Battle of Hopton Heath

Information about Battle of Hopton Heath

First English Civil War
1st Hull - Powick Bridge - Edgehill - Aylesbury - Brentford - Turnham Green - Hopton Heath - Chalgrove Field - Bradock Down - Lansdowne - Roundway Down - Sourton Down - Adwalton Moor - Gainsborough - 2nd Hull - Winceby - Reading - Gloucester - 1st Newbury - Alton - Cheriton - Nantwich - Boldon Hill - Newark - York - Bolton - Cropredy Bridge - Marston Moor - Lostwithiel - 2nd Newbury - Taunton - Naseby - Langport - Rowton Heath - Stow-on-the-Wold
The Battle of Hopton Heath, in Staffordshire, was a battle of the First English Civil War, fought on Sunday 19 March 1643 between Parliamentarian forces led by Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet and Sir William Brereton and a Royalist force under Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton. It was a Royalist victory.

Gell had successfully taken Lichfield and was on his way with about 1,500 men and some artillery pieces to join Brereton in a projected attack on Stafford. They met at Hopton Heath and were attacked there by the Royalists, whose force consisted of about 1,100 cavalry, 100 foot and artillery, including a large piece called "Roaring Meg". After an artillery barrage the Royalist cavalry charged the entrenched parliamentarians, putting Gell's dragoons and his and Brereton's horse to flight. A second charge was repelled by Gell's musketeers and Northampton was unhorsed. He refused to surrender and was killed.

During the night the Parliamentarian troops withdrew, leaving a large part of Gell's artillery in the enemy's hands. Brereton withdrew to Nantwich while Gell marched through Uttoxeter to Derby, taking Northampton's body with him. He attempted to ransom the Earl's body for the return of the captured artillery pieces, without success.

References

The First English Civil War (1642–1646) was the first of three wars, known as the English Civil War (or "Wars"). "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651,
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The Siege of Hull in 1642 was the first major action of the English Civil War.

As both sides moved towards war, Parliament had access to more military materiel, due to its possession of all major cities including the large arsenal in London.
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The Battle of Powick Bridge, fought on 23 September 1642, was the first major cavalry engagement of the English Civil War and it was a decisive victory for the Royalists who overthrew the Parliamentary cavalry.
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Battle of Edgehill (or Edge Hill) was the first pitched battle of the First English Civil War. It was fought near Edge Hill and Kineton in southern Warwickshire on 23 October 1642.
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On the 1 November 1642, Royalist forces, under the command of Prince Rupert engaged Aylesbury's Parliamentarian garrison, at Holman's Bridge. The Parliamentarian forces were victorious, despite being heavily outnumbered.
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Battle of Brentford was a small pitched battle which took place on 12 November, 1642, between a cavalry detachment of the Royalist army under the command of Prince Rupert and two cavalry regiments of Parlimentarian forces. The result was a victory for the Royalists.
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Battle of Turnham Green occurred 13 November 1642 near the village of Turnham Green, at the end the first campaigning season of the First English Civil War. The engagement resulted in a standoff between the Royalist army of King Charles I and the much larger Parliamentarian army
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The Battle of Chalgrove was a battle of the English Civil War in the county of Oxfordshire. It took place around 09:00 hours on the morning of 18 June 1643 in Chalgrove Field, between Chalgrove and Chiselhampton in Oxfordshire.
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Lansdowne (or Lansdown) was fought on July 5, 1643, near Bath. Although the Royalists under Lord Hopton forced the Parliamentarians under Sir William Waller to retreat from their hilltop position, they suffered so many casualties themselves and were left so disordered and
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Battle of Roundway Down was fought on July 13, 1643, during the English Civil War. The Royalists under Lord Ralph Hopton won a crushing victory over the Parliamentarians under Sir William Waller near Devizes in central Wiltshire.
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Battle of Sourton Down was a battle of the first English civil war that took place on 25 April 1643. Sourton Down lies on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon.

The battle involved Royalist troops under Sir Ralph Hopton who were ambushed by Major-General James Chudleigh with his
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The Battle of Adwalton Moor was a battle in the English Civil War on 30 June 1643.

The Battlefield

The site of the battle is high ground near Bradford which is now in an area of urban/rural fringe, (map reference SE2228).
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The Battle of Gainsborough was a battle in the English Civil War.

On 20 July 1643 Lord Willoughby of Parham captured Gainsborough in Lincolnshire for the Parliament Roundheads from the Earl of Kingston in a night attack.
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The Battle of Winceby took place on 11 October, 1643 during the English Civil War near the village of Winceby, Lincolnshire about 6 km east of Horncastle.

Prelude

During the summer of 1643, the Royalists laid plans to win the war by marching on London.
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Siege of Reading refers to the English Civil War military campaign waged to besiege a Royalist garrison quartered in the town of Reading, Berkshire from 4 November 1642- 25 April 1643.
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Siege of Gloucester was an engagement in the First English Civil War. It took place took place between the August 3 and September 5, 1643, between the defending Parliamentarian garrison of Gloucester and the besieging army of King Charles I.
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The First Battle of Newbury took place on 20 September 1643, in Enborne and Wash Common adjoining Newbury, England, between Parliamentary forces under the Earl of Essex and Royalist forces under King Charles I in person, accompanied by Prince Rupert and Sir Jacob Astley.
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The Battle of Alton took place on December 13, 1643, during the English Civil War. Alton is a market town in Hampshire, England.

A Royalist army commanded by Sir Ralph Hopton was spending the winter of 1643–44 in four separate camps, one of which was in Alton.
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Battle of Cheriton was an important Parliamentarian victory in the English Civil War. It took place on March 29, 1644 and resulted in the defeat of a Royalist army, which threw King Charles I onto the defensive for the remainder of the year.
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The Battle of Nantwich took place during the English Civil War, between the forces of Parliament and of King Charles I to the northwest of the town of Nantwich in Cheshire on 26 January 1644 (some sources say 24 January).
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The Battle of Boldon Hill was a battle fought during the English Civil War in March 1644, between a Royalist army based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and a Parliamentarian army based in Sunderland.
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Relief of Newark was a Royalist victory during the First English Civil War. It was a personal victory for Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and it resulted in the Royalists holding Newark-on-Trent until very near the end of the War.
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The Siege of York in 1644 was a prolonged contest for York during the English Civil War, between the Scottish Covenanter Army and the Parliamentarian Armies of the Northern Association and Eastern Association
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The Bolton Massacre, sometimes recorded as the Storming of Bolton, was an episode in the English Civil War, on May 28, 1644, in which it was alleged that up to 1,600 of the town's defenders and citizens were slaughtered during and after its storm and capture by the Royalist
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Battle of Cropredy Bridge was a battle of the English Civil Wars, fought on 29 June 1644 between a Parliamentarian army under Sir William Waller and the Royalist army of King Charles.
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Battle of Marston Moor was fought on July 2 1644 during the First English Civil War of 1642-1646. A Royalist army under the command of Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the Marquess of Newcastle was decisively defeated by a combined force of Scottish Covenanter and Parliamentarian
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There were two Battles of Lostwithiel, both in the First English Civil War in the 1640s.

First Battle of Lostwithiel, 1642

Second Battle of Lostwithiel, 1644


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Second Battle of Newbury was a battle of the English Civil War fought on October 27, 1644, in Speen, adjoining Newbury in Berkshire. The battle w as fought close to the site of the First Battle of Newbury, which took place in late September of the previous year.
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The Siege of Taunton occurred during the English Civil War. In 1645 Parliamentary forces commanded by Colonel Robert Blake were besieged in Taunton, the only Parliamentary enclave in the South West of the country.
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Battle of Naseby was the key battle of the first English Civil War. On June 14 1645, the main army of King Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.
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