Battle of Marston Moor (1644): Royalist Defeat in the North

The Battle of Marston Moor, fought on the evening of 2 July 1644 west of York, was the largest battle of the English Civil War. An allied army of Parliamentarians and Scottish Covenanters defeated the Royalists under Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the Marquess of Newcastle. The victory cost Charles I the whole of northern England and made the reputation of Oliver Cromwell.

Background: the siege of York

By early 1644 the war had widened. Under the Solemn League and Covenant, agreed in September 1643, a Scottish army of about 20,000 men under Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, crossed into England in January 1644. Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas Fairfax defeated the Royalists at Selby in April, and the Marquess of Newcastle, the king’s commander in the north, retreated into York.

From April to June 1644 York was besieged by the Scots, the Fairfaxes and the army of the Eastern Association under the Earl of Manchester, with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general of horse. The city was the Royalists’ main base in the north, and its fall would be a serious blow.

Charles I sent his nephew Prince Rupert north with a relief army. In a letter of 14 June the king told Rupert that if York were lost he would regard his crown as little less than lost, unless Rupert relieved the city and beat the besieging armies. Rupert took this as an order to fight.

The armies meet

Rupert approached York by a wide flanking march through Knaresborough and Boroughbridge, approaching the city from the north. The allies, expecting him from the west, had drawn up at Long Marston, and on 1 July Rupert relieved York without a fight.

Instead of waiting, he resolved to engage the allies the next day. Newcastle’s troops were slow to leave York, and by the time the Royalists were deployed on the moor on 2 July, the allies had returned and formed up on the higher ground to the south.

The allied force is usually estimated at 22,000 to 28,000 men and the Royalists at about 17,000 to 18,000. Rain fell during the afternoon, and Rupert, believing it was too late in the day for a battle, allowed his men to rest and eat.

The battle

At about 7 pm, as a thunderstorm broke, the allies advanced down the slope. On the allied left, Cromwell’s Eastern Association cavalry, supported by Scottish horse under David Leslie, attacked Rupert’s right wing. After hard fighting, in which Cromwell was slightly wounded in the neck, they routed the Royalist horse. Rupert himself was swept away in the flight.

On the allied right, matters went badly. Sir Thomas Fairfax’s cavalry, struggling across broken ground, was beaten by the Royalist horse under Lord Goring, and many Scottish and northern infantry regiments in the centre broke and fled. Leven and Lord Fairfax left the field, believing the battle lost.

The decisive moment came when Cromwell and Leslie kept their cavalry under control. Instead of chasing the fleeing enemy, they swung round behind the Royalist army and attacked Goring’s victorious horsemen, then the Royalist infantry. Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had made his way through the Royalist lines, joined them.

Newcastle’s own infantry, known as the Whitecoats from their undyed woollen coats, refused to surrender. They made a last stand in an enclosure known as White Syke Close and were almost all killed. By about 10 pm, in the dark, the battle was over.

Casualties and aftermath

About 4,000 Royalists are usually estimated to have been killed and around 1,500 captured, together with their artillery and many standards. Allied losses were far lower, perhaps about 300 dead, although all figures are uncertain. Writing to his brother-in-law Valentine Walton after the battle, Cromwell famously declared that God had made the enemy “as stubble to our swords”, in a letter that also broke the news that Walton’s son had been killed.

York surrendered on 16 July 1644. Newcastle, believing the king’s cause in the north was finished, went into exile on the Continent. Rupert gathered the remains of his cavalry and returned south.

Why the victory was not decisive

Marston Moor did not end the war. The allied commanders quarrelled over strategy, and in the south the Royalists defeated the Earl of Essex at Lostwithiel in Cornwall in September 1644. The indecisive Second Battle of Newbury in October 1644 led Cromwell to accuse Manchester of lacking the will to win.

These quarrels led to the Self-Denying Ordinance and the creation of the New Model Army, which would finish the war at the Battle of Naseby in 1645.

Key people

• Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619–1682): the king’s nephew and most celebrated cavalry commander, who had won a string of victories before Marston Moor. The defeat dented his reputation for invincibility.
• William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle (1593–1676): a wealthy courtier who had raised and paid for the Royalist army of the north. He left England after the battle and returned only at the Restoration in 1660.
• Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven (c. 1580–1661): a veteran of Swedish service in the Thirty Years’ War and commander of the Scottish army, nominally in overall charge of the allies.
• Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658): lieutenant-general of the Eastern Association’s horse, whose disciplined cavalry decided the battle.
• Sir Thomas Fairfax (1612–1671): commander of the allied right-wing horse, who would lead the New Model Army a year later.
• David Leslie (c. 1600–1682): Scottish cavalry commander whose support for Cromwell on the left was vital, although Parliamentarian accounts often played it down.

A battle of five armies

Marston Moor is sometimes called a battle of five armies. On the allied side stood the Scottish army, Lord Fairfax’s Northern Association and Manchester’s Eastern Association; on the Royalist side, Rupert’s relief army and Newcastle’s garrison and field forces from York. Coordinating so many commanders was difficult for both sides, which helps explain why the fighting was so confused.

The battle also caused rivalry among the victors. Cromwell’s supporters in London credited the Eastern Association cavalry with winning the day, while the Scots felt that their contribution, especially David Leslie’s horse, was ignored. This friction fed wider disputes between English Independents and Scottish Presbyterians about religion and the future of the war.

Myths and facts

The nickname “Ironsides”. According to tradition, Rupert gave Cromwell the nickname “Old Ironsides” after Marston Moor, and it was later applied to his cavalry. The story is widely repeated, but its exact origin is uncertain.

Rupert hiding in a beanfield. Parliamentarian pamphlets claimed that Rupert escaped by hiding in a field of beans. This was propaganda, and there is no reliable evidence for it.

Timeline

• 1644, 19 January: The Scottish army under the Earl of Leven crosses into England.
• 1644, 11 April: The Fairfaxes defeat the Royalists at Selby.
• 1644, 22 April: The siege of York begins.
• 1644, 14 June: Charles I writes to Rupert urging him to relieve York.
• 1644, 1 July: Rupert relieves York.
• 1644, 2 July: Battle of Marston Moor.
• 1644, 16 July: York surrenders to the allies.

Why it matters

Marston Moor was the turning point of the war in the north. It gave Parliament and the Scots control of most of northern England, showed the value of disciplined cavalry under Cromwell, and set off the arguments that led to the New Model Army and Parliament’s final victory.