A Brief Guide To British Battlefields by David Clark

Author:David Clark
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781472108289
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 2015-02-18T22:00:00+00:00

52. Braddock Down, 19 January 1643

At the start of the Civil Wars, the county of Cornwall was a Royalist bastion, and it remained so to the very end. In charge of the Royalist war effort was Sir Ralph Hopton, who depended upon the support of local gentry such as Sir Bevil Grenville, to raise armed support.

Hopton faced a number of adversaries throughout his military career in the West Country. At the outset, the Earl of Stamford, based at Plymouth, constituted the main Parliamentarian opposition. He considered that Hopton’s poorly armed scratch force could be brought to heel without too much difficulty and despatched an army of 4,000 men, commanded by Colonel William Ruthven, to prove his point.

The Royalists were rather better placed than Stamford had thought. Hopton could call upon 5,000 men who were now well supplied and armed, thanks to the seizure of three Parliamentarian supply ships which a storm had driven into Royalist Falmouth. On 18 January, the Royalists set up camp at Boconnoc Park, near Liskeard. The following morning, they marched towards Liskeard, where it was thought Ruthven was ensconced. However, Ruthven had also been on the move, having taken up a position in front of Braddock’s parish church, St Mary’s, just one mile shy of Boconnoc.

Hopton speedily deployed his troops, Grenville with the infantry in the centre, flanked by cavalry and dragoons. The Parliamentarians drew up in battle order, but they may not have been expecting Hopton, for their artillery was not yet in position. Later, Ruthven would make a face-saving claim to the effect that he had been ambushed.

According to Grenville, both sides settled down to a lengthy exchange of musket fire until Hopton broke the deadlock by ordering an attack, possibly because Ruthven’s guns had arrived. In any event, the Parliamentarians gave ground almost straight away. Ruthven had taken the precaution of lining the hedgerows to his rear with musketeers, and it was hoped that they would provide cover to make for an orderly retreat, but they were swept along by their retreating comrades, Grenville remarking that the advance of his infantry ‘struck a terror in them’.

Neither side sustained serious casualties, but some 600 Parliamentarian prisoners were taken. Hopton and his Cornishmen had shown Parliament that the war in the west would not be easily won.

The battlefield today

St Mary’s Church stands in splendid isolation off the A390, four miles to the east of Lostwithiel (OS Landranger 201 16623). Rumour has it that there is a battlefield monument. I paid a single visit thirty-five years ago and was unable to find one. If it exists, then it must lie in the vicinity of map reference 201 160618, where a battle marker appeared on old ordnance survey maps. Car parking is available by the church. An alternative site suggested for the battle itself is Middle Taphouse, a little to the north-east.

Further reading

Stuart Peachey, The Battle of Braddock Down 1643 (Stuart Press, 1993).

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