Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester (26 October 1612 – 19 February 1658) was an English Cavalier general during the English Civil War.
Biography[]
Henry Wilmot was born in Witney, Oxfordshire, England on 26 October 1612, and he served in the Dutch States Army for five years during the Dutch Revolt, being badly wounded at the 1637 Siege of Breda. He later served under King Charles I of England as a cavalry officer during the Bishops' Wars and was captured after leading a failed cavalry charge at the Battle of Newburn. In 1640, he was elected MP for Tamworth, and he was expelled from the House of Commons in 1641 for backing a plot to overthrow Parliament. At the start of the English Civil War, he joined King Charles I of England at York and raised a regiment of horse for the Cavaliers, becoming Commissary-General of Horse. As commander of the Royalist army's left wing at the 1642 Battle of Edgehill, he routed most of the Parliamentarians opposite to him. In April 1643, he was promoted to Lieutenant-General, and, on 13 July 1643, he defeated the Parliamentarians in the Battle of Roundway Down. In 1644, he was wounded and briefly taken prisoner at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge. That same year, he was sacked after he attempted to negotiate an unauthorized truce with the Parliamentarian general Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and he later went into exile in Paris. He later accompanied King Charles II of England at the Battle of Worcester and during his wanderings, and he was made Earl of Rochester in 1652. In 1655, he led a failed Royalist revolt near York, and, a year later, he signed an alliance with Spain on behalf of the Cavaliers. He became commander of a Royalist foot regiment in Bruges, but he fell ill and died in 1658.