Marston Moor

by Michael Arnold

  As was typical for the time, the flanks were taken up by cavalry. To the west, the Allied left flank, Oliver Cromwell and David Leslie commanded around four thousand horsemen from the Eastern Association and Covenanter armies, while Sir Thomas Fairfax (nicknamed Black Tom for his swarthy complexion) held the right wing of around five thousand.

  The main feature of the battlefield was a long ditch, sparsely fringed with hedges, that separated the opposing armies. Prince Rupert deployed to the north of the ditch, positioning musketeers in and around the feature to harass any Allied advance. His own infantry held the centre, though they were massively outnumbered by the Allied troops arrayed opposite. They were arranged in three lines with supporting cavalry, their foremost brigades, under Sergeant-Major General Henry Tillier, made up of the men that had marched to York with Prince Rupert. The remaining lines comprised the units of Newcastle’s army that arrived on Marston Moor late in the afternoon.

  Rupert’s left wing horse was under the command of George Goring and Sir Charles Lucas, while, facing Cromwell to the west, the Royalist right wing horse was commanded by Lord Byron. They too were heavily outnumbered, but Rupert had ordered them to stay behind the ditch to disrupt any charge from the ridge, and it was here, below the place known as Bilton Bream, that the battle of Marston Moor began.

  The day of the battle must have been strange indeed for those standing to arms on either side of the ditch. The late arrival of Lord Eythin and the York foot meant that it was already approaching dusk when the two armies had fully assembled. The acrimonious scenes between Eythin and Rupert really did happen, and Eythin was vocal in his criticism of the young general’s battle plan. Discouraged, Rupert decided that there would be no engagement until the next day, for time was simply running out. While an artillery duel continued, and the Parliament men sang (the incident with the Royalist officer sent mad by the singing was relayed by an eyewitness), he ordered his army to rest for the night, while the Marquis of Newcastle left the field.

  At around 7 o’clock, to the utter surprise of the Royalist troops, Lord Leven, commanding the Allies from up on the ridge, took the opportunity to launch a surprise attack. During the preceding hour, the fight, as described in the novel, had grown into a bitter brawl over on the western flank. The Royalists had identified an advantageous scrap of ground from which to set cannon, and they had harassed Cromwell’s harquebusiers mercilessly during the late afternoon. Cromwell had eventually snapped, sending a pair of his own guns forward to form a counter-battery that was escorted by two regiments of foot. By turns, these regiments found themselves embroiled in a firefight with Rupert’s musketeers lining the ditch, and it seems logical that more and more troops would have become engaged as the skirmish escalated. Did Leven, watching from his high vantage, always plan to launch a late assault, or did he simply see that the battle had already effectively started? Either way, at around half past seven, beneath a massive thunderstorm, he ordered the rest of his huge army to surge down the slope onto Marston Moor.

  Out on Leven’s left, where the opposing sides had already made contact, Cromwell led his horsemen towards the ditch, having dispatched Fraser’s regiment of dragoons to clear the way. Facing him was Lord Byron, under orders to stand his ground and rely on the terrain for protection. It appears he disobeyed those orders, mounting a charge of his own. Presumably he felt he could gain the upper hand through taking the initiative, but by crossing the ditch he effectively removed any advantage he might have enjoyed. Moreover, his troopers put themselves in the line of fire of the Royalist musketeers stationed in the ditch, preventing them from disrupting Cromwell’s attack. Byron’s decision was rash and very nearly disastrous, his first line collapsing under the impact of Cromwell’s larger, more disciplined force.

  As retold in the book, Cromwell was wounded in this exchange, (tradition has it that the wound was inflicted by Colonel Marcus Trevor, but I have given Stryker the task) which coincided with the advance of the Cavalier second line, under Lord Molyneux, to stabilise the Royalist right wing. As Cromwell briefly left the field to have the wound dressed, Major-General Leslie took command in preparation for another attack.

  Meanwhile, on the opposite wing, fortunes were reversed, with the Royalist horse having the best of it. Sir Thomas Fairfax’s cavalry swept down from the ridge at the same time as his Eastern Association compatriots, but they immediately ran into far trickier terrain. The ditch on the eastern side was a more significant obstacle, and lined by a thick hedge. The only clear crossing point was Atterwith Lane, but it meant that Fairfax’s troopers were forced to funnel into its narrow mouth to safely cross. They immediately came under heavy fire from Goring’s musketeers, so that by the time they had reached the north side of the ditch they were in considerable disarray. Goring then released his front line of horse, which destroyed most of Fairfax’s wing.

  One of the most enjoyable things about writing historical fiction is that the truth is so often more interesting – and unlikely – than anything I could make up, and the fate of Black Tom is one such example. He really did manage to break through the otherwise triumphant Royalist line with a small section of his command and chase a group of fugitives almost back to York, on the mistaken assumption that his horse had routed Goring’s. When finally he returned to the field, he gazed with horror upon the remnants of his clearly defeated wing. I’ll let him take up the tale…

  ‘returning back to goe with my other Troops, I was gotten in among ye enemy, wch stood up and downe ye Fielde in severall bodys of Horse: so, taking ye signall out of my hat, I passed through ym for one of their owne Commanders, and so got to my Ld Manchesters Horse, in ye other Wing, onely with a Cutt in my cheeke, wch was given me in ye First charge; and a shot wch my horse received.’

  He really did ride from one side of the battlefield to the other, with a slashed face and shot horse, successfully passing thousands of enemy soldiers by simply removing the field sign from his hat!

  While this was going on, Goring’s front line was off in pursuit of Fairfax’s horsemen, and sweeping up the ridge in order to plunder the Allied baggage train. Sir Charles Lucas commanded Goring’s second line, and he wheeled right, taking them to threaten the Allied infantry who were now so terribly exposed.

  While the horse had been contesting the wings, the foot had been engaged in their own bitter struggle. The Earl of Leven’s infantry had advanced quickly down the slope to storm the Royalist musketeers in the ditch, and the fight developed much as I have described, with the Allies making rapid gains. Crawford – perhaps, as I have suggested, with something to prove after the debacle at the St Mary’s mine – led his Eastern Association brigades furthest, swinging to his right as he traversed the ditch to pour flanking fire upon the outnumbered Royalists, who fell back in disorder. The second line of Royalist infantry – bolstered by Newcastle’s hardy Whitecoats – moved forwards in a furious counter-attack, and stemmed the tide, halting the Allied advance and throwing the central brigade of Lord Fairfax’s men into disarray. As the Yorkshire Parliamentarians fought to reform, they were smashed by a body of Royalist horse (probably Blakiston’s, as most of the remaining Cavalier troopers would have been engaged by this point on the respective wings) and panic took hold. They routed, fleeing back over the ditch, and, as the Royalists maintained their momentum, the fear spread like a contagion. Several Scots regiments broke too, both in the front and second lines, and then Goring’s cavalry, under Lucas, hit home, striking at the easternmost brigade of Scots foot, formed of the regiments of Lord Maitland and the Earl of Crawford-Lindsay.

  To any observer, it must have looked as though there was no way back for the Army of Both Kingdoms, and certainly this perception was held by the trio of lords who shared its command. Fairfax, Manchester and Leven all fled the field on the assumption that the day was lost. The Earl of Manchester did, as I have described, return a little later, so that he was the only one of the three generals to be present at the conclusion of the battle, but, though h
is arrival must have helped to stabilise matters, this victory, more than any other, was to be won by the lieutenant-generals.

  I have already mentioned the impact of the Eastern Association forces at Marston Moor. Their cavalry, as we shall see, had the greatest part to play, and their infantry did an admirable job along the ditch-line, even as Fairfax’s brigade collapsed to their right, but one must not overlook the part played by the isolated Covenanter regiments of Maitland and Lindsay. It was their courage, exposed to thick musket-fire and repeated cavalry charges, that prevented the complete rout of the Allied army. If they had collapsed under Lucas’s attacks, then surely the rest of the infantry units would have capitulated behind, but they stood their ground, winning priceless time for the reserve lines to move up in support. Though the stand of a certain Royalist brigade is by far the most famous moment of the battle, the stand of Lindsay’s brigade is certainly the most pivotal.

  Over on the left flank, Cromwell had returned to lead the second charge. This time he used David Leslie’s Scots horse to devastating effect. I have taken a slight liberty by giving Leslie a troop of lancers, though there is nothing to suggest that there were definitely no lancers amongst his complement. Whatever the composition of his force, we know that he struck Molyneux’s flank as Cromwell attacked head-on. The result was a complete rout, the Royalist right wing utterly shattered.

  At this point it is worth considering the whereabouts of Prince Rupert. He had left the field to take refreshment, assuming that there would be no battle until dawn, and it evidently took him a good while to realise what had happened. Returning at the gallop, he ran headlong into the flight of his broken second line, which had comprised his very best troops, his own famed regiment of horse among them. Indeed, he was so shocked at seeing his supposedly invincible cavalry in retreat that he personally intercepted them, shouting ‘S’wounds, do you run? Follow me!’

  However many he managed to regroup, they were never going to be enough. Rupert was caught up in the general rout, swept away with the rest, and eventually found himself separated from his men. The rumour was that he concealed himself in a beanfield to avoid capture. His dog, Boye, was not so lucky, and the death of the unfortunate poodle became a powerful propaganda tool for the Roundheads in the following months.

  It was now, with the Royalist left-wing horse completely broken, and its right wing either off seeking plunder or embroiled in a messy scrap with Lindsay’s tough Scots, that Cromwell made a decision that would prove crucial. He did not release the bulk of his own horsemen in pursuit of Rupert’s. This seems an obvious thing to do, with a battle still very much in the balance, but the chase was such an integral part of cavalry actions during this period that to keep his force disciplined in the moment of such crushing victory must have taken a will of iron.

  What happened next is still a matter of disagreement amongst historians. Many believe Cromwell – having linked up with Sir Thomas Fairfax to learn the news of the defeat on the far side – led his cavalry right the way across the field to destroy the returning members of Goring’s original front line. This seems unlikely, given the furious nature of the infantry firefight that was playing out immediately adjacent to Cromwell’s position, and I, therefore, have chosen to describe the course of events based around the supposition that Cromwell and Leslie made straight for the infantry engagement.

  Cromwell took his well-ordered force into the exposed flank of Royalist foot, overrunning them almost immediately. With the Allied foot pressing from the south and the unchallenged might of their horse rolling in waves from the west, the Royalist brigades ruptured and began to collapse; with one famous exception.

  The Marquis of Newcastle’s regiment of whitecoats made a last-ditch rearguard action, perhaps because they were simply stranded in open ground, or perhaps in a deliberate move to cover the retreat of their comrades. The area in which this final display of heroism took place has been the subject of much debate over the years, though the traditional site is often named as White Syke Close. It is worth noting that the Close actually postdates the battle by more than a century, and a number of alternative locations have been put forward, but wherever it took place, the final stand of the whitecoats is one of the most famous episodes of the entire British Civil Wars.

  Refusing to surrender, they formed a ‘hedgehog’ behind their pikes (the predecessor of the square formation made famous by later wars) and resisted repeated charges by Cromwell’s horsemen, all the while taking musket fire from the Parliamentarian and Covenanter infantry. Eventually, they broke, the cavalry getting in amongst them and offering no quarter. Several accounts of the final stand have come down to us, and we know that only around thirty whitecoats survived out of a likely two thousand.

  Incidentally, one account, written by William Lilly, who was not present but supposedly heard the testimony of a Captain Camby, one of Cromwell’s men, states that Camby ‘saved two or three against their will.’ Captain Camby really was an actor, so it seems highly likely that he would befriend a man like Lancelot Forrester!

  The battle of Marston Moor had lasted two hours, featuring around forty-six thousand men and five armies. Almost five thousand men were killed, and many thousands wounded.

  The Royalists lost their ordnance, gunpowder and baggage, a hundred regimental colours, and, two weeks later, the city of York surrendered. Thus ended Royalist power in the north of England.

  Prince Rupert rallied the survivors and went to Chester in order to raise a new army. It is perhaps no surprise that he kept the king’s letter about his person for the rest of his life. The Marquis of Newcastle, accompanied by Lord Eythin, fled to the Netherlands, apparently unwilling to ‘endure the laughter of the Court’.

  Of the Allied commanders, neither Lord Fairfax nor the Earl of Leven came out of the battle with a great deal of credit, both having fled the field. The lion’s share of glory went instead to Oliver Cromwell, whose actions had effectively both started and finished the battle. It was after the battle that he began his startling ascent to the top of the Parliamentarian tree. As an aside, for those wondering why I have not mentioned his famed ‘Ironsides’ in the novel, it may be of interest that the nickname ‘Old Ironsides’ was supposedly given to him by Prince Rupert as a result of Marston Moor.

  During the course of my research, I have read, scribbled over and spilt coffee on a great many excellent histories of the period; too many to name here. But it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge two. The Siege of York, 1644, by Peter Wenham (Sessions Book Trust) was absolutely invaluable to me, as was The Road to Marston Moor, by David Cooke (Pen & Sword Books). My heartfelt thanks to both authors.

  Marston Moor was, with the benefit of hindsight, the beginning of the end of the First Civil War. But, despite the huge setback of 2 July, all was not lost for King Charles, and there was plenty more fighting to come. And what of our hero? Now a prisoner of Parliament, things are looking bleak, and the summer of 1644 will doubtless prove one of the most testing times of his life.

  Major Stryker will return.