The Battle of Kington (July 1642), fought in Worcestershire, England, was the first pitched battle of the First English Civil War. During the battle, the Parliamentarian army, commanded by Baron Brooke, destroyed a Royalist field army commanded by the Earl of Northampton and Lord Byron, as well as routing the garrison of the nearby city of Worcester. The Parliamentarians suffered significant losses in the hard-fought battle, but all three Royalist generals were either killed or captured, and the city of Worcester was invested and captured directly after the battle.
Background[]
At the start of the English Civil War, the Royalists held strong support in western England and in most of Wales. The Parliamentarian campaigns in southern England and King Charles I of England's flight towards the Royalist stronghold of Portsmouth in the south led to the Royalists abandoning their old capital of Oxford, which was being converged upon by the Parliamentarian armies. The Royalists established their court at Worcester in western England, and the city was defended by a small garrison and a nearby field army under the Earl of Northampton and Lord Byron.
The Baron Brooke, a Parliamentarian commander, had already positioned himself within striking distance of Worcester by the time that war had broken out. His army moved from Leicestershire to Worcestershire on the eve of war in June 1642, with the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies staring each other down until open hostilities broke out in July. Upon this occurrence, Baron Brooke decided to launch an assault against the Royalist capital.
However, Brooke first had to bring to battle - and destroy - the Earl of Northampton's large army, whose area of responsibility covered western England. Brooke's 998-strong Parliamentarian force attacked the Earl's 886 troops, who would receive an additional 210 troops from Captain Samuel Davys, the commander of the Worcester garrison. The two sides met in the countryside to the east of Worcester, near the village of Kington.
Battle[]
Bisection of the Royalist army[]
The assault on the Royalist reinforcements
Brooke's army was lined up atop a hill in a patch of forest; on the other side of the field, the Royalists also held high ground with forest. The Royalist reinforcements slowly marched onto the battlefield from the southeast, intending on joining forces with the main Royalist army. Brooke decided to divide and conquer the Royalist forces; he dispatched several cavalry regiments on the right flank of his army to charge the Royalist reinforcements as they arrived on the battlefield, one regiment at a time. The Royalist reinforcements follied when they decided to focus on marching instead of fighting, forfeiting their advantage of fielding pikemen against cavalry. The Parliamentarian horsemen cut down the Royalist soldiers from behind, although the musketeers turned to fight. These men, commanded by Captain Samuel himself, put up a fight.
Cavalry clashes[]
Royalist losses at Kington
Noticing the disarray on the left flank of his army, Northampton contributed to the series of Royalist blunders by launching a reckless cavalry charge against the main Parliamentarian army's seemingly-weak right flank. However, the Parliamentarians put up more resistance than expected, and the Royalist attackers on the right flank were forced to fight both the main Parliamentarian force and its cavalry task force. The Parliamentarian cavalrymen fired on the Royalist knights as they attempted to charge into battle, and, seeing that the Parliamentarian cavalrymen were taking significant losses while fighting the musketeers, Brooke had the Parliamentarian cavalrymen pursue the retreating Royalist cavalry. The third blunder that the Royalists made was sending their musketeers in a pursuit of the Parliamentarian cavalry instead of having them join the main army. In doing so, they condemned this regiment to annihilation, as the cavalrymen turned around and charged the pursuing musketeers with full force. The musketeers were finally routed, and Captain Samuel was captured. The Lord Byron would make a fourth critical blunder when he decided to charge into battle with the Parliamentarian main force, wasting yet more Royalist soldiers. Northampton and Byron were both slain in the fracas, and the majority of the Royalist army, which had not yet engaged in battle, had been decapitated before it could fire even a single shot.
Main battle[]
The main battle at Kington
The main Royalist force's command was now devolved to the corporals of each regiment. The Royalist corporals resolved to hold their ground on the opposite side of the battlefield, abandoning the Royalist forces who were currently engaging the Parliamentarians. The Parliamentarian forces rode down the retreating Royalists as they prepared a new battle line in a clearing close to the main Royalist army on the far side of the battlefield. The first forces to engage were, again, the Parliamentarian cavalry on the right flank of the army. They repelled a charge by Cavalier knights, firing at them with pistols before they could even close in for melee combat. On the left flank as well, the Cavaliers charged the three fresh Parliamentarian cavalry regiments, only for the Parliamentarian pikemen to advance into battle to spear down the Royalist cavalrymen as they were also struck with volleys of pistol fire.
The battle on the left flank
The Royalists continued to make errors, exacerbated by their lack of a commanding officer. Their largest mistake of the battle was their refusal to commit the bulk of their army to the battle with the main Parliamentarian army. The Parliamentarians had already suffered significant losses, and, if the entire Royalist army (predominantly pikemen) had charged into battle with the Parliamentarian army (predominantly cavalry), then the Parliamentarians' valiant efforts and brilliance would have been for nothing. However, the majority of the Royalist pikemen remained on the fringes of the battlefield, while their cavalry and infantrymen were cut to pieces by pikemen and by cavalry. Parliamentarian pike regiments attacked the isolated Royalist pike regiments from both sides, impaling the Royalist soldiers from two sides. With half of the Royalist main army sent reeling in retreat, the Parliamentarians prepared for the final thrust.
The dead on the battlefield of Kington
The Parliamentarians faced a rump of what the Royalist army once was, facing a few regiments of infantry. These troops were closed in upon from all sides, but they fought valiantly, somewhat redeeming their tactical incompetence. The Royalist infantry were routed after being attacked from multiple sides, and the Parliamentarians, wary of the casualties that they had already suffered, decided not to pursue. The Parliamentarians won the field, and they scored a great victory.
Aftermath[]
The Royalists being forced to retreat
The Battle of Kington was the first pitched battle of the war, and it saw the main Royalist army in Western England be destroyed. 215 Royalists were taken prisoner during the battle, and the Parliamentarians successfully negotiated a ransom payment from King Charles I of England in exchange for their safe passage back to Worcester. However, this would be the final, and fatal, mistake of the Royalist army in western England, for the Parliamentarians went on to besiege Worcester immediately after their victory at Kington, and they would crush the weakened garrison.