Battle of Powick Bridge

Battle of Powick Bridge
Part of the First English Civil War
Powick Bridge pictured in 2006
Date 23 September 1642 Location Worcester, Worcestershire 52°10′13″N 02°14′33″W / 52.17028°N 2.24250°W / 52.17028; -2.24250 Result Royalist victory
Belligerents
Royalists	Parliamentarians
Commanders and leaders
Prince Rupert	Col. John Brown Col. Edwin Sandys
Strength
1,000 horse	1,000 horse
Casualties and losses
Unknown, one estimate suggests around 30 dead	Estimated between 30 and 150 dead or captured
Worcester class=notpageimage| Worcestershire and Worcester

The battle of Powick Bridge was a skirmish fought on 23 September 1642

The Parliamentarians approached the city from the south on the afternoon of 23 September. Their route took them up narrow lanes and straight into Rupert's force, which was resting in a field. The noise of the approaching Parliamentarian cavalry alerted the Royalists, who quickly formed up. The Royalist dragoons gave their cavalry time to prepare, firing at point-blank range as the Parliamentarians emerged into the field. Rupert's cavalry then charged and broke most of the Parliamentarian cavalry, although one troop stood its ground and returned fire. Ultimately, all the Parliamentarians were routed.

Brown protected his cavalry's escape by making a rearguard stand with his dragoons at Powick Bridge. Rupert gave chase as far as Powick village, but the Parliamentarian cavalry fled 15 mi (24 km) further, their flight causing panic among part of the main Parliamentarian field army. The Royalists abandoned Worcester, leaving safely with their valuable convoy. The Parliamentarian army arrived in the city the next day and remained for four weeks before shadowing the Royalist move towards London, which led to the Battle of Edgehill.

Background

Build-up of the First English Civil War

In 1642 the tension between the

On 22 August Charles raised his royal standard in Nottingham, effectively declaring war on Parliament.^[7] The two sides continued to recruit; Parliament positioned its main field army, commanded by the Earl of Essex, between the King and London, in Northampton.^[8] Charles was heavily outnumbered at this stage; he fielded between a quarter and half as many men as Essex's 20,000, and those he did have were not so well equipped.^[9][10][11] Despite this, Essex did not press his advantage: possibly because his orders allowed him to present the King with a petition to peacefully submit to Parliament, as an alternative to military action.^[12] Although there had been small-scale fighting, particularly in northern and south-western England, the two field armies did not significantly manoeuvre against each other until mid-September.^[13] On 13 September Charles moved his army west through Derby and Stafford towards Shrewsbury, where he hoped to be reinforced by the Royalist regiments being raised in Wales and the north-west and south-west of England.^[14]

Sir John Byron's convoy

Sir

The Parliamentarians did not react to the movement of the Royalist army until 19 September, as they sought intelligence on the King's destination, and then moved on a parallel path through Coventry and towards Worcester. This would again position Parliament's army between the Royalists and London, and Worcester was surrounded by agricultural land which could support Essex's army.^[17] While Essex was still some distance away,^[18] he received intelligence of the Royalist convoy. One of his cavalry colonels, John Brown, convinced him to send a detachment to the city to try to capture the valuables being transported.^[19]

Brown led a detachment of around 1,000 mounted troops, which reached Worcester on 22 September. They approached the eastern gate but found it well-defended. They withdrew to the south,^[20] where they secured a bridge across the Severn. One of the Parliamentarian officers present, Nathaniel Fiennes, either wrote a report or had it written for him. It stated that fellow officer Colonel Edwin Sandys argued they should move closer to Worcester to prevent the convoy from escaping. They went on to Powick, just south of the River Teme, around two mi (3 km) south of Worcester. There they spent the night and most of the following day^[19] guarding the route they expected Byron to attempt to escape along.^[16]

The Parliamentarians did not send out scouts nor post a lookout in the church tower^[16] and so were unaware that Byron had been reinforced earlier that day. Prince Rupert,^[21] the Royalist general of horse, had arrived, also with about a thousand mounted troops. Rupert's men were just north of the Teme, guarding the southern approach to the city. The modern historian Peter Gaunt suggests that Rupert was probably aware of the presence of the Parliamentarian detachment in the area,^[22] but allowed his men to rest in a field known as Wick Field (or Brickfield Meadow) and many removed their armour.^[23]

Opposing forces

Two major categories of mounted troops often referred to simply as "horse", were employed during the First English Civil War. Dragoons were mounted infantry, armed with muskets, who were typically used as skirmishers or as part of advanced guards due to their mobility. They rode into battle but dismounted to fight. The cavalry remained mounted to fight, generally on larger horses than dragoons. Most were harquebusiers, who were armoured with a helmet and plate armour on their torso and carried a sword, two pistols, and a carbine.^[24] Rupert's force was split roughly evenly between dragoons and cavalry, while the proportion of each in the Parliamentarian force is unknown: records indicate only that they had ten troops of cavalry and five companies of dragoons.^[16]

The cavalry tactics of the two forces differed. The Parliamentarians used manoeuvres originated in the army of the

At around 4 pm, Brown and Sandys ordered an advance towards the city.[27] The historian Richard Brooks suggests they had received intelligence that Byron was preparing to leave Worcester.^[16] Sandys led a small group of troops ahead, across the narrow bridge and along a country lane that allowed no more than three riders abreast.^[28] Modern historians vary slightly in their account of the first stage of the engagement: Brooks, Chris Scott, and Alan Turton have the Royalist dragoons already prepared, lining the hedges of the lane. When the Parliamentarians advanced up the path, the dragoons opened fire on them, causing Sandys's men to panic and bolt forward into Wick Field; the musket-fire alerting the resting Royalist cavalry of their approach.^[16][29] Peter Gaunt and Trevor Royle describe all the Royalists as within the field; the noise of the Parliamentarian horsemen alerted Rupert to their approach, allowing him to quickly prepare his men for battle as best as he could.^[27][28] He lined the hedges with the dismounted dragoons while the cavalry was drawn up into open order in the meadow. When Sandys and his cavalry troop emerged into the field, they were faced with point-blank gunfire from the dragoons, giving the Royalist cavalry extra time to prepare.^[28]

The Parliamentarians attempted to regroup and return fire but were charged by Rupert's cavalry. Sandys was mortally wounded during the initial assault. Sandys's troops were routed with no support from their dragoons, which were stuck behind the cavalry in the narrow country lanes.^[28][30] Fiennes said that he managed to control his cavalry and hold fire until the charging Royalists were close enough "so that their horses' noses almost touched those of our first rank".^[16] Despite this, they were isolated after the retreat of Sandys's men and forced to abandon the fight.^[16] The Parliamentarian dragoons made a rearguard stand on Powick Bridge to protect the cavalry's retreat, but Rupert called off the chase at Powick.^[31]

Aftermath

The Parliamentarian cavalry rode in alarm all the way back to Pershore, 15 mi (24 km) away, where they met Essex's Lifeguard.^[c] Their account of the battle and belief that Rupert's cavalry was still chasing them broke the Lifeguard, which was then carried away in the flight.^[33] According to Fiennes, both sides lost around 30 men dead.^[31] Other reports place the Parliamentarian losses higher; Brooks estimates that desertions, drownings, and prisoners might have increased the total to 100–150.^[16] The Royalists claimed to have lost no one of note, though many of their officers, including Prince Maurice (Rupert's younger brother) and Henry Wilmot, were wounded.^[16][34]

The battle established Rupert's reputation as an effective cavalry commander; soldiers from both sides told stories of the battle, according to the Royalist commentator Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon the victory "rendered the name of Prince Rupert very terrible".^[35] The historian Austin Woolrych describes Powick Bridge as having "significance ... disproportionate to its scale": it proved that the Royalists had forces capable of standing up to and beating those of Parliament, and affected the morale of both armies leading up to the Battle of Edgehill a month later.^[36]

No longer threatened by the Parliamentarians, the convoy was able to continue on its journey to the King and Rupert abandoned the indefensible Worcester and returned north to Shropshire. The next day, Essex's army arrived in Worcester, where they remained for the next four weeks.^[31] Although the city had declared its loyalty to Parliament on 13 September, many in Essex's army thought Worcester's citizens had helped the Royalists and that the city was accordingly treated poorly: it had to pay for transporting the wounded and burying the dead from the battle and much of the city was ransacked, particularly the cathedral.^[37]

After the further build-up of the respective armies, King Charles marched out of Shrewsbury on 12 October aiming towards London. It was considered that either defeating Essex's field army in battle or capturing London had the potential to finish the war quickly.^[38] In the event, the two armies met inconclusively at the Battle of Edgehill on 23 October, after which the Royalists were able to continue their slow approach towards London. The Parliamentarians took a less direct route to the capital but still arrived there first. After further battles at Brentford and Turnham Green, Charles withdrew to Oxford to establish winter quarters.^[39]

Almost nine years later, the final battle of the

References

Bibliography