George Goring, Lord Goring (14 July 1608 – 1657) was an English Royalist general during the English Civil War. He served as a Royalist cavalry general in northern England, and, in November 1645, he abandoned his disorganized forces following their defeat at the Battle of Langport and came to command English Royalist regiments in the service of the Spanish Army, dying in exile in Madrid, Spain in 1657.
Biography[]
George Goring was born in 1608, the son of George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich. He served as a colonel in the Dutch States Army during the Dutch Revolt, fighting in the 1637 Siege of Breda, during which he was wounded. Goring returned to England in 1639 and became Governor of Portsmouth, and he served in the Bishops' Wars before taking part in an army plot to liberate Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford from Parliamentary captivity in 1641; he was the one who betrayed the details of the plot to Puritan leader John Pym, leading to its failure and Strafford's execution for treason. However, in August 1642, Goring chose to side with King Charles I of England when the First English Civil War broke out. He served as a cavalry commander under William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle and defeated the Parliamentarian general Thomas Fairfax in the Battle of Seacroft Moor, but he was captured at Wakefield in May 1643. He commanded the Royalist left at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and he later fought at the Siege of Taunton in 1645. On 10 July 1645, shortly after the Battle of Naseby, Fairfax defeated Goring at the Battle of Langport, and, in November 1645, Goring abandoned his forces and fled to France. He came to command English Royalist regiments in the service of the Spanish Army, and he converted to Catholicism before dying in Madrid in 1657.