thomas Hughson) of Macclesfield, Cheshire, 23 April 1655
From the Civil War Petitions website (www.civilwarpetitions.ac.uk). Their site reads as follows for copyright: “All document images are copyright of the holding archive and reproduced by permission under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC licence. They may not be reproduced without the consent of the archive”. And “Images may be used only for non-commercial purposes, such as research, private study or education. For the avoidance of doubt commercial use includes but is not limited to direct resale of images and to monetising the images directly or indirectly through applications and websites such as pay-per-view download or subscription services. Applications for any other use should be made to Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Duke Street, Chester CH1 1RL.”
The petition of James Moore of Letwell, West Riding of Yorkshire, 17 January 1699
Source and copyright is as above, but this time the owner is West Yorkshire Archive Service, West Yorkshire History Centre, 127 Kirkgate, Wakefield WF1 1JG.
Henry Westby’s Diary, Page showing those of his soldiers killed at Hessay (Marston) Moor 2nd July 1644.
Source of this is “Sources for the Study of the English Civil War (1642 – 1651)” produced by Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information.
The copyright statement therein reads: “Images can be copied for private or educational use without permission from us, though we ask that the following acknowledgement is included ‘[document reference number] from the collections of Sheffield Libraries Archives and Information’. Please contact us if you wish to publish, exhibit or broadcast any of the information within this Guide.”
