Battle of Marston Moor order of battle

This is the order of battle of the armies which fought on 2 July 1644 at the Battle of Marston Moor.

Covenanter and Parliamentarian "Army of Both Kingdoms"

Army of the Solemn League and Covenant

(2000 Horse, 500 Dragoons, 11000 Foot, 50+ guns)

General Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven (also Commander in Chief of the Army of Both Kingdoms)

Lieutenant General of the Horse Sir David Leslie

Right Wing

Earl of Leven's Regiment (8 troops. Colonel Alexander Leslie, Earl of Balgonie (Leven's son) commanding)

Earl of Dalhousie's Regiment (7 troops)^[1]

Earl of Eglinton's Regiment (7 troops)

Left Wing

Lieutenant-General David Leslie's Regiment (8 troops)

Earl of Balcarres's Regiment (8 troops)

Lord Kirkcudbright's Regiment (8 troops)

Dragoons

Colonel Hugh Fraser's Regiment (6 companies)

Lieutenant General of the Foot William Baillie

Sergeant Major General of the Foot Sir James Lumsden

The Scottish regiments of foot were brigaded in pairs. Unless stated, each regiment had 10 companies.

Vanguard

The Earl of Crawford-Lindsay's brigade [aa]^[2]

The Earl of Crawford-Lindsay's Fife Regiment (Earl of Crawford-Lindsay)

The Midlothian Regiment (Viscount Maitland absent, Colin Pitscottie commanding)

General of the Ordnance Sir Alexander Hamilton's brigade [bb]^[3]

The Clydesdale Regiment (Sir Alexander Hamilton)

The Edinburgh Regiment (Colonel James Rae)

Main Battle

The Earl of Loudon's brigade (absent, Major General James Lumsden commanding [ff]

The Loudon-Glasgow Regiment, also known as The Chancellor's Foot (Earl of Loudon)

The Tweeddale Regiment (Earl of Buccleugh)

Lord Gordon's Regiment.^[4]

The Earl of Cassillis's brigade [gg]

The Kyle and Carrick Regiment (Earl of Cassillis)

The Nithsdale and Annandale Regiment (William Douglas of Kilhead)

The Earl of Dunfermline's brigade [hh]

The Earl of Dunfermline's Fife Regiment (Earl of Dunfermline)

The Strathearn Regiment (Lord Coupar)

Lord Livingstone's brigade [jj]

The Stirlingshire Regiment (Lord Livingstone)

The Linlithgow and Tweeddale Regiment (The Master of Yester)

Rear (conjectured)^[5]

Viscount Dudhope's brigade [ll]

The Angus Regiment (Viscount Dudhope taken prisoner during the battle ^[6])

The Minister's Regiment (Sir Arthur Erskine of Scotscraig: 5 companies present)

[mm]^[7]

The Levied Regiment (Lord Sinclair: 7 companies present)

The Galloway Regiment (William Stewart)

[nn]

The Teviotdale Regiment

The East Lothian Regiment (Sir Patrick Hepburn of Waughton) [oo].^[8]

General of the Ordnance Sir Alexander Hamilton

(Not all the guns listed below would have been present at the battle)

8 brass demi-cannons

1 brass culverin

3 brass quarter-cannons

9 iron demi-culverins

48 brass demi-culverins

Almost all the senior officers of the Covenanter army had experience in the Thirty Years' War. Many of the regiments had served during the Bishops' Wars in Scotland (1639-1641) and the Irish Rebellion of 1641. The infantry was thus a mix of experience, with new and old regiments both containing officers and men with continental experience. Those with siege experience had been left investing Newcastle under a veteran of Dutch service, Lieutenant General the Earl of Callandar.^[9] The cavalry used smaller and lighter mounts than English units.^[10] Those on the left wing were placed in the rear of Cromwell's horse; on the right, Eglinton's horse were alongside Fairfax's regiment in the front rank and Leven's and Dalhousie's regiments in the rear.^[11]

Parliamentarian Army of the Eastern Association

(3000 Horse, 4000 Foot)

Captain General Earl of Manchester

Lieutenant General of the Horse Oliver Cromwell

Commissary General Bartholomew Vermuyden

Earl of Manchester's Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Algernon Sidney: 11 troops)

Lieutenant General Cromwell's Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Edward Whalley: 14 troops)

Commissary General Bartholomew Vermuyden's Regiment (5 troops)

Charles Fleetwood's Regiment (6 troops)

Dragoons

Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne (6 companies)^[12]

(Manchester's dragoons had been defeated on 1 July at Poppleton.)

Sergeant-Major General of the Foot Lawrence Crawford

Earl of Manchester's Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Clifton: 18 companies)^[13]

Major General Crawford's Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel William Hamilton: 8 companies)

Sir Miles Hobart's Regiment (9 companies)

Francis Russell's Regiment (10 companies)

Edward Montagu's Regiment (10 companies)

John Pickering's Regiment (10 companies)

(Russell's, Montagu's and Pickering's regiments were brigaded together. Some of these would have taken heavy casualties at a failed storming of York on 16 June)^[14]

This army was raised in the Eastern Counties of England (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire). Although there were religious tensions within the army between the Independents, championed by Cromwell, and the Presbyterians who were backed by Manchester and Crawford, there was no argument on the day of battle.

Parliamentarian Army of Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax

(2000 Horse, 2000 Foot)

General Lord Fairfax

Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Fairfax

Sergeant-Major General of the Horse John Lambert

Lord Fairfax's Regiment

Sir Thomas Fairfax's Regiment

Charles Fairfax's Regiment

Sir Hugh Bethell's Regiment

John Lambert's Regiment

Lionel Copley's Regiment

Francis Boynton's Regiment

Sir Thomas Norcliff's Regiment

George Dodding's Regiment

Dragoons

Thomas Morgan^[15]

Sergeant-Major General of Foot (unknown)

Lord Fairfax's Regiment

John Bright's Regiment

Sir William Constable's Regiment

Francis Lascelles's Regiment

Robert Overton's Regiment

Ralph Ashton's Regiment

George Doddington's Regiment

Alexander Rigby's Regiment

The list of Colonels and regiments is probably incomplete. It is evident that most regiments were very weak. The troops present at Marston Moor had a high proportion of recent recruits.

Royalists

Royalist Army

(2500 Horse, 7750 Foot, 14 guns)

General Prince Rupert of the Rhine

Lieutenant General Lord Byron

Sergeant Major General of Horse Sir John Urry (changed sides shortly after the battle)

Prince Rupert's Lifeguard (140)

Prince Rupert's Regiment (500)

Lord Byron's Regiment

Colonel Marcus Trevor's Regiment

Sir John Urry's Regiment

Sir William Vaughan's Regiment (returned from Ireland)

(Byron's, Trevor's, Urry's and Vaughan's regiments of horse together totalled 1,100)

Lord Molyneux's Regiment

Sir Thomas Tyldesley's Regiment

(Molyneux's and Tyldesley's regiments were recently raised in Lancashire.

Thomas Leveson's Regiment

Leveson's Regiment was detached from the garrison of Dudley Castle and had been present at the Relief of Newark^[16]

Molyneux's, Tyldesley's and Leveson's regiments of horse together totalled 800)

Dragoons

Colonel Henry Washington (500)^[17]

Sergeant-Major General of Foot Henry Tillier (captured)

Sir John Girlington's Regiment^[18]

Prince Rupert's Regiment

Lord Byron's Regiment

(Prince Rupert's and Byron's regiments formed a separate brigade, numbering 1,500, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Napier of Byron's regiment)

Henry Warren's Regiment

Sir Michael Erneley's Regiment

Richard Gibson's Regiment

(Warren's, Erneley's and Gibson's regiments had returned from Ireland in late 1643 or early 1644, and had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Nantwich. Erneley's and Gibson's regiments were brigaded together)

Robert Ellice's Regiment^{[citation needed]}

Henry Tillier's Regiment

Robert Broughton's Regiment

(Tillier's and Broughton's regiments had returned from Ireland in early 1644; Robert Ellice's regiment consisted of men from North Wales but had joined these two regiments on their march through Lancashire^{[citation needed]}).

Sir Thomas Tyldesley's Regiment

Edward Chisenall's Regiment

(Tyldesley's and Chisenall's regiments were recently raised in Lancashire).

Henry Cheator's Regiment (raised in Cumberland, joined Rupert's army at Skipton at the end of June)

14 assorted field guns

The hard core of this army was Rupert's own regiments of horse and foot, and a small army under Lord Byron from Cheshire and North Wales. To this had been added English regiments recently returned from Ireland, which were said to be full of Puritan sympathisers, and newly raised units from Lancashire, with other small contingents.

Contingent of "Northern Horse"

(3500 Horse, 220 foot)

General of Horse George, Lord Goring

Lieutenant General Sir Charles Lucas (captured)

Commissary General George Porter (captured)

Newcastle's cavalry escaped from York shortly after the start of the siege and moved through Derbyshire to link up with Rupert near Bury in Lancashire. The "Northern Horse" already had a reputation for hard fighting but poor discipline. There were too many weak regiments of horse and commanders to list separately; also, it is not certain whether any given regiment was present at Marston Moor, or was elsewhere (with a force under Colonel Clavering, or in various garrisons). At Marston Moor, Newcastle's cavalry were organised as:

Sir Charles Lucas's Brigade (700)

Sir Richard Dacre's Brigade (800) (Dacre was mortally wounded during the battle)

Sir William Blakiston's Brigade (600)

Sir Edward Widdrington's Brigade (400)

Colonel Samuel Tuke's Regiment (200) (formerly the Duke of York's regiment)^[19]

Colonel Francis Carnaby's Regiment (200)

Commissary-General George Porter's Troop (50)

Derbyshire contingent

When Goring marched to join Rupert in Lancashire, he picked up a contingent from Derbyshire en route.

John Frescheville's Regiment of Horse (240)

Rowland Eyre's Regiment of Horse (160)

Detachments from Frescheville's, Eyre's and John Millward's Regiments of Foot (220) (noted as the "Derbyshire Foot" on De Gomme's plan)

Garrison of York (part)

(number of horse unknown, 3,000 Foot)

General Marquess of Newcastle

Lieutenant General Lord Eythin

Sir Thomas Metham's "Troop of Gentleman Volunteers"

Sergeant-Major General Sir Francis Mackworth

As with Goring's horse, Newcastle's infantry were from too many weak regiments to list separately. On the battlefield they were formed into seven "divisions".

Newcastle's army was mostly raised in Northumberland and Durham and had already endured a siege of ten weeks, with some hard fighting. Three other regiments (of Sir Thomas Glemham, Sir John Belasyse and Sir Henry Slingsby), totalling 1000 men, were left to hold York.

References

Notes

^ This cavalry regiment fled the field
^ Letters in brackets denote the key from the Lumsden Order of Battle. See Young, Marston Moor, plate 21 reproducing the Lumsden's Order of Battle housed in York Minster Archives, MS Add 258. The Order of Battle itself is a contemporary copy. Discrepancies in the interpretation of the Order of Battle are comprehensively covered in Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (London, 2014), pp.128-134
^ Sometimes the regiment [cc] on Lumsden's Key is attributed to Fairfax but this is omitted from contemporary eye-witness accounts. See Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), pp.128-133
^ Gordon's Regiment does not appear on the Lumsden Key. Nevertheless, it is the regiment Lumsden commanded after The Glasgow and Tweedale broke and ran. Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), p.132
^ Conjecture places two bodies of the Earl of Manchester's army here [kk], but this is illegible on the Lumsden Key. Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), p.132
^ Young (1970), p.115
^ These regiments broke and ran and were probably on the far right of the third line behind Fairfax's right wing. The Lumsden Key has these as Fairfax, most eyewitness accounts place these regiments here. The Lumsden Key also has these brigaded with [nn] below. Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), pp.128-133
^ The Key does not, but most eyewitness accounts that mention them brigade these two regiments together. Both broke and ran
^ Murdoch & Grosjean (2004), pp.124 & 134
^ Peter Edwards, Dealing in Death: The Arms Trade and the British Civil Wars, 1638-1652 (Thrupp, Stroud, 2000), p.165
^ Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), pp.129, 132
^ Tincey (2003), p.91
^ By Young's interpretation of Lumsden's Key, this double-strength regiment was formed into two bodies listed as [kk], in the third line of the allied centre
^ Crawford's, Hobart's, Russell's, Montagu's and Pickering's regiments probably formed two brigades listed as [dd] and [ee] on Lumsden's key
^ Tincey (2003), p.92
^ Young (1970), pp.3, 48, 139
^ Tincey (2003), p.92, but not listed on De Gomme's plan
^ Young (1970), p.49, but not listed on De Gomme's plan
^ Young (1970), pp.3, 137

Printed Sources

Murdoch, Steve; Grosjean, Alexia (2014). Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618–1648. Pickering and Chatto. ISBN 978-1-84893-467-2.
Tincey, John (2003). Marston Moor 1644: The Beginning of the End. campaign. Vol. 119. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-334-7.
Young, Peter (1970). Marston Moor 1644: The Campaign and the Battle. Kineton: Roundwood. ISBN 1-900624-09-5.

[1] This cavalry regiment fled the field

[2] Letters in brackets denote the key from the Lumsden Order of Battle. See Young, Marston Moor, plate 21 reproducing the Lumsden's Order of Battle housed in York Minster Archives, MS Add 258. The Order of Battle itself is a contemporary copy. Discrepancies in the interpretation of the Order of Battle are comprehensively covered in Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (London, 2014), pp.128-134

[3] Sometimes the regiment [cc] on Lumsden's Key is attributed to Fairfax but this is omitted from contemporary eye-witness accounts. See Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), pp.128-133

[4] Gordon's Regiment does not appear on the Lumsden Key. Nevertheless, it is the regiment Lumsden commanded after The Glasgow and Tweedale broke and ran. Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), p.132

[5] Conjecture places two bodies of the Earl of Manchester's army here [kk], but this is illegible on the Lumsden Key. Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), p.132

[6] Young (1970), p.115

[7] These regiments broke and ran and were probably on the far right of the third line behind Fairfax's right wing. The Lumsden Key has these as Fairfax, most eyewitness accounts place these regiments here. The Lumsden Key also has these brigaded with [nn] below. Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), pp.128-133

[8] The Key does not, but most eyewitness accounts that mention them brigade these two regiments together. Both broke and ran

[9] Murdoch & Grosjean (2004), pp.124 & 134

[10] Peter Edwards, Dealing in Death: The Arms Trade and the British Civil Wars, 1638-1652 (Thrupp, Stroud, 2000), p.165

[11] Murdoch & Grosjean (2014), pp.129, 132

[12] Tincey (2003), p.91

[13] By Young's interpretation of Lumsden's Key, this double-strength regiment was formed into two bodies listed as [kk], in the third line of the allied centre

[14] Crawford's, Hobart's, Russell's, Montagu's and Pickering's regiments probably formed two brigades listed as [dd] and [ee] on Lumsden's key

[15] Tincey (2003), p.92

[16] Young (1970), pp.3, 48, 139

[17] Tincey (2003), p.92, but not listed on De Gomme's plan

[18] Young (1970), p.49, but not listed on De Gomme's plan

[19] Young (1970), pp.3, 137

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