The Battle of Muster Green was a minor battle of the First English Civil War which was fought in the first week of December 1642 at Haywards Heath, near Lewes, West Sussex. A Royalist army sent from Chichester to capture Lewes from the Parliamentarians was defeated by a much smaller, yet better-disciplined Parliamentarian army at Haywards Heath's Muster Green, sparing Lewes from a Royalist assault and driving back the Royalist advance into Sussex.
History[]
At the start of the First English Civil War in August 1642, Sussex was roughly divided between the pro-Parliamentarian East Sussex and the pro-Royalist West Sussex, but the lower classes were broadly uninterested in the conflict and the city of Chichester was divided between the royalist church, gentry, and upper classes and the Parliamentarian rising merchant classes. In order to break the deadlock in Sussex, acquire the valuable cannon foundries and iron works of the Weald, and gain access to the English Channel coastline opposite France (from which arms, gunpowder, troops, and bullion could be smuggled), the Royalist High Sherriff of Sussex, Edward Ford, marched from Hampshire and seized Chichester for King Charles I on 18 November 1642 before setting his sights on Lewes.
Ford marched on Lewes from the north, slowing his army's advance in order to conscript untrained rural folk into his army. He set up camp at Cuckfield, 11 miles northwest of Lewes, and, in the first week of December, he marched on Lewes down the Cuckfield-Haywards Heath route. At the same time, the Parliamentarian Colonel Herbert Morley assembled a small force of 250 well-trained foot and horse and waited for the Royalists at Muster Green.
Battle[]
The 1,000-strong Royalist army found a worthy opponent in the much smaller, yet better-trained Parliamentarian army; both sides lacked artillery. The battle was performed with the Royalist muskets at first, but, after some volleys, the Parliamentarian horse broke into the Royalist vanguard, and the Parliamentarian footmen proceeded to charge courageously into the Royalist quarters. The Parliamentarians overcame the less disciplined Royalists in bloody hand-to-hand combat, and Morley sent his reserves up to complete the rout of Ford's army. At least 200 Royalists were killed, wounded, or captured in the battle, and the Royalist cavalry fled back to Chichester, leaving the scattered survivors of the Royalist infantry to fend for themselves. Muster Green marked the high water mark of the Royalist advance into Sussex, and the Parliamentarian victory spared Lewes from a Royalist assault. On 27 December, the Parliamentarians recaptured Chichester.