Page 51 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

HeRItAge
the battle marked the end of the main phase of the Civil War which had started in 1642 as a power struggle between the King and Parliament that divided the nation.
the Civil War engulfed the nation and the history books record the big battles like naseby, but this was a very local war too, played out in towns and communities across the country, with neighbours literally on opposing sides. only 15% of casualties in the war occurred in the nine largest and best-known battles; the rest, in smaller battles and skirmishes (source: This Seat of Mars, Charles Carlton. Yale University Press 2011).
these divisions were nowhere better seen than in northamptonshire and of the many battles and skirmishes in the county, the one at Wellingborough, fought when the war was only months old in December 1642, is a great example.
How the ‘Battle of Wellingborough’ started
At the beginning of the 17th century northampton was a Puritan hotbed, whereas Wellingborough was for the Royalists, as it had connections with the royal family who had come to take the waters at the Red Well. so here we have a small part of england that was to be a major player in the Civil Wars. northampton repaired its old castle walls and was garrisoned by roughly 4,500 men. At the time it was one of the strongest garrisons in the south Midlands, with the Royalists calling it ‘a neste of rebelles’.
“A cavalry patrol and an officer reconnoitres enemy positions. Their mobility made them the eyes of
the army. From the surviving diary of a Parliamentary cavalry officer, Major Sanderson, it’s possible
to calculate he rode over 4,300 miles in year, visiting 215 places (45 more than once), with journeys
as short as two miles in a day, to the longest at eighty miles, including skirmishing (Source: Major Sanderson’s War, PR Hill and JM Watkinson.) Photograph – Levitt Parkes. The Sealed Knot.”
49