Many people may have experienced the sensation of being suddenly disturbed soon after going to sleep, when very tired. Sleep at that time is supposed to be at its deepest. On being awakened, although only ten or twenty minutes may have actually passed since sleep came on, it would seem as if it had lasted for hours; not that there is the sense of refreshment usual after long sleep, on the contrary, the feeling left is one of bewilderment combined with extreme languor.

It is probable that with some such sensations Newcastle suddenly awoke, about seven o’clock, on the evening of Tuesday, 2 July, 1644; and there was noise in abundance to disturb his slumbers. The heavy roll of the thunder was drowned by the booming of cannon, the firing of muskets, pistols and arquebuses, and the war cries of the excited soldiers; for in those primitive times soldiers fought near enough to bandy curses with each other. One naturally wonders whether, when it came to “push of pike,” the Roundhead warriors remembered how strictly they had been forbidden by Cromwell to use bad language, if indeed any language could be worse than that of the Puritan divines themselves.

Most likely the Generals on either side had had no intention of fighting that evening; certainly there is no reason for doubting the sincerity of Rupert in telling Newcastle that he did not intend to attack until the morning; but, as we have seen, the rival armies had been drawn up perilously close to each other. They were within musket-shot—a very short distance with the fire-arms of the period, and it may be that the battle was begun by some of the men without orders from their officers. Anyhow, the match had been applied to the powder; probably the Generals on either side thought that the battle had been begun by those on the other, and soon orders were given in all directions for a general engagement.

Newcastle armed himself as quickly as possible, mounted his horse and galloped to the front, accompanied by his brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, two other officers, and his page. The first men he came upon were some gentleman volunteers, who had formerly chosen him for their captain, and he called out to them:—

“Gentlemen, You have done me the Honour to choose me your Captain, and now is the fittest time that I may do you service; wherefore if you’ll follow me I shall lead you on the best I can, and show you the way to your own Honour”.

They were soon under fire and Newcastle led them against a regiment of Scottish infantry. By some ill-luck, or clumsiness, he lost his sword; but, although several officers immediately offered him theirs, he refused them and took his page’s little sword, which the Duchess tells us was “half leaden”. With this little weapon, however, he killed three Scots and led his company of volunteers right through the enemy’s regiment. Then he was brought to a standstill by a single brave Puritan pikeman, whom he charged three times without effect, but the courageous fellow was hacked down by the followers of Newcastle.

Meanwhile, Newcastle’s cavalry were doing splendidly on his left under Goring and Sir Charles Lucas, whose sister Newcastle subsequently married. She describes her brother as one who by nature “had a practick genius to the warlike arts, or Arts in War, as Natural Poets have to Poetry”. With regard to the Royalist cavalry, Mr. Fortescue, in his standard work, A History of the British Army,[104] writes of “the superiority of the Royalist cavalry. The long neglect of the mounted service left the supremacy to the ablest amateurs, and the majority of these, though there were hundreds of gentlemen on the Parliamentary side, were undoubtedly for the King. Nor was it only the courage, honour, and resolution of which Cromwell had spoken that favoured them; they had from the nature of the case better horses, a higher standard of horsemanship and equipment, a quicker natural intelligence and a higher natural training. The thousand lessons which the county gentlemen learned when riding with hawk and hound were of infinite advantage in the casual and irregular warfare of the first two or three years ... One fatal defect however marred what should have been a most efficient cavalry, the blot had been hit by Cromwell, indiscipline.”

It was with such cavalry as this that Goring and Sir Charles Cavendish charged on Marston Moor, on a day which, Mr. Fortescue says, “may indeed be termed the first great day of English cavalry”.

On the whole, Ethyn may have been right in blaming Rupert for drawing up his army close to the “great ditch,” but his having done so did him good service on his left flank; for, when Fairfax wished to charge Newcastle’s cavalry, he found the ditch impassable, and his only means of reaching his enemy to be an almost straight lane which ran at right angles to, and across, the ditch. Fairfax’s cavalry were only able to cross the bridge over the ditch “three or four” abreast, and it is surprising that they should have got over it at all, exposed as they were to the fire of musketeers lining the lane. The muskets of the period, however, could be reloaded but very slowly, and the heavy rain which was falling may have interfered with the priming and caused missfires. Nor did the Royalist artillery, likewise directed upon the bridge, but also probably hampered by the rain, very seriously cripple the invaders. Fairfax’s horse drove the Royalist gunners “from their cannon, being two drakes” (six-pounders) and a “demiculverine” (a nine-pounder).

What appears to have obstructed the progress of Fairfax’s cavalry even more than the musketeers, the drakes and the demiculverine, was a quantity of furze bushes and small ditches which they found lying between themselves and Newcastle’s horse, when they had got over the “great ditch”. The Royalist cavalry was also inconvenienced by these impediments, for both sides charged simultaneously. “We were a long time engaged with one another,” wrote Fairfax, who was unhorsed and received a deep cut across the cheek which marked him for the rest of his life. Sir Charles Fairfax and Major Fairfax were killed. “There was scarce an officer but received a hurt,” wrote Lord Fairfax. Sir William Fairfax led the Yorkshire foot across the ditch over Moor Lane Bridge; but the fire of Newcastle’s famous regiment of Whitecoats did this infantry more mischief than it had done to the cavalry; and the Yorkshire foot were driven back, thinned in numbers and completely demoralized by the gallant Royalists.

“On Marston, with Rupert, ’gainst traitors contending.” [105]

A small portion of Newcastle’s horse ran away and Fairfax, with about 400 men, made the mistake of following them for some distance towards York. Then it occurred to him that he had better return to see how the rest of his cavalry was faring; so he galloped back.

He says:[106] “Having charged through the enemy, my men going after in pursuit, and myself returning back to my other troops, I was got-in among the enemy who stood, up and down the field, in several bodies of horse. So, taking the signal out of my hat, I passed through them for one of their own commanders, and got to my Lord of Manchester’s horse.”

During the temporary absence of Fairfax, the main body of his cavalry had fallen into some confusion, and Goring seized the opportunity of making a vigorous charge upon it. The King’s old horse, “veterans of hard service and fame,” were more than the newly hired cavalry of the Roundheads could withstand and a rout set in. Goring had a cry raised of “See they run in the rear,” on hearing which those in the van turned tail and began to run themselves. The Ayrshire Lancers and the regiments of Lord Eglinton, whose son was mortally wounded in this battle, held their ground for some time; but the stampede of the routed van at last bore them with it to the rear. Then there was a general rush for the bridge over the ditch, which some of the defeated foot had not yet crossed, and the Parliamentary cavalry and infantry became hopelessly mixed up, many men on foot being trampled upon by the horses of their own comrades.

When the Roundhead troops had returned to their own side of the ditch, the Royalist cavalry pursued them headlong. Heath says, “the Scots some of them ran ten miles on end, and a wee bit, crying quarter, with other lamentable expressions of fear”. Arthur Trevor in a letter to Ormonde, says that the Scottish cavalry kept galloping away, crying “Wae’s us! Wae’s us! We’re a’ undone.”

All, however, did not spur northward: some spurred to Lincoln, some to Hull, some to Halifax, some to Wakefield, all reporting the utter rout of the Parliamentary army. The news reached Newark, whence the Royalists sent an express messenger to convey the glorious tidings to Oxford. Both at Oxford and at Banbury, Church bells were rung, bonfires were lighted, and fireworks were let off in honour of the great victory of Rupert and Newcastle over the combined armies of the Parliament and the Scotch. The splendid news made happy the heart of King Charles and set his anxious mind at rest.

Reports of the victory spread to London. Vicars, the Puritan author, wrote: “Yea, our sottish and bewitched mole-eyed malignants of London also, were so led along with a spirit of lying, like their father the devil, that they mightily boasted of this robber’s vain victory over us, the vanquishing of our whole three armies, the death and imprisonment of all our three most renowned and precious Generals”.[107]

The defeated Roundhead Generals fled for their lives. Manchester ran away, but repented and returned: Lord Leven never drew rein till he reached Leeds, twenty miles from the battle-field; and Lord Fairfax fled for refuge to Cawood Castle, where, finding neither food, fire nor candle, he philosophically got into bed. Indeed Principal Baillee wrote in a letter to a friend, dated 12 July, 1644: “All six generals took to their heels—this to you alone”.

But let us return to the battle-field and observe a few further details of the fight: for thus far we have only been concerned with the Royalist left wing and the Parliamentary right.

At the beginning of the battle, soon after seven in the evening, the left wing of the Roundheads charged the ditch, which was passable in their front. While Manchester’s infantry attacked that of Newcastle, Cromwell’s cavalry charged Rupert’s, Byron’s and the Irish horse. “And now,” wrote Manchester’s chaplain, “you might have seen the bravest sight in the world, for they moved down the hill like so many thick clouds, in brigades of 800, 1,000, 1,200 and 1,500 each.” “We came down the hill,” says Watson, who was with Cromwell’s cavalry, “in bravest order and with the greatest resolution that ever was seen.... In a moment we were passed the ditch and on to the moor upon equal terms with the enemy.” The Royalists abandoned four drakes in the ditch. Watson continues: “Our front division charged their front, Cromwell’s division of 300 horse, in which he himself was in person, charging the first division of Prince Rupert’s, of which himself was in person,[108] in which all were gallant men”.

Yet it was not all plain sailing for Cromwell and his cavalry. A sword-wound[109] on the neck obliged Cromwell to leave the field and receive surgical treatment in a house hard by, and the Royalist cavalry made a splendid resistance, repelling the Roundheads several times. As was the custom in those days, both sides galloped towards each other until they were within shot, when they pulled up and fired their carbines or pistols, and then charged with their swords. It is said that at the last charge on this occasion, the rival cavalry, after firing, threw their pistols at each others heads.

Carlyle describes the scene as “the most enormous hurly-burly of fire and smoke and steel flashings and death tumult, ever seen in those regions. We just get a glimpse of them joining battle in complete array and the next shows them scattered, broken, straggling across moor and field on both sides in utter bewilderment.” A spirited account, but somewhat misleading, for they fought long and hard before either side was scattered.

Unfortunately for the Royalists, among Rupert’s horse were some raw levies, and although his own old troops were the bravest and most brilliant cavalry then in this country, they were lacking in that virtue in which Cromwell’s “Ironsides” excelled, namely discipline; and discipline now told its tale. This cavalry contest is said to have lasted an hour. Before the end of it Cromwell had returned to the field. The issue still seemed doubtful, when Sir David Leslie’s horse came up and attacked the Royalists in the flank, which at last wavered, broke and fled, “Cromwell scattering them before him like a little dust,” says Watson with bombastic exaggeration. Anyhow, in the end, the cavalry on the right wing of the Royalist army was thoroughly routed.

On the Royalist left Goring, after defeating the enemy’s cavalry, had followed the usual custom of attacking the flank of the enemy’s infantry with his victorious horse; but he could rally only a few troops for this purpose. The greater part of Newcastle’s cavalry had galloped far out of sight in pursuit of the vanquished Scottish fugitives. Another part had cantered up the hill and was busily engaged in looting the Parliament’s wagons and stores.

But another General was adopting the same tactics on an opposite side of the field with much greater success. Cromwell, having routed the Royalist cavalry with his own, had nearly the whole of his well-disciplined horse in hand, wherewith to attack the right flank of the Royalist infantry, and that attack Newcastle’s infantry were unable to resist. They were soon in confusion, regiment after regiment was charged and dispersed, and the King’s infantry became a rabble of scattered fugitives.

But not all! And now we come to the most heroic incident in the whole battle, an incident which did great and lasting honour to the army of Newcastle. It is thus described in a book which was published only thirty-two years after it took place.[110]

“There was yet standing two regiments of the Lord Newcastle’s, one called by the name of his Lambs [or Whitecoats]: these being veteran soldiers, and accustomed to fight, stood their ground, and the fury of that impression of Cromwell, which routed the whole army besides; nor did the danger nor the slaughter round them make them cast away their arms or their courage; but seeing themselves destitute of their friends, and surrounded by their enemies, they cast themselves into a ring, where though quarter was offered them, they gallantly refused it, and so manfully behaved themselves, that they slew more of the enemy in this particular fight, than they had killed of them before. At last they were cut down, not by the sword, but showers of bullets, after a long and stout resistance, leaving their enemies a sorrowful victory, both in respect of themselves whom they would have spared, as in regard of the loss of the bravest men on their own side, who fell in assaulting them. A very inconsiderable number of them were preserved, to be the living monuments of that Brigade’s loyalty and valour.”

William Lilly says, in his Diary, that the Whitecoats, “by mere valour, for one whole hour kept the troops of horse from entering amongst them at near push of pike: when the horse did enter they would have no quarter, but fought it out until there was not thirty of them living. Those whose hap it was to be beaten down upon the ground as the troopers came near them, though they could not rise for their wounds, yet were so desperate as to get either a pike or a sword, or piece of them, and to gore the troopers’ horses, as they came over them or passed by them. Captain Coventry, then a trooper under Cromwell, and an actor,”—it is curious that there should have been a “play-actor” among the troops of Cromwell—“who was the third or fourth man that entered amongst them, protested he never, in all the fights he was in, met with such resolute brave fellows, or whom he pitied so much, and said he saved two or three against their wills.”

Heath says: “Night ended the pursuit: for it was eleven o’clock before the fight ceased, else more blood had been shed.... Here were slain to the number of 8,000 and upwards in the field and flight; which at certain was divided equally between both armies: for what slaughter was made by the prince upon the Scots and Fairfax, was requited by Cromwell on the left wing as aforesaid, and the fight was furious and bloody there. It must needs be a great carnage;” and then some horrible details follow.

Newcastle remained on the field to the end. The Duchess says:—

“His two sons had Commands, but His Brother, though he had no Command, by reason of the weakness of his body; yet he was never from My Lord when he was in action, even to the last; for he was the last with my Lord in the Field in that fatal Battel upon Hessom-moor,[111] near York; and though my Brother, Sir Charles Lucas, desired My Lord to send his sons away, when the said battel was fought, yet he would not, saying, His sons should shew their Loyalty and Duty to His Majesty, in venturing their lives, as well as Himself”.

The three Generals of the Roundhead army state in their official dispatch that the Royalists lost “all their ordnance to the number of 20 (pieces), their ammunition, baggage, about 100 colours and 10,000 arms”. Whitelock says (89): “From this battle and the pursuit, some reckon were buried 7,000 Englishmen, all agree that above 3,000 of the Prince’s men were slain in the battle, besides those in the chace and 3,000 prisoners taken, etc.”

To the “chace,” as Whitelock calls it, an end was put by darkness. Rupert escaped being taken prisoner by dismounting and hiding in a field of standing beans. Afterwards he succeeded in getting into York, as also did Newcastle. Just outside the town Newcastle met Rupert, to whom he exclaimed: “All is lost!” As well he might. Marston Moor was a defeat from which the Royalist cause never recovered, and it was one of the greatest battles ever fought on English soil.

There was little disgrace in being overcome, after an exceptionally hard-fought battle, by such a General as Cromwell, to whom the honours of Marston Moor are chiefly due. And Newcastle can scarcely be considered a defeated General in this case, for Rupert was in supreme command. His was the defeat. Newcastle had been opposed to risking the engagement; yet, finding himself in it, although against his will, he exhibited exceptional courage as also did his men.

But Marston Moor saw the destruction, almost the annihilation, of his army, the loss of his prestige, the blasting of his hopes, the ruin of his fortunes.