battle of Chalgrove Field
1643.Prince Rupert disrupted Essex's advance on Oxford in the summer of 1643 with a series of brilliant sorties. On 17 June he set out with nearly 2,000 men, mainly cavalry, and surprised several ...
Battle of Edgehill
(23 October 1642)The first battle of the English Civil War. Charles I's Royalists, marching south from Shrewsbury, with the eventual aim of recapturing London, clashed with the Parliamentarians under ...
battle of Newbury
1643.After relieving Gloucester in September 1643, Essex was shadowed on his return journey to London by Charles's army. The royalists reached Newbury a few hours before their opponents, cutting off ...
battle of the Yellow Ford
1598.Sometimes known as the battle of the Blackwater, this was one of the last great victories of the Irish over their English antagonists. The great Hugh O'Neill (Tyrone) was in rebellion and had ...
battle of Turnham Green
1642.Charles I's best hope of winning the Civil War was to bring it to an end before the superior resources of Parliament could be brought to bear. After the indecisive encounter at Edgehill on 23 ...
Carr, Robert, 1st Viscount Rochester, 1st earl of Somerset
(c. 1587–1645).Carr, a royal favourite, began his career as page to James VI of Scotland. He acquired political significance only after the death of James's chief minister Robert Cecil in 1612, ...
Charles Blount Mountjoy, 8th Baron
(c. 1562–1606).The Blounts were a Derbyshire family, ennobled by Edward IV as Yorkist supporters in 1465. Charles Blount succeeded his brother in 1594. He had fought in the Low ...
Charles Howard, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham and 1st earl of Nottingham
(c. 1536–1624).Howard took advantage of his high birth to sustain a long and distinguished career. Anne Boleyn was his first cousin. He was a grandson of the 2nd duke of Norfolk, the hero of Flodden; ...
civil wars
1642–51.In 1629 Charles I dismissed Parliament, resolving never to call another. He might have succeeded but for the problem of the multiple kingdoms. During the 1630s he decided to bring Scottish ...
Edmund Ludlow
(c. 1617–92).Ludlow was one of a group of austere republicans that included Vane and Haselrig. His father Sir Henry Ludlow, a Wiltshire landowner, represented the county in the Long ...
Essex Quick reference
The Kings and Queens of Britain (2 ed.)
Essex, the kingdom of the East Saxons, was settled in the fifth century, the dynasty tracing its pedigree back to Seaxnet, a Saxon deity. There were a number of sub-groups, such as the ...
More
Lostwithiel campaign
1644.Charles I's stunning success at Lostwithiel rescued the royalist cause when almost at its last gasp. Marston Moor in early July 1644 had been a devastating blow to the king. He was given respite ...
Mercia
A former kingdom of central England. It was established by invading Angles in the 6th century ad in the border areas between the new Anglo-Saxon settlements in the east and the Celtic regions in the ...
Middlesex
Was one of the smallest, oldest, and strangest of counties. In Roman times it formed part of the territory of the Trinovantes and their competitors the Cassivellauni. Very soon after the Roman ...
Prince Rupert
B. 17 Dec. 1619, s. of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Elizabeth, da. of James VI of Scotland; d. 29 Nov. 1682; bur. Westminster abbey.Nephew of Charles I, Rupert was born in Prague, where his ...
Robert Cecil
(1563–1612).Jacobean statesman. He was the younger son, but political heir, of Elizabeth I's chief minister William Cecil (Burghley). Small in stature, humpbacked, and frail, he entered Parliament in ...
self-denying ordinance
(3 April 1645)An English parliamentary regulation under which all Members of Parliament had to resign their military commands. Oliver Cromwell was determined to create an efficient national army ...
Sir Francis Knollys
(1512–96).Knollys was a prominent courtier and parliamentarian during Elizabeth I's reign. His father was a minor courtier, usher of the Privy Chamber. A zealous protestant, Knollys became gentleman ...
Suffolk
Is one of the largest and most beautiful of shires and its greater distance from London has saved it from some of the ravages inflicted on its southern neighbour Essex. The ‘south folk’, from whom ...
Surrey
The meaning of the name—Suth‐rige—as the land or region of the south people prompts the suggestion that the area may have formed part, in the early Saxon period, of a larger kingdom with Middlesex or ...
