Conflict: First English Civil War
Combatants: Parliamentarians vs. Irish Royalists
Location: Cheshire, England
Outcome: Parliamentary victory
In 1642, conflicts between the English Crown and Parliament erupted into open warfare known as the Great Rebellion or the First English Civil War. In January of 1644, Charles I agreed to a truce with the Irish Confederation and recruited Irish Royalists to his cause. That same month, an army of these Irish Royalists and local troops laid siege to the Parliamentary stronghold of Nantwich in Cheshire.
On January 25th, Sir Thomas Fairfax descended on the Irish with Parliamentary reinforcements and routed the Royalists. Nearly half of these men were convinced to join the cause against Charles I.
Points of Interest:
The Parliamentarians would badly defeat the Royalists at Naseby a year later. Charles I was beheaded in 1649.
Fairfax was a political moderate who did not sign the death warrant of Charles I and resigned as Commander in Chief of the Army in part due to his disapproval of the Republic.
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Sources:
Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, & Bongard, David L. (1992). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: Castle Books (HarperCollins).
Dupuy, R. Ernest & Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: HarperCollins.
Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
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