Battle of Hopton Heath, 1643: Stafford's Civil War battle

Hopton Heath was the most significant battle fought in Staffordshire during the Civil War. It was small by the standards of Edgehill, but it was fought for the county town, and it cost the king the Earl of Northampton.²

The race for Stafford

In early 1643 both sides were trying to win control of the Midlands. Stafford stood on the route between the Royalist capital at Oxford and the ports of Yorkshire, which made it important to both. On 5 March Parliament's forces captured the Close at Lichfield. Its Royalist garrison was allowed to march out and went to Stafford, where it was joined by the Earl of Northampton and his troops, who had arrived too late to save Lichfield.³

Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton, was one of the king's most active commanders in the Midlands, and his regiment of horse often acted on its own. The Parliamentarian commanders, Sir John Gell and Sir William Brereton, were already planning to attack Stafford because of its strategic importance.⁴

The approach

A letter by a Royalist who took part, preserved in the Staffordshire archives, describes the days before the battle. On Friday 15 March Northampton's force surprised about 200 Parliamentarians quartered at Heywood; the horse escaped, but the foot were taken or killed and more than 80 prisoners were sent away. The next day the Royalists marched into Stafford.⁵

On Sunday 19 March, around 11 in the morning, word came that the enemy had been seen on Hopton Heath, no more than 4 miles from Stafford. The town could not hold half the army, so the Royalists were spread over several quarters, and it was nearly three in the afternoon before they had gathered. The writer put his own side at under 1,000 horse and foot and the enemy at twice as many. Historic UK gives about 1,200 Royalists, mostly cavalry, against a Parliamentarian army 1,500 strong. Brereton's foot had not yet arrived; Gell's men had chosen their ground.⁶

Roaring Meg and the charge

The Parliamentarians stood on a rise, with hedges and old walls lined with musketeers, their main body of musketeers and pikemen on a rabbit warren where horses could not charge safely, and marshy ground on one flank. They had eight small guns, called drakes, and three heavier pieces. The Royalists sent dragoons on foot to clear the hedges and brought forward their own heavy gun. The Staffordshire archive summary credits much of the Royalist success to this 29-pounder, known as Roaring Meg. In the letter-writer's words, its first shot killed six men and wounded four, and the next made such a lane that the ranks had little mind to close again.⁷

Then the Royalist horse charged. The Parliamentarian horse broke, and the Royalists took the enemy guns. But they pursued too far. Northampton rode into the thick of the enemy, his horse was shot and fell, and he was taken. The Royalist account says he was unhurt when captured and claims he was then killed by his captors. The BCW Project notes that he died wearing cuirassier armor.⁸

Parliamentarian horse briefly retook the guns and was driven off again, and in the confusion it rode into its own foot. In the second charge Sir Thomas Byron was badly wounded. Shaken by his wound and by the loss of their commander, the Royalist troopers could not be persuaded to charge again, and darkness ended the fighting.⁹

A victory with a cost

Brereton arrived with infantry later in the day, but the battle ceased as night fell, and the Parliamentarians withdrew overnight. The Royalists brought the eight captured drakes back to Stafford and held the field. Gell's men took Northampton's body with them; the Royalist letter complains that they refused to return it unless the guns and prisoners were given back. A Parliamentarian report preserved by the BCW Project says Gell carried the body to Derby, where it lay in All Hallows Church while its ransom was awaited.¹⁰

Casualty figures are partisan. The Royalist writer claimed the enemy lost ten men for every one of his side and threw their dead into pools and pits to hide them. Historic UK sums up the result simply: Northampton was killed, and the battle was indecisive. The Staffordshire archive service calls it an inconclusive victory for the Royalists. Northampton's eldest son, who was wounded in the leg at Hopton Heath, inherited both the earldom and his father's regiments and fought on for the king.¹¹