Decisive Battles of the English Civil War by Malcolm Wanklyn

Author:Malcolm Wanklyn [Wanklyn, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: English Civil Wars, Battles & Campaigns, Early Modern
ISBN: 1844154548
Amazon: B00K1KIT9I
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Published: 2006-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Finally, Mercurius Aulicus, drawing possibly on Prince Rupert’s despatch, claims that Sir Marmaduke Langdale’s horse retained control of part of the Allied artillery until well after the battle was over, which gives some support to Monckton’s version of events, as he was major of Langdale’s brigade.67 I therefore hypothesize that all Cromwell and Leslie’s cavalry did in the final stage of the battle was to chase away the remnant of Sir Charles Lucas’s command and help hunt down the fleeing Royalist infantry. They thus won the battle almost by default as the last units still standing.

Evidence relating to the infantry fight in the closing stages of the battle is patchy and to some extent contradictory. Most narratives regard the destruction of Newcastle’s Whitecoats as taking place at the very end of the battle.68 Many years after the battle a man who claimed to have been one of Cromwell’s troopers at Marston Moor described his regiment’s destruction of the Whitecoats in detail.69 ‘Captain Stewart’s’ report, however, places the incident much earlier in the battle, but it seems highly unlikely that the Allied left wing cavalry would have been used against infantry formations at that stage if they had an encounter with enemy cavalry still to come. On the other hand, Somerville attributes the destruction of the Whitecoats to Frazier’s dragoons, who would have had the firepower to do so.70 The other point worth commenting on is the hypothesis that the Whitecoats were ordered to sacrifice themselves to cover the withdrawal of the rest of the Royalist army.71 The evidence for this, however, is entirely circumstantial, and if these were indeed their orders, Rupert gained little from it. Few Royalist infantry were still with him the following day. The scenario is also predicated on the ‘last stand’ taking place on the north-eastern edge of the battlefield at the very end of the battle. This seems unlikely. Two Parliamentary sources place the Whitecoats’ alleged sacrifice in the Royalist centre, not on the fringe of the action.72

The fate of the Royalist infantry is therefore problematic. There was no wholesale surrender, as there was to be at Naseby. A second-hand account written by one sea captain to another claims that the men impressed in Wales and the north-west fled without a blow being struck,73 which may explain why part of the Royalist cavalry reserve was able to carry out such an effective charge through the heart of its own infantry position. However, some of Colonel Chaytor’s men marched off the battlefield or quickly returned to their colours, as Rupert left them behind during his march back into Lancashire to help garrison Bolton Castle. Some Northern infantry also managed to reach York where they reinforced the garrison as it prepared for a second siege. So too did some officers and soldiers from the Anglo-Irish regiments of Colonels Tillier and Broughton, as their regiments fought in the king’s armies for almost another year.74 Possibly the escapees were able to take advantage of a window of opportunity when

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