Marston Moor: The Largest Battle Of The English Civil War | History Of Warfare | Timeline

By the end of 1643, the fate of England lay poised in the balance. After nearly two years of bloody civil war, King Charles I and his Royalist army were clearly on the defensive. Now was the moment for the Roundheads to strike a decisive blow, but Parliament's armies, riven by internal strife and ravaged by typhus, were simply too weak to destroy the beleaguered Royalist armies and finish the war. One thing and one thing alone could now bring victory to either side – foreign intervention. As the Roundheads and Cavalier forces eyed each other warily, Royalist officers frantically scoured Catholic Ireland for recruits. Others went cap in hand to the courts of Europe in a desperate attempt to enlist new allies. But the race to find outside help was not to be won by the King's men, it was to be won by the Roundheads. While the King's Irish reinforcements arrived piecemeal in dribs and drabs, Parliament won the wholehearted support of Scotland. That support brought with it a fresh army, 20,000 strong. In January 1644, the Earl of Unless this mighty army could be destroyed, the King's war was all but lost. The causes which eventually led five armies to face each other on Marston Moor, outside the ancient city of York, in July 1644, were many and complex. But two principal issues divided the factions. The first was whether the country was to be governed by the King alone as the Lord's Anointed, or by the will of his people, as represented by Parliament. The King's supporters accepted his divine right to rule with absolute authority. The Parliamentarians disputed these rights to the extent that they were prepared to take up arms against their sovereign. In addition to these political problems, there were also religious difficulties. As always, the support of God was enthusiastically invoked in this struggle by both parties, but differences over religion were at the root cause of the struggle. In an age when the great majority of common people could neither read nor write, the Church was absolutely central to their lives, and therefore enjoyed an enormous influence over their actions. The parish priest not only ministered to the spiritual needs of his flock, and acted as a trusted advisor on more mundane matters, but he also relayed and interpreted the news of the day from the pulpit. He informed people of new laws and new taxes. He told them if an heir to the throne had been born, and he told them if the King wanted soldiers for his foreign wars. Therefore, to control the pulpit was also, in a very real sense, to control the people as well. If you love history, then you will love History Hit. Our extensive library of documentaries features everything from the ancient origins of our earliest ancestors, to the daring mission to sink the Bismarck. History Hit has hundreds of exclusive documentaries, with unrivalled access to the world's best historians. We're committed to bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else. Sign up now for a free trial, and timeline fans get 50% off their first three months. Just be sure to use the code TIMELINE at checkout. Charles I, as the head of the Church of England, was alive to the implications of the power of the pulpit, and sought to preserve the influence of the Sovereign over the Church through his control of the bishops. However, the reformation of organised religion in Britain in the 16th century had not ended with the breach with Rome. The process of reformation proved to be one of constant change. More than 100 years later, new Protestant sects and faiths were still evolving, and as each grew more stern than the last, they became known collectively as Puritans. These new groups often founded their own churches, with ministers who did not always interpret the word of God and the news of the day as his King and Archbishops might have wished. Ultimately, a struggle for control of the form and manner of worship would erupt into a full civil war, with the King's supporters generally in favour of the old-style Church of England, and the parliamentarians broadly allied to the forces of continual reformation. In Scotland, the situation was even more difficult for Charles. The Church of Scotland was a far more radical church than the Church of England. Its Presbyterian organisation meant that the church was governed by elders of the various parishes, with no permanent hierarchy to rule over them. It was therefore impossible for a sovereign to exercise the kind of control which Charles enjoyed over the Church of England. Undeterred, Charles made an ill-judged attempt to impose Anglican forms of worship on the Scots church. Ironically, it was this endeavour to browbeat the Scots into accepting the Anglican religion which was to set him on the road to what has become known to posterity as the English Civil War. Prayer books, incense, regalia and, above all, the King's bishops were absolute anathema to the majority of Scots. They flatly refused to accept Charles' attempted reforms. To them, Anglicism appeared to harken back to Rome and to destroy the spiritual and democratic independence of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Blind to his northern subjects' resentment, Charles arrogantly imposed a new book of common prayer on Scots services. When a surplus clergyman tried to read from one of the new prayer books in St Giles Cathedral, a riot ensued and a full-blown constitutional crisis followed. Soon the whole country was in open defiance of the King's commands in the matter of religion. This was a challenge to the King's authority which he was not willing to ignore. The Scots were equally aware of the consequences of their actions and they bound themselves together by a national covenant under which every able-bodied man and woman in the kingdom vowed to protect their religious liberties. They then proceeded to raise an army of the covenant. King Charles naturally responded to this threat by mobilising his own army. But in order to find the money to pay and equip them, he was reluctantly forced to recall a parliament, the first since 1628. It was to prove a disastrous step. In two short wars in 1639 and 1640, Charles was defeated by the Scots Covenanters in what were to become known to posterity as the Bishop's Wars. For the first time in a thousand years of cross-border warfare, the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne fell into Scottish hands and it was they who dictated surrender terms to the King. One of the odd things about the Bishop's War is that although the Scots are conspicuously successful and something like capturing Newcastle-upon-Tyne is quite a feat as far as Scots are concerned, it's not something they'd ever done before, but yet it's virtually forgotten about in Scotland. That's because it's very much overshadowed by what followed just within a couple of years. And not only have you got dashing things like Prince Rupert of the Rhine, this English Civil War in general, and very much of course Cromwell and his part in things, you've also got the markers of Montrose and his chasings around Scotland and so forth, which are quite remarkable in themselves. They are very much deserving of notice. It's just a pity that they followed so quickly after what was very much a creditable achievement by the Scots Army. With the hostile Scots Army before him, and an increasingly unruly Parliament at his back, Charles recognised that for the moment at least he could not bend Scotland to his will by force, but he was still their King nonetheless. With the pig-headedness which was to typify Charles's rule, he performed an amazing about-turn and travelled to Edinburgh in a forlorn attempt to court Scots assistance. He needed their help to curb the growing power of his English Parliament, which had produced legislation protecting itself from being disbanded. Charles was now on the verge of a civil war with his own Parliament. The King's attempt to win over his erstwhile enemies was to prove futile. His visit to Scotland was a complete failure. The Scots would not support their monarch who had so recently attempted to deprive them of their religious liberties, but they would not oppose him either. When the war in England eventually did come, the Scots stood menacingly on the sidelines and waited to see the outcome. By late 1643, the war in England had reached a stalemate. Although Parliament still held the upper hand numerically, both sides were simply too exhausted to overcome the other unaided. Outside help had to be sought, and the most obvious place to look for it was in Scotland. Large numbers of Scots mercenaries were already fighting for both King and Parliament, but the Scottish Government itself had so far remained neutral. Charles recognised that his religious differences with the Scots were such that they were unlikely to ally themselves to him. It would be asking too much to expect their active support for his cause. He therefore directed his diplomatic efforts to ensuring that they stayed neutral. Parliament, however, was far closer to the Scots in the complex matter of religious worship. To court favour in Scotland, it seemed that the Parliamentarian commissioners negotiating with the Scots were even prepared to accept the adoption of Presbyterianism as the official religion of England. In practice, the majority in Parliament had no real intention of imposing the Scots form of church government in England, but they gave an excellent impression of appearing to do so. It was Parliament, therefore, who succeeded in persuading the Scots that they When the English Parliament wanted to gain Scots allies, initially they thought about the Scots army in Ulster. They'd been sent there in 1641 and 1642 after the outbreak of the Catholic uprising there, and the initial negotiations centred around bringing this army back from Ireland to fight in England because it was obviously a very experienced battle-hardened army, but they suddenly discovered that this wasn't going to be possible because the army in Ireland hadn't been paid for years. They'd got three months' pay when they first went across there and hadn't been receiving a penny since, and quite frankly, they were mutinous. They were, in fact, in secret negotiation with loyalist agents to come over to the King's side, not through any conviction, simply because the King promised to pay them. Therefore, they decided the best thing to do was to leave that army there, where it was safe enough fighting the Irish rebels. It was quite happy fighting the Irish rebels because they were Catholics, and they said to raise a new army on the same basis by universal conscription throughout Scotland, and then use that army of 20,000 men to invade. On the 25th of September 1644, the Solemn League and Covenant was signed, committing the Scots to intervene in the civil war on the side of Parliament. In 17th century Scotland, armies were not raised by beating up for volunteers, as was the case in England, but by a form of conscription. The Scots regiments were territorially based, and local communities often took a great pride in raising their own regiments and following their progress with keen interest. From time immemorial, when troops were required, a muster, or wapenshaw, would be held in each Scottish district. At this muster, equipment was inspected and the names were taken of each unmarried man between the ages of 16 and 60 who was fit for military service. Once the orders were actually given for mobilisation, one man in four from the list was to be called up. The sheriffdom in which he was raised was responsible for kitting him out and paying him for the first 40 days of his service, and only after that time did his upkeep become the government's responsibility. In the years before the Great Civil War, thousands of Scots had served overseas in the various armies engaged in the German wars. Now, in order to make the best possible use of their experience, it was directed that while each colonel of each regiment should naturally be a local nobleman, his second-in-command was to be a professional soldier. This sound principle applied throughout the army. Side by side in each regiment, there were to be found two quite different kinds of soldiers, musketeers and pikemen. The musketeers accounted for about two-thirds of the regiment's strength and were armed with matchlock muskets. These were simple muzzle-loading weapons, fired by means of a piece of match or slow-burning fuse. The pikemen were armed with 16-foot-long pikes, and although they were expected to fight against other pikemen when the fight came to close quarters, their real task was to protect the musketeers against enemy cavalry. Like their English counterparts, most Scots cavalrymen wore little armour. Often a thick leather buff coat and a helmet was considered enough, but some of them were armed quite differently. In battle, Scots cavalry regiments were normally formed up into two squadrons. One of them was composed of men armed with swords, pistols and carbines in the usual manner. The other was often armed with lances, a weapon which had gradually fallen into disuse in much of Europe and which was now quite unknown in England. The general commanding this mighty host was himself one of the most highly regarded professional soldiers in Christendom, Alexander Leslie, the recently created Earl of Leyvan. On the 19th of January 1644, Alexander Leslie, the Earl of Leyvan, led his blue-bonneted army across the River Tweed into the north of England. Alexander Leslie was a very experienced general, really was one of the first rank, and although there were some who were ready enough to criticise him for being too old and past it by the time of the Civil War, he did actually show that he did have a very firm grip of strategy. He may not have been quite so good on tactics, and he completely misread the situation at Marston Moor, but he was the one who actually got the Scots army down there, and many a Civil War general would have sat down outside the city of Newcastle in order to try and clear his supply line before moving further south, but he saw very clearly that his first priority was to destroy the Royalist field army, and that's why he brought the army down. The north had been won for the King by the Marquess of Newcastle's victory over the northern Parliamentarians at Oddwalton Moor. Since then, it had been a secure rear area for the Royalists. Freed from Parliamentarian interference, this area not only provided recruits for the Royalist army, but coal, the chief product of the region, was shipped out from the Tyne to pay for the arms and ammunition. These munitions were landed by blockade runners who slipped past the stronger Parliamentarian navy. Twice so far, Newcastle had supplied convoys of imported ammunition to the King at critical moments, and without these crucial supplies, the war in the south might already have been lost. Now the Scots' invasion threatened to choke off this vital supply route, and simultaneously to destroy one of the King's most important source of recruits. All that stood in Leslie's path was the bad weather and a bare handful of untrained and poorly equipped militia units. Responding at once to the danger posed by the Scots, the Marquess of Newcastle raced northwards in a desperate attempt to at least hold the line of the River Tyne against the invading army. William Cavendish, the Marquess of Newcastle, was a fabulously wealthy landowner who had spent an enormous portion of his own personal wealth on the King's war. He was, however, to prove a less than effective commander when the occasion really demanded. Now a fresh disaster struck. Emboldened by Newcastle's absence in the north, the Yorkshire parliamentarians, led by Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas Fairfax, fell upon his rear. Storming the market town of Selby on the 11th of April, they destroyed the field army left by the Marquess to cover the city of York. York was the royalist northern capital and was now in grave danger. All hope of halting the Scots' advance was abandoned and Newcastle rushed southwards to save York. At this point, Lavin revealed his true worth as a strategist. In crossing the River Tyne, he had been forced to abandon his line of communication with Scotland. This was now firmly blocked by the royalist garrisons on Tyneside and a small royalist field army led by Sir Robert Clabbering was also operating in the area. As a result of all this, supplies had to be brought south by sea and landed at Sunderland. It would therefore have been both prudent and sensible for Lavin to stay in the north. There he could capture those garrisons and secure his supply routes. Nevertheless, the 64-year-old general acted boldly. Recognising that his primary objective was to destroy the Marquess of Newcastle's army and to capture the city of York, Lavin took a calculated risk. He headed southwards in hot pursuit. By the 22nd of April, Lavin was united with the English parliamentarian forces led by Fairfax. They met outside York and Newcastle's army was promptly besieged within the ancient walls. Unless relief could come soon, the royalists would be starved into submission, at which point the north and ultimately perhaps the fortunes of the king himself would be ended. Royalist reserves by this stage of the war were practically non-existent. The only quarter from which aid could realistically be expected to come to the relief of York was from the king's own Oxford army. Unfortunately, just at that particular moment, the king's Oxford army had its own problems and was in no condition to assist anyone. At the end of March 1643, a royalist thrust towards London had been heavily defeated at the Battle of Cheriton and ever since then the king had been forced onto the defensive as the increasingly feeble royalist forces entrapped around Oxford were held by far superior parliamentary forces. Nevertheless, for him to lose York and his grip on the north was quite unthinkable, so Charles ordered his nephew Prince Rupert to break out from Oxford and head northwards to relieve the city of York. As the situation in the south was so critical, only Prince Rupert's own regiments of infantry and cavalry could be spared from the main field army. Rupert was therefore to assemble his relief army as best he could from the scattered royalist forces he met en route to York. In January, a small royalist army made up of fresh regiments from Ireland had been defeated by Fairfax at Nantwich in Cheshire. The remnants of that army were now at Shrewsbury and Rupert marched to begin his preparations there. The army gained strength but even with the aid of other locally raised units, there were still not nearly enough men available to attempt a march on York. Undaunted, Rupert then hatched an ambitious plan. At the beginning of the war, much of Lancashire declared for the king but in the spring of 1643, Parliament gained the upper hand after the Battle of Wally Ridge. Rupert now reasoned that if he could retake Lancashire for the king, he would then be able to recruit the additional men he needed for the relief of York. As the worried Puritan inhabitants of the northern towns looked to their God for help in their hour of need, Rupert had his eyes more firmly on earthly matters. On the 16th of May 1644, he moved north to begin his campaign. He stormed Stockport on the 25th and three days later took Bolton as well. Next, the prince turned his attention to Liverpool which he captured on the 10th of June after a short siege. With his objective of capturing Lancashire now virtually complete, he set about filling up the ranks of his battered regiments and even raised some new ones. Meanwhile, back in Oxford in Rupert's absence, the war was going very badly for the king. With two parliamentarian armies led by the Earl of Essex and Sir William Waller operating against him, he was very hard-pressed indeed. In his desperation, the king decided to concentrate the royalist forces at the loyal town of Worcester. He wrote to Rupert in an attempt to recall his forces for that rendezvous but the letter was couched in such ambiguous terms that it was actually to precipitate the fateful battle of Marston Moor. Then, but otherwise not, I may possibly make a shift upon the defensive to spin out time until you come to assist me. But, if that be either lost, or have freed themselves from the besiegers, or that, from want of powder, you cannot undertake that work, that you immediately march with your whole strength directly to Worcester to assist me and my army, without which, or your having relieved York by beating the Scots, all the successes you can afterwards have must infallibly be useless unto me. The fateful letter was certainly badly drafted and on reading it Sir John Culpepper, one of the king's most trusted advisors, is said to have commented Before God you are undone, for upon this peremptory order he will fight whatever comes on't. Nevertheless, the actual message should have been clear enough. The king was in serious trouble and he urgently required the assistance of Prince Rupert and his army. If Rupert was ready to march and was able to relieve York by first beating the Scots, he had permission to do so. But, come what may, win or lose, he must still march south again as soon as possible to meet the king at Worcester. Rupert appears to have received this letter five days later, by which time royalist prospects were beginning to look equally bleak in York. The city was still well stocked enough with food and ammunition, but the two original besieging armies led by Lesley and the Fairfaxes had since been joined by a third one under the Earl of Manchester and surrender was now only a matter of time. Weighing up all the options, Rupert quickly came to a decision. If he marched at once to rejoin the king, York would certainly be lost. On the other hand, the king's letter hinted that he still had a few days grace. So, once again displaying the single-minded determination which is so typical of him, Rupert decided to chance his luck and The problem remained, however, that the three armies besieging York still outnumbered his own by at least two to one. He had taken on such odds before and emerged triumphant, but this time, with so much at stake, he knew he had to considerably reduce the odds before he could risk a battle. His solution was once again bold and imaginative, and it very nearly worked. Setting off across the Pennines, he reached the small market town of Knaresborough on the 30th of June. By that time, the Allied Commander-in-Chief General Lesley knew that he was coming, and next day he assembled the three Allied armies to fight the approaching Royalists on Marston Moor, a broad stretch of open ground about five miles west of York. To their surprise, however, there was no sign of the Royalists that day. Instead of marching due eastwards from Knaresborough, Rupert had struck northwards. He crossed one tributary of the River Ouse at Burra Bridge, and then another at Thornton Bridge, before turning south again, having completely outflanked the Allies. That night, as his weary infantry flung themselves down to rest, Rupert's cavalry pushed on to York and relieved the city to the untrammeled joy of its weary defenders. Together, the two Royalist armies now mustered a total of 6,000 cavalry and 11,000 infantry. Although he was still slightly outnumbered by the Allies, Rupert now had enough men to fight his battle on roughly equal terms, or so he thought. The problem was that the troops in Having just weathered a long siege, the men of the Marquess of Newcastle's army were in no mood for a fight. And, crucially, neither was his Scottish Chief of Staff, Lord Ethan. Ethan's basic problem was that while he had been happy enough to fight against the English parliamentarians, he was less than happy at the prospect of fighting against his own fellow countrymen. Indeed, many of Newcastle's men were Scots and they had already abandoned him to rejoin their country's army. Realising the city had been relieved, the Allies abandoned any plans for a further siege and instead moved southwards, in the hope of trapping Rupert once he moved south himself. With the city relieved, Ethan argued that there was no need whatever to rush into battle immediately. Both of the Royalist armies were exhausted and it would be much better to rest them for a few days before moving out to fight the Allies. On the other hand, Rupert still had the King's letter which summoned him to rendezvous at Worcester. He believed he could not afford to delay even for a single day. Furthermore, if he marched south without beating the Scots, there would, of course, be nothing to prevent them from coming back to resume the siege once he was gone. There was no alternative, he argued, but to fight and to fight now. Reluctantly, Newcastle and Ethan bowed to his wishes. What Prince Rupert could not know, however, was that just three days earlier the King had actually defeated the army of Sir William Waller at Cropperdy Bridge. The pressure was relieved and he no longer needed Rupert's assistance in the south. With the primitive communications of the day, however, Rupert could not know of this good news. Still thinking that he had to move fast, he set off in pursuit of the retreating Allies early next morning and he soon caught up with their rearguard on Marston Moor. On the Parliamentarian side was the Scots Major-General Sir James Lumsden. He recalled the events of the day. When Prince Rupert advanced on York, we lifted our siege to meet him. He, having an order, intercepted from the King that nothing but impossibilities should stay him from beating the Scots. As we marched, he put the River Ouse between us and came to York without hindrance so that we lay four miles therefrom. And on the morrow, we set out for Tadcaster to attend his retreat. Our foot were in the van and the message came that Prince Rupert was advancing with his whole army. This made us march back at once to the position we had just left, where we found him drawing up on a field three miles in length and as many broad. The finest ground for such use as I had ever seen in England. Finding Prince Rupert so near and with no possibility of our foot coming up for another two hours, we kept the advantage of the hill with our horse until the foot came up and were put in order of battle. The cavalry regiments making up the Parliamentarian rearguard were positioned on a low ridge stretching from east to west, overlooking Marston Moor, but there was still no sign of the Roundhead infantry. The fiery Prince Rupert would certainly have attacked before the Allied foot returned if he had been given a chance, but the operation was already beginning to go badly wrong for Rupert. Although Prince Rupert's cavalry had reached York the previous night, and so had only a short distance to march on to the moor, his infantry was still camped some miles back up the road at Tollerton, and had not even reached York as yet. As a result, it was some hours before they reached the battlefield. By the same token, there was no sign at all of the white-coated infantrymen belonging to Newcastle's army. When the Allies lifted the siege on the previous day, Newcastle's euphoric men had gone plundering in the abandoned Parliamentarian trenches. They'd spent their time understandably enough getting drunk and celebrating their relief. Now they were hung over and mutinous. They refused to march out of the city until they received their arrears of pay. Lord Ethan, who was just as reluctant to fight, made little effort to impose any discipline on them, and it was very late in the day before they eventually arrived on the moor. The delay had given the Roundheads the time they needed to regroup the three armies, and now they could count on a single force, 7,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry. On the left were the Eastern Association cavalry, led by one Oliver Cromwell, a lesser-known MP, but a gifted commander, who like Rupert had grasped the essence of cavalry fighting was to charge at the gallop. Although he was not the figure he would later become, Cromwell's reputation was growing both on and off the field. His cavalry were already renowned for their fierce courage and excellent discipline. Behind Cromwell's men were a brigade of cavalry, under a professional soldier named David Leslie. These soldiers were destined to play a crucial role in the battle. In the centre stood the combined Allied infantry of the two armies, commanded by two more Scots professionals, Lawrence Crawford and Sir James Lumsden. On the right wing was Fairfax cavalry, and another Scots brigade. The Royalist dispositions left much to be desired. Rupert had intended that Newcastle's and his own should be drawn up side by side. However, the late appearance of the Northern infantry meant that his own men had to be spread thinly across the front, while the latecomers eventually grouped together at the rear. Rupert assumed that it was too late in the day to fight. The battle would be fought on the morrow. But the Earl of Leven had other ideas. After all, he reasoned, a summer's night is as long as a winter's day. No sooner had the Royalist begun to relax, when the Allied army rolled down off the ridge and crossed the moor at a running march to attack the unsuspecting Royalists. Earlier that day, the Royalists had lined the ditch with musketeers, but this thin skirmish line was quickly overrun as the infantry came forward. On the left, Cromwell's men crashed into Lord Byron's cavaliers. Almost at once, Byron gave way, but then Cromwell was counter-charged by the In the swirling melee, Cromwell received a slight wound and hastily retired from the field in order to have it dressed. Undaunted, David Leslie brought up his brigade of lancers and with the enthusiastic support of some Parliamentarian infantry, commanded by another Scots mercenary named Lawrence Crawford, he sent Rupert's cavaliers fleeing backwards towards York. As if to compensate for this reverse, however, on the other flank, disaster had struck the roundheads. As Sir Thomas Fairfax led his cavalry forward across the ditch, he ran into a storm of musketry and was then charged by two Royalist cavalry brigades under Lord Goring and the grim Sir Marmaduke Langley. At first, Fairfax did well and routed the two regiments which Rupert had posted on that wing. Unfortunately, as he looked around for support to exploit his success, his cavalry was swept aside by Goring's triumphant cavaliers. As the Parliamentarians fled, Sir Thomas saved himself by plucking the white paper from his hat which identified him as one of the allies and rode alone to join Cromwell on the victorious right flank. Encouraged by the success of Langdale, Sir Charles Lucas then charged forward at the head of the Royalist reserves. The undefended flank of the Allied infantry had been exposed by the flight of Fairfax's men and Lucas, with his fresh cavalry, carved deep into it. Regiment after regiment of Scots infantrymen took to its heels and ran. One witness described how a great shoal of Scots ran past him crying out Waste us, we're undone! Alexander Leslie and his staff fled too, believing the battle to be lost. Alexander Leslie's very abrupt departure from Marston Moor has again been criticised but in the circumstance it's entirely understandable. He was standing in the centre of the Allied line at a time when it was hit by a very strong Royalist counter-attack which quite literally rolled up the flank of that army and sent hundreds, thousands of troops scurrying away to the rear. The army did have every appearance of breaking up and it really was quite understandable that he should have assumed that it was all over. What he didn't reckon on was the stout resistance which was to be put up by some of the Scots infantry brigades and by his counterpart in the cavalry, David Leslie, who incidentally was no relation to him whatsoever. Others however were made of sterner stock, among them Lumsden who stayed on the field despite the flight of his men. The service went very hot on all sides. They that fought stood to it extremely well, but of my lord Lindsay and his brigade were one. Dogs! Dogs! Those brigades which fled were soon replaced by Kilheads and Dunfermline's regiments. You scum come back! I was at the head, commanding the foot of Loudoun's regiments but that could not make them stand for they would not come up to the charge but ran before they were attacked. You dogs! The enemy of course charged at once and our greatest losses were among these regiments. Despite the flight of many of the Scots regiments, two Scots units standing on the extreme right of the allied front line formed a hedgehog of pipes against the cavalry and stood like a rock, giving a trio of Scots officers the chance to turn the tide. First Lieutenant General William Bailey rallied the four regiments in the crumbling centre and as the cavalier assault broke upon the skiltrons of pikemen, the crisis was averted almost as quickly as it had arisen. At much the same time, Cromwell judged it safe to rejoin David Leslie in a renewed attack upon the royalist right flank. Sir Thomas Tilsley struggled vainly to hold them as the combined allied cavalry and infantry destroyed his royalist regiment. Prince Rupert himself had been ignominiously chased into a bean field by the victorious allied cavalry and in his absence, with ammunition running low, a general retreat began. So far, Newcastle's white-coated infantry had played no real part in the battle but now when they tried to withdraw eastward in good order, they found their line of retreat blocked by the Atterwith enclosures. As the allies closed in, they turned at bay behind the ditches and hedges and a fierce fight of renewed intensity began. The outcome of the battle once more hung in the balance. That balance looked like being finally tipped in favour of the royalists. Near Longmast and Lord Goring had gathered up his victorious cavaliers and was forming them for another charge. A heavy royalist counter-attack now could have had devastating consequences. Realising the danger, David Leslie had now taken command of the horse on the left wing and he sent Oliver Cromwell to deal with Goring while he and his Scots took on the stubborn whitecoats. At first, Leslie was unable to make any impression on this defiant band but then he brought up Colonel Fraser's dragoons. Dismounting, they poured a volley into the whitecoats at point-blank range and as the pikes came tumbling down, Leslie sent his men into the gap. Unable to retreat but still stubbornly refusing to surrender, the whitecoats at last went down in a bitter struggle to the last man. A long day was drawing on but Cromwell had still time enough to see off Goring's remaining cavaliers. One thing that Cromwell stands out for and he's known for is the discipline of his mounted troops which was quite a variance with the corresponding discipline of Rupert for instance. What tended to happen, well what did happen on the royalist left wing at Marston Mall was that as the cavalry broke through the parliamentary right wing, they then went on to plunder the baggage train which was a fairly standard practice in the royalist armies. Cromwell's troops, the ironsides, didn't do that. What Cromwell was able to do was to pull them back after the charge after they'd broken the enemy, halt them, then dispatch troops to pursue the broken enemy but he was then able to wheel with a body still intact and attack the infantry which of course gave enormous weight to the infantry battle. I mean at Marston Mall it's almost in some ways it's very similar to what happened at Naseby. The infantry was in trouble, was having a lot of pressure put on it by royalist cavalry and the royalist infantry began to break. It was at that point as Fairfax rode round to Cromwell that Cromwell was able to intervene with intact cavalry and as it were chase off the royalist attack and I would say in that way Cromwell more or less saved the day at Marston Mall as he did at Naseby. Although one should not forget the contribution of the Scots. Cromwell has been severely criticised for dismissing the Scots as a few Scots behind him in a letter after the battle but I think it's fairly clear that Lesley's troopers played a significant part in the battle as well and without their help I think again the parliamentary infantry would have been in trouble. By now the royalists must have already known that the battle was lost and in the ensuing melee they were routed just as swiftly and decisively as Fairfax was. James Lumsden witnessed the action. The horse on our right wing were beat although my lord Eglinton and his men distinguished themselves. Our left flank of horse under the command of general Cromwell and general Lesley carried themselves bravely and under god were responsible for our victory though Manchester's foot also did good service under the command of major general Crawford. We lost Lord Duddop and lieutenant colonel Bryson two captains and some soldiers but we took Sir Charles Lucas and major general Porter and some colonels and some of their officers and sundry of their chief officers were killed. We slew more than 2,000 of them, took 200 prisoners, 20 cannon which was all they had, all their ammunition, all their baggage, 10,000 arms, all their foot colours and many horse coordinates. The behaviour of scots regiments at Marston Moor was a bit patchy. Some of them ran, some of them fought very stoutly indeed but you've got to consider the circumstances under which this happened. The regiments which ran were on the right flank of the allied army and they ran because the allied cavalry on their immediate right was routed by the royalists and the second wave of royalist cavalry came in not from the front as we were expecting but from the flank. Not unexpectedly they then panicked and started running all over the place but further in towards the centre of the scots line, regiments which had time to see something was going badly wrong were able to turn around, face the threat, put themselves in a suitable posture of defence as the saying goes, were able to stand, hold their ground and eventually they beat off that royalist counter-attack and paved the way for the massive allied victory which followed. In actual fact the royalists are now known to have lost nearly twice the 2,000 reported by Lumsden and the losses fell particularly hard upon the officers. No fewer than 10 colonels were killed including posthumous Curtin, the commander of Newcastle's own regiment of whitecoats and at least 23 captains, a quarter of them belonging to just one regiment, Sir Thomas Tildesley. Marston Moor was an utter disaster for the king. Weary and dispirited Rupert led the surviving elements of his broken army north to Richmond and then back across the Pennines to rejoin the king. Newcastle and Ethan both fled into exile on the continent. Newcastle it is said because he did not want to suffer the laughter of the king's court at the scale of his defeat. Abandoned to its fate, York surrendered two weeks later. The north was lost. The civil war dragged on for two more years but for the king the end was now inevitable. The only possible outcome was ignominious defeat. The bloody battle of Marston Moor had been the first major step on that bitter road to surrender.