The Battle of Lostwithiel was a battle of the First English Civil War which was fought from 21 August to 2 September 1644 in Cornwall as King Charles I's Royalist army engaged in a week-long running battle with Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex's Parliamentarian army. The Parliamentarian army was destroyed, with the cavalry escaping and the infantry surrendering.
Background[]
The Siege of Oxford in 1644 unraveled due to the rivalry and poor communications between the Parliamentarian generals involved. King Charles I broke out of Oxford and defeated William Waller at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge before pursuing the inept Earl of Essex into the royalist West Country, once again interposing his own army between Essex and London. In a week-long running battle, the Parliamentarians were harried to destruction at Lostwithiel in Cornwall. Most of Essex's cavalry eventually broke out under cover of rain and darkness, while he himself fled in a fishing boat. However, his infantry was forced to surrender on 2 September 1644. The Royalist victory at Lostwithiel was seen as vengeance for the humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marston Moor, and it secured South West England for the Royalists until early 1646. Additionally, the Royalists captured so many Parliamentarians that they were unable to feed them, and they were given a pass to retreat back to Southampton, losing half of their number to disease and desertion along the way.