Registered Battlefield: Battle of Naseby (1645 AD) (1000023)

See associated file. The disappointing manner in which the campaign of 1644 had ended, particularly at the second Battle of Newbury, prompted Parliament to reconstitute the bulk of its forces into a single army the 'New Model' and to appoint fresh commanders. This new army, led by Sir Thomas Fairfax, took the field at the end of April 1645; the first task set it was to relieve the Parliamentarian garrison at Taunton. Soon afterwards the main Royalist army, led by King Charles I, marched out of Oxford towards Stow on the Wold. The Royalist strategists, however, had not yet determined their plan of campaign. Some wished to attack the Scots and reverse the decision of Marston Moor by recapturing the North. Others wanted to try conclusions with the New Model Army. Either strategy was viable but whichever was chosen needed to be prosecuted wholeheartedly. Instead, a feeble compromise was arrived at: 3,000 cavalry were detached and sent under Lord Goring to the West; the remainder of a weakened army continued northwards. Meanwhile, Taunton had been relieved and Parliament now ordered the New Model Army to besiege the Royalist headquarters in Oxford. Rather than respond directly to this threat the Royalists agreed to fall upon the Parliamentarian held town of Leicester, reasoning that such a stroke would suffice to draw Fairfax and the New Model away from Oxford. The supposition was correct: reports of the storming of Leicester, which took place on 31 May, shocked Parliament into ending the attempt against Oxford. Sir Thomas Fairfax was left at liberty to move against the King's army without interference from London. As Fairfax closed with them during the early days of June the Royalists remained largely immobile. Moreover, their patrolling was slack and the close proximity of the New Model Army came as a surprise to them on more than one occasion. The second time this occurred the Royalists, quartered around Market Harborough, were presented with a dilemma. Withdrawing to Leicester with the enemy so near risked turning retreat into rout. If they stood and fought however they would do so against heavy odds: the Royalists numbered possibly as few as 7,500 troops, whereas the Parliamentarians mustered almost 14,000. Contrary to Prince Rupert's advice the decision was to fight. The Royalist army marched out of Market Harborough searching for suitable ground upon which to give battle. At one point Rupert imagined the New Model Army was falling back and he hurried his men forward to try and gain a tactical advantage. But the Parliamentarians, it transpired, were merely shifting their ground to offer their opponents a more neutral field of battle, one that would encourage the Royalists to attack. The battlefield upon which the two armies eventually deployed, just over a mile north of Naseby, was acceptable to both sides. The landscape over which the final manoeuvring before the battle occurred, between Market Harborough and the village of Naseby, is undulating. A succession of low ridges served to screen the movements of the two armies from one another for much of the time, leading the Royalists, in particular, to mistake the enemy's intentions. Highest of all is the ridge immediately north of Naseby; the approaches to it on the direct route from Market Harborough (via Clipston) are daunting for an attacker so Oliver Cromwell, who did not wish to discourage the Royalists from giving battle, prevailed upon Fairfax to shift the New Model Army's position to less intimidating ground further west. The Battle of Naseby, therefore, was fought on easier terrain, with the New Model Army deployed on a ridge almost 600 feet above sea level to the south and the Royalists formed up on a slightly lower ridge called Dust Hill to the north. In advancing to the attack the Royalists moved approximately 800 yards across the floor of a shallow valley, Broad Moor, which lay between the two ridges. The accounts of the Battle of Naseby written by eye witnesses and other contemporaries would probably be sufficient by themselves to enable us to identify where the battle was fought. Matters are made much clearer, however, courtesy of an excellent bird's eye view map of the battlefield, engraved by Robert Streeter to accompany Joshua Sprigge's 1647 history of the campaigns of the New Model Army, Anglia Rediviva (see appendix 1). Not only does the map show the two armies' preliminary dispositions in great detail but it gives names to various topographical features of the battlefield, something which the written accounts of the Battle of Naseby tend not to do. Thus we learn that at the outset the Royalists were deployed upon Dust Hill and the Parliamentarians on ground in advance of Mill Hill and Fenny Hill. A sketch map of the battlefield by the Royalist engineer Sir Bernard de Gomme, apparently based on the order of battle given him by Prince Rupert before Naseby was fought, is very similar to Streeter's representation. In the Fitzgerald Collection deposited in the Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich branch) there is a map of Naseby parish dated 1630, from which we can gain an impression of what the battlefield might have looked like fifteen years later. The land in the parish was then gathered together in three great open fields: South Field to the south of the village; Turnmoore Field to the north-west; and Shepshoks Field to the north-east. Within these fields medieval strip cultivation was practised so only on their outer edges were they hedged. Thus Turnmoore Field, in which most of the fighting during the battle took place, was hedged where it met the fields of the adjoining parish of Sulby. It was behind this hedge that Cromwell posted Colonel Okey's dragoons on the extreme left of the battlefield: today's parish boundary, the same now as then, marks the dragoons' position. Turnmoore Field was divided for most of the way from Shepshoks Field to the east by the track running between Naseby and Sibbertoft, which followed almost the same line as the current road. There was a rabbit warren, referred to in accounts of the battle, on the hill between the road and what is now Naseby Covert, just north of Paisnell Spinney. In 1630 this was known as Sheddon Hill but later it was named Lodge Hill, after the warrener's lodge built upon it. Warrens were usually sited on heathland and although Streeter, in his map, depicts the furzes (gorse) associated with such terrain beyond the hedges bounding the battlefield, it is apparent that there were furzes in Broad Moor as well. Richard Symonds, who served with the Royalist army at Naseby, describes it advancing to the attack 'through a bottome full off furse bushes' 1. Areas of ground within open fields were sometimes allowed to remain heathland, especially if they were poorly drained. Throughout the 18th century the landscape remained little changed. Even by 1822 the land was largely unenclosed although a reservoir and new road had been built to the west of Naseby. Interestingly, maps of this period indicate a lane emerging from the Sulby hedges into the Welford Naseby road. Although it can still be seen today, it is uncertain whether it was there at the time of the battle. Many of the small pits scattered across Turmoore Field and Dust Hill probably relate to 18th century gravel digging but some may date from the battle or relate to burials. The appearance of the battlefield as it is today, a patchwork of small fields, was brought about by enclosure in 1828. At the same time the Sibbertoft road was straightened. A large obelisk commemorating the battle was erected alongside the Clipston Road in 1823, about a mile south-east of the battlefield. During the 1930s the Cromwell Association erected a second memorial on the battlefield itself, just off the Sibbertoft road. In 1991 the Northamptonshire Archaeology Unit produced interpretive panels for the Battle of Naseby to accompany both monuments. Most recently the building of the A14 has cut through the battlefield area. Although largely hidden by being set in a cutting, it is as yet uncertain how much traffic noise will be audible in the battlefield area.

Record last edited

Oct 13 2023 9:11AM