TODAY IN HISTORY

10th June 1719 - the Battle of Glen Shiel was fought, during the First Jacobite Rising, between the Hanoverians and an army of Jacobites (in this case, mostly Scots) and Spaniards in the West Highlands of Scotland. It was the last proper battle between the British military and foreign ones on British soil (the last actual battle in Britain was fought in the air in 1940/41 between the RAF and Luftwaffe). The Jacobites wanted the Stuarts back onto the Throne, and had a lot of support in Scotland, although not all British Jacobites were Scots.
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Battle of Glen Shiel

The Battle of Glen Shiel was a battle in Glen Shiel, in the West Highlands of Scotland on June 10, 1719 between the Hanoverians and an alliance of Jacobite Highlanders and Spaniards, resulting in a victory for the British forces.

It was the last close engagement of British troops and foreign ones in Great Britain itself.
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The preparation

After the Treaty of Utrecht, Philip V was accepted as king of Spain in exchange for several concessions. Great Britain had received control over Menorca and Gibraltar and had the biggest navy in the world.

Philip's plans to restore Spanish power would lead to a violent clash with Britain. Philip and his Italian counselor Cardinal Giulio Alberoni carried out a campaign in the western Mediterranean.

In 1717, 8500 infantry men and 500 cavalry men sailed from Barcelona and occupied Sardinia without difficulty.

Next year, 38,000 troops did the same with Sicily.

The British response occurred on 11 August:

The fleet of José Antonio de Gaztañeta moving about Cape Passaro, near Syracusa, was surprised and destroyed by the British navy, claiming a violation of Utrecht.

Spain declared war. Alberoni decided to take the initiative and carry war to Britain before an attack on the Iberian Peninsula could take place.
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The Alberoni plan

Alberoni decided to meddle in the throne disputes, supporting the Jacobite claims and its Highland allies.

The original plan had two phases:

1) George Keith, tenth Earl Marischal would infiltrate Scotland with 300 Spanish marines to raise the Western clans and take some positions. It was a distraction manoeuvre to take defences from South Britain.

2) The main fleet, with 27 ships and 7000 men under James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde (the former Captain General of the British army, exiled in Spain), would disembark in Southwest England or Wales, where Jacobites were abounding. The resulting alliance would march east to siege London, depose George I and enthrone James Francis Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender).
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The plot thickens

Three weeks after leaving Cadiz, Ormonde's fleet was surprised by a storm near Cape Finisterre (29 March). Most of the ships were dispersed and damaged. The mission was aborted and the ships taken to several Spanish havens. (Compare with the fate of the Spanish Armada of 158 By then, Keith had already left the Spanish port of Pasajes and occupied the Isle of Lewis, including Stornoway where he set camp. On 13 April 1719, they disembarked on the Highlands near Lochalsh. The Highlanders however did not join the "Little Rising" in the expected number (the Spaniards carried 2000 guns to distribute), mistrusting the enterprise and waiting for news from the South. Keith could not proceed to Inverness and established his headquarter in the castle of Eilean Donan. The two Spanish frigates returned to Spain. The Spaniards were accompanied by William Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Seaforth, who was chief of the Clan Mackenzie; the Earl Marischal; and the Marquess of Tullibardine; and some Irish officers. They were joined by a few hundred Highlanders including members of the Clan MacRae, Robert Roy MacGregor, and a party of MacGregors. Some days later, the main of the troop went south to stir again the Highlanders, leaving a small garrison (40-50 men) at the castle. The Jacobite forces were to be led by the Earl of Seaforth and also by John Cameron of Lochiel, 18th Captain and Chief of Clan Cameron; along with Lord George Murray. Their plan of action was to advance upon and capture Inverness.
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The capture and destruction of Eilean Donan castle


Eilean Donan castle.

At the beginning of May the Royal Navy sent five ships to the area for reconnaissance: two patrolling off Skye and three around Lochalsh, adjacent to Loch Duich. Early in the morning on Sunday 10 May these latter three, HMS Worcester, HMS Flamborough, and HMS Enterprise, anchored off Eilean Donan, where the Spanish forces had established a base.

Their first move was to send a boat ashore under a flag of truce to negotiate, but when the Spanish soldiers in the castle fired at the boat it was recalled and all three ships opened fire on the castle for an hour or more. They then shifted anchorage and waited, the wind blowing a fresh gale.

The next morning acting on intelligence from a Spanish deserter, the commanding officer, Captain Boyle of HMS Worcester, sent HMS Enterprise up the river to capture a house being used to store gunpowder but, according to the naval logs, the rebels on the shore set fire to the house as the ship approached. Meanwhile the other two ships continued to bombard the castle at intervals while they prepared a landing party.

In the evening, under the cover of an intense cannonade, the ships' boats went ashore and captured the castle against little resistance. According to HMS Worcester's log, in the castle they found "an Irishman, a captain, a Spanish lieutenant, a serjeant, one Scotch rebel and 39 Spanish soldiers, 343 barrels of powder and 52 barrels of musquet shot". Having captured the castle the British then "burnt several barns etc where they had a quantity of corn for the use of their camp".

The Naval force spent the next two days demolishing the castle (it took 27 barrels of gunpowder). The Spanish prisoners were put on board HMS Flamborough and taken away to Edinburgh.

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Glen Shiel


Glen Shiel, Scotland.

After moving around for one month, the Spaniards learnt by the beginning of June that Ormonde would never come. In spite of this, they gathered clansmen for a last action summing 1000 troops.

On 5 June, government forces under General Joseph Wightman came from Inverness to block their march. They consisted of 850 infantry, 120 dragoons and 4 mortar batteries. They confronted the Jacobites at Glen Shiel, just a few miles from Loch Duich, on June 10, near the Five Sisters hills. The Spanish took their advantage to occupy the top and the front of one of the hills while the Scots mounted barricades on the sides.

The first clash was adverse for Wightman, but he constated that the Scots were the weak point of the enemy, due to their poor organisation. He concentrated his troops on the flanks while the mortars battered the whole and kept the Spaniards in their positions. Rob Roy became severely wounded and his clan McGregor left the battle to save him. Other clans followed and left their allies retreating uphill. At 9 o'clock in the evening, they surrendered, three hours after the start of the combat, while the remaining Scots fled into the fog, to escape an execution as traitors. The total losses are unknown. British historians calculate no more than 100 deaths between both sides.

The Jacobites were poorly provisioned and armed, and when expected Jacobite support from the Lowlanders was minimal, spirits fell completely. The Rising was abandoned and the Highlanders dispersed to their homes.

The 274 Spanish prisoners were reunited with their comrades in Edinburgh. In October, negotiations allowed their return to Spain. George Keith escaped the gallows fleeing with the Scots, and exiled to Prussia, where his brother Francis wrote a narration of the battle. In spite of a later pardon, Keith never returned to Great Britain and was the Prussian ambassador to France and later Spain. John Cameron of Lochiel, after hiding for a time in the Highlands, made his way back to exile in France. Bruce Lenman refers that to this day a corridor in Glen Shiel is called Bealach-na-Spainnteach ("Pass of the Spaniards") in the Scottish Gaelic language.

First Jacobite Rising.
Preston – Sheriffmuir – Glen Shiel
wikipdia.org

11th June 1727 - George II becomes King of Great Britain and Ireland. On the same day, he also became Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and Archtreasurer and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the last British monarch to personally lead his troops into battle (at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 between Britain and France). He also went to war with Spain (the War of Jenkins' Ear) and had trouble with the Jacobites. He was also the last British monarch to have been born outside of Great Britain. He reigned until his death in 1760, when George III became the King.
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George II (George Augustus) (10 November 1683 – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and Archtreasurer and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death. He was the second British monarch of the House of Hanover, and the last British monarch to personally lead his troops into battle (at Dettingen in 1743). He was also the last British monarch to have been born outside of Great Britain.

George II was famous for his numerous conflicts with his father and afterwards with his son (a seemingly common problem for members of the Hanoverian dynasty). His relationship with his wife was much better, despite his numerous mistresses. George II exercised little control over policy during his early reign, the government instead being controlled by Great Britain's first (unofficial) "Prime Minister", Sir Robert Walpole.
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Early life

Duke George Augustus of Hanover was born at Schloss Herrenhausen, Hanover. He was the son of the then-George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife, Sophia of Celle; the latter's alleged adultery led to them being divorced in 1694. George never saw his mother again, though it is said he once tried to swim the moat of the castle of Ahlden in order to reach her. When his father succeeded to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1698, Prince George became Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He married Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1705.

The Act of Settlement 1701 devised the British Crown to the Hereditary Prince's grandmother Sophia of Hanover if the then-ruling monarch, William III, and his sister-in-law, the Princess Anne of Denmark, both died without issue. Under the Act of Settlement, the Hereditary Prince became a naturalised English subject in 1705. Anne, who had succeeded to the English Throne in 1702, admitted the Hereditary Prince to the Order of the Garter in 1706. She created him Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton and Baron Tewkesbury later the same year.

Queen Anne died on August 1, 1714, shortly after the demise of the Electress Sophia (d. June 8, 1714). Consequently, Sophia's son George inherited the Throne. George I's son, the Prince George, automatically became Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay and Earl of Carrick. His father created him Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 27 September 1714.

The Prince of Wales had an extremely poor relationship with his father. When the Princess of Wales gave birth to Prince George William in 1717, a family quarrel ensued; at the baptism, the Prince of Wales insisted on having the Duke of Newcastle (whom the King detested) as a godfather, whilst the King chose his brother, the Duke of York and Albany. When he publicly vituperated his father, the Prince of Wales was temporarily put under arrest. Afterwards, the King banished his son from St. James's Palace, the King's residence, and excluded him from all public ceremonies.

The Prince of Wales did all in his power to encourage opposition to George I's policies. His London residence, Leicester House, became a meeting place for his father's opponents, including Sir Robert Walpole and Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend. In 1720, Walpole encouraged George I and his son to reconcile. In the same year, Walpole made a return to political office, from which he had been excluded since 1717.

In 1721, the economic disaster of the South Sea Bubble allowed Sir Robert Walpole to rise to the pinnacle of government. Walpole and his Whig Party were dominant in politics, for George I feared that the Tories did not support the succession laid down in the Act of Settlement. The power of the Whigs was so great that the Tories would not come to hold power for another half-century. Sir Robert Walpole essentially controlled British government, but, by joining the King's side, lost the favour of the Prince of Wales.
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Early life

Duke George Augustus of Hanover was born at Schloss Herrenhausen, Hanover. He was the son of the then-George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife, Sophia of Celle; the latter's alleged adultery led to them being divorced in 1694. George never saw his mother again, though it is said he once tried to swim the moat of the castle of Ahlden in order to reach her. When his father succeeded to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1698, Prince George became Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He married Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1705.

The Act of Settlement 1701 devised the British Crown to the Hereditary Prince's grandmother Sophia of Hanover if the then-ruling monarch, William III, and his sister-in-law, the Princess Anne of Denmark, both died without issue. Under the Act of Settlement, the Hereditary Prince became a naturalised English subject in 1705. Anne, who had succeeded to the English Throne in 1702, admitted the Hereditary Prince to the Order of the Garter in 1706. She created him Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton and Baron Tewkesbury later the same year.

Queen Anne died on August 1, 1714, shortly after the demise of the Electress Sophia (d. June 8, 1714). Consequently, Sophia's son George inherited the Throne. George I's son, the Prince George, automatically became Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay and Earl of Carrick. His father created him Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 27 September 1714.

The Prince of Wales had an extremely poor relationship with his father. When the Princess of Wales gave birth to Prince George William in 1717, a family quarrel ensued; at the baptism, the Prince of Wales insisted on having the Duke of Newcastle (whom the King detested) as a godfather, whilst the King chose his brother, the Duke of York and Albany. When he publicly vituperated his father, the Prince of Wales was temporarily put under arrest. Afterwards, the King banished his son from St. James's Palace, the King's residence, and excluded him from all public ceremonies.

The Prince of Wales did all in his power to encourage opposition to George I's policies. His London residence, Leicester House, became a meeting place for his father's opponents, including Sir Robert Walpole and Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend. In 1720, Walpole encouraged George I and his son to reconcile. In the same year, Walpole made a return to political office, from which he had been excluded since 1717.

In 1721, the economic disaster of the South Sea Bubble allowed Sir Robert Walpole to rise to the pinnacle of government. Walpole and his Whig Party were dominant in politics, for George I feared that the Tories did not support the succession laid down in the Act of Settlement. The power of the Whigs was so great that the Tories would not come to hold power for another half-century. Sir Robert Walpole essentially controlled British government, but, by joining the King's side, lost the favour of the Prince of Wales.

George II suffered from a poor relationship with his son, The Prince Frederick, Prince of Wales (depicted above).George II succeeded to the throne at the time of his father's death on June 11, 1727, but a battle of wills continued with his son and heir, The Prince Frederick, Prince of Wales. George II may have planned to exile his son to the British colonies, but, in any event, did not actually do so. George was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 4 October. The Hanoverian composer George Frideric Handel was commissioned to write four new anthems for the coronation; one of them, Zadok the Priest, has been sung at every coronation since.

It was widely believed that George would dismiss Sir Robert Walpole, who had distressed him by joining his father's government. It was widely believed that Walpole would be replaced by Sir Spencer Compton; George requested Compton—not Walpole—to write his first speech for him. Compton, however, requested Walpole for aid in the task, leading George's wife, Queen Caroline, an ardent supporter of Sir Robert Walpole, to claim that he was incompetent. George did not behave obstinately; instead, he agreed with his wife and retained Sir Robert Walpole as Prime Minister. Walpole slowly gained the royal favour, securing a generous civil list of £800,000 for the King.

He also persuaded many Tory politicians to accept the succession laid down in the Act of Settlement as valid. In turn, George II helped Sir Robert Walpole gain a strong parliamentary majority by creating peers (who sat in the House of Lords) sympathetic to the Whigs.

Whilst Queen Caroline was still alive, Sir Robert Walpole's position was secure. He was the master of domestic policy, and he still exerted some control over George II's foreign policy. Whilst George was eager for war in Europe, Walpole was more cautious. Thus, in 1729, he encouraged George II to sign a peace treaty with Spain.

George's relationship with the Prince of Wales worsened during the 1730s. When the Prince of Wales married Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, an open quarrel broke out; George II banished him and his family from the royal court in 1737. After losing his son, George also lost his wife, who died on November 20, 1737. When she reputedly asked George II to remarry, he said "Non, j'aurai des maitresses!" (French for "No, I will have mistresses!"). George had already had (1736) an illegitimate son, Johann Ludwig, Graf von Wallmoden-Gimborn. The most famous of his mistresses was Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, who was one of Caroline's ladies of the bedchamber.

In 1734 George II founded the Georg August University of Göttingen.
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War and rebellion
Against Walpole's advice, George II once again entered into war with Spain in 1739 (the War of Jenkins' Ear). The entire continent of Europe was plunged into war upon the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in 1740. At dispute was the right of his daughter, Maria Theresa, to succeed to his Austrian dominions. George II's war with Spain quickly became part of the War of the Austrian Succession.

Sir Robert Walpole was powerless to prevent a major European conflict. He also faced the opposition of several politicians, led by John Carteret, 2nd Baron Carteret (afterwards 2nd Earl Granville). Accused of rigging an election, Walpole retired in 1742 after over twenty years in office. He was replaced by Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, George II's original choice for the premiership, who had previously failed to gain office due to the manœuvres of Queen Caroline. Lord Wilmington, however, was a figurehead; actual power was held by Lord Carteret. When Lord Wilmington died in 1743, Henry Pelham took his place.

The pro-war faction was led by Lord Carteret, who claimed that if Maria Theresa failed to succeed to the Austrian Throne, then French power in Europe would increase. George II agreed to send more troops to Europe, ostensibly to support Maria Theresa, but in reality to prevent enemy troops from marching into Hanover. The British army had not fought in a major European war in over twenty years, during which time the government had badly neglected their upkeep. Nevertheless, George II enthusiastically sent his troops to Europe. He personally accompanied them, leading them into the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. (He thus became the last British monarch ever to lead troops into battle.) His armies were controlled by his military-minded son, the Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. The war was not welcomed by the British public, who felt that George II and Lord Carteret were subordinating British interests to Hanoverian ones.

Shrewdly, George II's French opponents encouraged rebellion by the Jacobites during the War of the Austrian Succession. The Jacobites were the supporters of the Roman Catholic James II, who had been deposed in 1689 and replaced not by his Catholic son, but by his Protestant daughter. James II's son, James Francis Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender") had attempted two prior rebellions; the rebellion of 1715 ("the Fifteen") was after he fled to France, and the rebellion of 1719 ("the Nineteen") was so weak that it was almost farcical. The Old Pretender's son, Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), however, led a much stronger rebellion on his father's behalf in 1745.

Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland in July 1745. Many Scotsmen were loyal to his cause; he defeated British forces in September. He then attempted to enter England, where even Roman Catholics seemed hostile to the invasion. The French monarch, Louis XV, had promised to send twelve thousand soldiers to aid the rebellion, but did not deliver. A British army under the Duke of Cumberland, meanwhile, drove the Jacobites back into Scotland. On 16 April 1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie faced the Duke of Cumberland in the Battle of Culloden, the last battle ever fought on British soil. The ravaged Jacobite troops were routed by the British Government Army. Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped to France, but many of his Scottish supporters were caught and executed. Jacobitism was all but crushed; no further serious attempt was made at restoring the House of Stuart.

After the Forty-Five, the War of the Austrian Succession continued. Peace was made in 1748, with Maria Theresa being recognised as Archduchess of Austria. She subsequently dropped Great Britain as a key ally, deeming it too unreliable.

wikipedia.org

12th June 1683 - the Rye House Plot was discovered. This was a plan to assassinate King Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York, who later became King James II of England, VII of Scotland. The plot was so called because it was thought up in a a manor house called Rye House in Hertfordshire.
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Rye House.

The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother (and heir to the throne) James, Duke of York.

After the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles in 1660 there was a concern among many members of Parliament, former republicans and the general Protestant population of England that the King's relationship with France under Louis XIV and the other Catholic rulers of Europe was a little too close. Anti-Catholic sentiment, associated with absolutism, was widespread, and in particular focused on the succession to the throne. While Charles was publicly Anglican, he and his brother were known to have Catholic sympathies. These suspicions were confirmed in 1670 when James announced his intention to convert to Catholicism - a Catholic would now be first in line to the throne.

In 1681 the Exclusion Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, an attempt to pass an Act of Parliament excluding James from the succession. Charles outmaneuvered his opponents and dissolved Parliament for the final time. This left his opponents with no legal method of preventing James's succession, and rumours of plots and conspiracies abounded.

Rye House, a manor house in Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, was owned by a well known Republican, Richard Rumbold. The plan was to conceal a force of 100 men in the grounds of the house and ambush the King and the Duke on their way back to London from the horse races at Newmarket.

They were expected to make the journey on April 1, 1683, but there was a great fire in Newmarket on March 22, which destroyed half the town. The races were cancelled, and the King and the Duke returned to London early. As a result, the planned attack never took place.

News of the plot leaked out, and Charles and his supporters were quick to act. Many well-known members of Parliament and noblemen of the "country party", which opposed the Court party and would soon be known as Whigs, were arrested. Although the actual conspirators were minor figures, the great leaders Lord William Russell, a son of the Earl of Bedford, and Algernon Sidney were convicted on flimsy evidence of guilt by association by Judge George Jeffreys— who was to preside over the "Bloody Assizes" in the West Country after the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685— and were executed. Lord Shaftesbury, leader of the opposition to Charles's rule, fled into exile. The Duke of Monmouth, Charles' favored but illegitimate son, was implicated and obliged to retire to the United Provinces (now Holland).

Historians have suggested the story of the plot may have been largely manufactured by Charles or his supporters to allow the removal of most of his strongest political opponents.

Also on this day -

1898 - The Phillippines gets its independence from Spain and the United States.

wikipedia.org

13th June 1306 - The Battle of Methven took place between Scotland and England at Methven in Scotland, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. It was a decisive English victory, despite having a slightly smaller number of troops.
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Background
Despite the excommunication of the Scottish king, Robert I (Robert the Bruce) for the killing of John Comyn of Badenoch in the chapel of the Minorites at Dumfries in February 1306, he was crowned King of Scots at Scone on March 25, 1306. King Edward I of England responded by sending an army of 3000 cavalry, under the dreaded Dragon Banner, to capture Bruce and anyone who supported his cause. As commander Edward chose Aymer de Valence, the later Earl of Pembroke, brother in law of the recently murdered John Comyn.
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Battle
Perth had fallen to the English in mid-June and Bruce decided to retake the city with the 4500 men he had mustered since his coronation. Bruce's army reached the city walls on 18 June but agreed to Pembroke's proposal for a postponement of battle to the following day. The Scottish army camped for the night a few miles west of Perth at Methven, but during the night the English forces conducted a surprise attack on the Scots. In the ensuing chaos only a few hundred Scots left with their lives.
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Aftermath
Guided by monks sent by Abbot Maurice of Inchaffray Abbey, Bruce and his small band of followers fled westward, constandly harassed by warriors of John Macdougall, son of the Lord of Argyll and Lorne, sworn enemy of Bruce. After finally escaping to the Western Isles where he and a few friends spent the winter, he returned to the Scottish mainland the following spring to continue the fight for Scottish independence.
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Commanders

Scotland - King Robert I
England - Aymer de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke
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Strength

Scotland - 4500
England - 3000
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Casualties

Scotland - 3500
England - ?

Wars of Scottish Independence
Dunbar – Stirling Bridge – Falkirk – Stirling Castle – Methven – Bannockburn – Dupplin Moor – Halidon Hill
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Also on this day -

1390 - Alexander Stewart, the illegitimate son of King Robert II of Scotland, more familiarly known as the "Wolf of Badenoch", plundered and burned the towns of Forres and Elgin, including the Cathedral.

1625 - King Charles I is married to the French princess Henrietta Maria de Bourbon. She becomes England's Queen Consort.

1774 - Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

14th June 1645 - the Battle of Naseby took place during the English Civil War. It was a decisive victory for the Parrliamentarian New Model Army and, within a year, the First English Civil War ended with a Parliamentarian military victory. But, within a few years after that, the Second English Civil War would start, although we now just consider both as just ONE war. Just after the battle, Parliamentarian troops also hacked to death at least 100 women camp-followers in the apparent belief they were Irish, though they were probably Welsh whose language was mistaken for Irish.
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The Battle of Naseby was the key battle of the first English Civil War. On June 14, 1645, the main army of King Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax.
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Last stand of Prince Rupert's Bluecoats, Battle of Naseby.

The Campaign
At the start of 1645, most of King Charles's advisers wished to attack the New Model Army while it was still forming. Prince Rupert of the Rhine proposed instead to march north, to recover the north of England and join forces with the Royalists in Scotland under Montrose. This course was adopted, even though the King's army had to be weakened by leaving a detachment under Goring to hold the west country and maintain the Siege of Taunton.

Meanwhile, after an aborted attempt to relieve Taunton, Parliament's Committee of Both Kingdoms had directed Fairfax to besiege the King's wartime capital at Oxford. Initially, Charles welcomed this move, as Fairfax would be unable to interfere with his move north. Then at the end of May he was told that Oxford was short of provisions and could not hold out long. To distract Fairfax, the Royalists stormed the Parliamentarian garrison at Leicester on May 31. Having done so, Prince Rupert and the King's council reversed their former decision and decided to march south to relieve Oxford.

Parliament had indeed been alarmed by the loss of Leicester, and Fairfax was now instructed to engage the King's main army. He accordingly marched north from Oxford on June 5. His leading detachments of horse clashed with Royalist outposts near Daventry on June 12, alerting the King to his presence. On June 13, the Royalists, who were now making for Newark so as to receive reinforcements, were at Market Harborough.

Fairfax was eager to engage them, and held a Council of War, during which Oliver Cromwell, recently re-appointed Lieutenant General, arrived with some cavalry reinforcements. The New Model Army moved in pursuit, and late in the day Henry Ireton attacked a Royalist outpost at Naseby, six miles (10 km) to the south of the royalist army. The King now had to accept battle, or retreat with Fairfax at his heels. On June 14, urged on by Rupert, he took the former course.
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The battle
Fairfax had drawn up his army on a ridge a mile north of Naseby, with Ireton's wing of cavalry on the left, Cromwell's cavalry on the right and the infantry (eight large regiments) under Sir Philip Skippon in the centre. Royalist horse under Rupert and his brother Prince Maurice faced Ireton, while 1500 truculent "Northern Horse" under Sir Marmaduke Langdale faced Cromwell. In the centre, the Royalist foot were organised as three "tertias" commanded by Lord Astley. The King commanded a small reserve of infantry and his Lifeguard of Horse.

Battle began when Parliamentarian dragoons under Colonel Okey occupied hedges on the Royalist right flank. They opened fire and goaded Rupert into a charge. Most of Ireton's regiments were broken and put to flight, some not stopping until they reached Northampton. Rupert led his men in all-out pursuit, leaving some of Ireton's men behind them, only temporarily disordered. There followed a general advance of the Royalist infantry. Initially, the Royalist centre and left advanced while the right wing appeared to hesitate due to the Parliamentarian infantry being out of sight behind the crest of the ridge. Suddenly the roundhead infantry moved to the crest of the ridge and both sides fired a volley. With the Parliamentarian centre under pressure from the veteran Royalist foot, Ireton led the remanants of his horse to their support, and was unhorsed, wounded and captured. At this point the whole line of Parliamentary Foot might have crumbled and fled if not for the inspiring leadership of Philip Skippon, their General of Foot.

Meanwhile on the Parliamentarian right, Cromwell's Ironsides, possibly commanded by Thomas Fairfax faced the Royalist Northern horse, neither willing to charge to the aid of their infantry while the other could threaten their flank. Eventually after an hour, the Royalist cavalry began to charge and Cromwell's troops moved to meet them. Langdale's men were not only outflanked and outnumbered two to one, but forced to charge up a slope broken up by bushes and a rabbit warren. After a brief contest they were routed. Unlike Rupert, Cromwell sent only two regiments after them, and turned his reserves against the Royalist centre. Oakey's dragoons and some of Ireton's horse also attacked on the other flank. Outnumbered and surrounded, the Royalist foot were killed or forced to retreat after a desperate resistance. One regiment, Prince Rupert's Bluecoats, stood their ground and resisted the victorious Parliamentarian forces in a desperate last stand, but they too eventually succumbed to the sheer weight of numbers. The King attempted to lead his Lifeguard of Horse to their rescue, but was prevented from doing so by the Scottish Earl of Carnwath, who seized his bridle crying, "Would you go on your death so easily?", and forced him to halt.

Rupert's cavalry had galloped two miles and reached the Parliamentarian baggage train, defended only by a small guard. They refused his summons to surrender, and Rupert belatedly led his cavalry back to the battlefield, where they were too late to save the Royalist infantry. They reformed a mile north of their original positions, but would not make another attack. When Fairfax regrouped and advanced, they rode off the field. Fairfax's forces pursued Royalist survivors fleeing north to Leicester in an attempt decisively to destroy their army as a fighting force. Many were butchered when they mistakenly followed what they thought was the main road to Leicester into a church yard, and were unable to escape their pursuers. Parliamentarian troops also hacked to death at least 100 women camp-followers in the apparent belief they were Irish, though they were probably Welsh whose language was mistaken for Irish. The massacre was widely celebrated by the Parliamentarians.[1]
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Aftermath
Fairfax recovered Leicester on May 18. Royalist military force had been shattered at Naseby. The King had lost his veteran infantry (including 500 officers), all his artillery, and many arms. He was unable to take the field again until they had been replaced, and he could never again raise an army of similar quality. Within a year, the First Civil War ended in a Parliamentarian military victory.


Location: Naseby, near Market Harborough, Northamptonshire

Result: Decisive Parliamentarian victory

Commander of the Parliamentarians - Sir Thomas Fairfax

Commander of the Royalists - King Charles I

Strength of the Parliamentarians - 6000 horse, 7000 foot

Strength of the Royalists - 4100 horse, 3300 foot

Parliamentarian casualties - Unknown

Royalist casualties - 3500

wikipedia.org

15th June 1215 - King John signs the Magna Carta at Runnymede, Surrey. It is the most significant early influence on the long historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today. Even though Magna Carta is essentially English, and not Welsh, Scottish nor Northern Irish, 15th June is one of the dates recommended for a "British Day", a day when the people of these islands can celebrate their Britishness.
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Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter", literally "Great Paper"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum ("Great Charter of Freedoms"), was an English charter originally issued in 1215. Magna Carta is the most significant early influence on the long historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today. Magna Carta was originally created because of disagreements between the Pope, King John and his English barons about the rights of the King. Magna Carta required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that the will of the king could be bound by law.
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Events Leading to Magna Carta


King John signs Magna Carta

After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and advances in the 12th century, the English king had by 1199 become the most powerful monarch in Europe. This was due to a number of factors including the sophisticated centralised government created by the procedures of the new Norman rulers combined with the native Anglo-Saxon systems of governance, and extensive Anglo-Norman land holdings in Normandy. But after King John was crowned in the early 13th century, a series of stunning failures on his part led the barons of England to revolt and place checks on the king's power.

France
One major cause of discontent in the realm were John’s actions in France. At the time of John’s accession to the throne after Richard's death, there were no set rules to define the heredity of the crown. John, as Richard’s younger brother, was crowned over Richard's nephew, Arthur of Brittany. But Arthur still had a claim over the Anjou empire and so John needed the approval of the French King, Philip Augustus. To get it, John gave to Philip vast tracts of the French-speaking territories of the Anjou empire.

Later John married Isabella d’Angoulême, and her previous fiancé, one of John’s vassals, appealed to Philip, who then forfeited all of John’s French land, including the rich Normandy. Philip declared Arthur as the true ruler of the Anjou throne and invaded in mid 1202 to give it to him. John had to act to save face, but his eventual actions did not achieve this, as he ended up killing Arthur in suspicious circumstances, thus losing the little Baronial support he had in France who saw it as a black mark that John would kill his own family to be king.

After the defeat of John's allies at the Battle of Bouvines, Philip retained all of John’s Northern French territories, including Normandy (the Aquitaine remained in English hands for a time). However short-sighted John may have been, he must have realised this would not only reveal him as a weak military leader, but it also lost him a major source of income, which meant that he would have to further tax the already unhappy Barons who were starting to see him as weak.

Note: John was given the nickname of "Lackland" not because of the losses to France, but because he had received no land rights (at birth) in the continental provinces, unlike his elder brothers.


The Church
At the time of John’s reign there was still a great deal of controversy as to how the Archbishop of Canterbury was to be elected, although it had become traditional that the monarch would appoint a candidate with the approval of the monks of Canterbury.

But in the early 13th century, the bishops began to want a say. To retain control, the monks elected one of their number to the role. But John, incensed at his lack of involvement in the proceedings, sent the Bishop of Norwich to Rome as his choice. Pope Innocent III declared both choices as invalid and persuaded the monks to elect Stephen Langton, who in fact was probably the best choice. But John refused to accept this choice and exiled the monks from the realm. Infuriated, Innocent ordered an interdict (prevention of public worship) in England in 1208, excommunicated John in 1209, and backed Philip to invade England in 1212.

John finally backed down and agreed to endorse Langton and allow the exiles to return, and to completely placate the pope he gave England and Ireland as papal territories and rented them back as a fiefdom for 1000 marks per annum. This further enraged the Barons as it meant that they had even less autonomy in their own land.


Taxes
Despite all this, England's government could function without a strong king. The efficient civil service, established by the powerful King Henry II had run England throughout the reign of Richard I. But the government needed money, for during this period of prosperity mercenary soldiers cost nearly twice than before. The loss of the French territories, especially Normandy, greatly reduced the state income, and a huge tax would have to be raised in order to attempt to reclaim these territories. Yet it was difficult to raise taxes due to tradition of keeping them the same.

Novel forms of income included a Forest law, a set of regulations about the king’s forest which were easily broken and severely punished. John also increased the pre-existing scutage (feudal payment to an overlord replacing direct military service) eleven times in his seventeen years as king, as compared to eleven times in twice that period covering three monarchs before him. The last two of these increases were double the increase of their predecessors. He also imposed the first income tax, which raised, what was at the time, the extortionate sum of £60,000.


Rebellion and Civil War
John of England signs Magna Carta – illustration from Cassell's History of England (1902)By 1215, some of the barons of England banded together and took London by force on June 10, 1215. They and many of the fence-sitting moderates not in overt rebellion forced King John to agree to a document called the 'Articles of the Barons', to which his Great Seal was attached in the meadow at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. In return, the barons renewed their oaths of fealty to King John on June 19, 1215. A formal document to record the agreement was created by the royal chancery on July 15: this was the original Magna Carta. An unknown number of copies of it were sent out to officials, such as royal sheriffs and bishops.

The most significant clause for King John at the time was clause 61, known as the "security clause", the longest portion of the document. This established a committee of 25 Barons who could at any time meet and over-rule the will of the King, through force by seizing his castles and possessions if needed. This was based on a medieval legal practice known as distraint, which was commonly done, but it was the first time it had been applied to a monarch. In addition, the King was to take an oath of loyalty to the committee.

King John had no intention to honour Magna Carta, as it was sealed under extortion by force, and clause 61 essentially neutered his power as a monarch, making him King in name only. He renounced it as soon as the barons left London, plunging England into a civil war, called the First Barons' War. Pope Innocent III also immediately annulled the "shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the king by violence and fear." He rejected any call for rights, saying it impaired King John's dignity. He saw it as an affront to the Church's authority over the king and released John from his oath to obey it.
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Content of Magna Carta


Rights still in force today

Clause 1 of Magna Carta (the original 1215 edition) guarantees the freedom of the English Church. Although this originally meant freedom from the King, later in history it was used for different purposes (see below). Clause 13 guarantees the “ancient liberties” of the city of London. Clause 39 gives a right to due process.

The 1215 edition was annulled in 1216 (see above) but some of the 1297 version is still in force today and preserves the rights listed above.

In 1828 the passing of the first Offences Against the Person Act, was the first time a clause of Magna Carta was repealed , namely Clause 36. With the myth broken, in one hundred and fifty years nearly the whole charter was repealed leaving just Clauses 1, 13, 39, and 63 still in force today after the Statute Laws (Repeals) Act was passed (although interestingly at the same time as the moon landings, possibly to distract public attention for repealing The Charter).


Feudal rights still in place in 1225
These clauses were present in the 1225 charter but are no longer in force, and would have no real place in the post-feudal world. Clauses 2 to 7 refer to the feudal death duties; defining the amounts and what to do if an heir to a fiefdom is underage or is a widow. Clause 23 provides no town or person should be forced to build a bridge across a river. Clause 33 demands the removal of all fish weirs. Clause 43 gives special provision for tax on reverted estates and Clause 44 states that forest law should only apply to those in the King’s forest.


Feudal rights not in the 1225 charter
These provisions have no bearing in the world today, as they are feudal rights, and were not even included in the 1225 charter. Clauses 9 to 12, 14 to 16, and 25 to 26 deal with debt and taxes and Clause 27 with intestacy.

The other clauses state that no one may seize land in debt except as a last resort, that underage heirs and widows should not pay interest on inherited loans, that county rents will stay at their ancient amounts and that the crown may only seize the value owed in payment of a debt, that aid (taxes for warfare or other emergency) must be reasonable, and that scutage (literally, shield-payment, payment in lieu of actual military service used to finance warfare) may only be sought with the consent of the kingdom.

These clauses were not present in the 1225 document, but still this led to the first parliament. Clause 14 provided that the common consent of the kingdom was to be sought from a council of the archbishops, bishops, earls and greater Barons. This later became the great council (see below).


Judicial rights (also in 1225 Charter)
These rights were the beginning of English judicial rights. Clauses 17 to 22 allowed for a fixed law court, which became the chancellery, and defines the scope and frequency of county assizes. They also said that fines should be proportionate to the offence, that they should not be influenced by ecclesiastical property in clergy trials, and that that people should be tried by their peers. Many think that this gave rise to jury and magistrate trial, but its only manifestation in today’s world is the right of a Lord to trial in the House of Lords at first instance.

Clause 24 states that crown officials (such as sheriffs) may not try a crime in place of a judge. Clause 34 forbids repossession without a writ precipe. Clauses 36 to 38 state that writs for loss of life or limb are to be free, that someone may use reasonable force to secure their own land and that no one can be tried on their own testimony alone.

Clause 54 says that no man may be imprisoned on the testimony of a woman except on the death of her husband.


Anti-corruption and fair trade (also in 1225 Charter)
Clauses 28 to 32 say that no royal officer may take any commodity such as corn, wood or transport without payment or consent or force a knight to pay for something they could do themselves and that he must return any lands confiscated from a felon within a year and a day.

Clause 25 sets out a list of standard measures and Clauses 41 and 42 guarantee the safety and right of entry and exit of foreign merchants.

Clause 45 says that the king should only appoint royal officers where they are suitable for the post. Clause 46 provides for the guardianship of monasteries.


Temporary provisions
These provisions were for immediate effect, and were not in any later charter. Clauses 47 and 48 abolish most of Forest Law. Clauses 49, 52 to 53 and 55 to 59 provide for the return of hostages, land and fines taken in John’s reign.

Article 50 says that no member of the D’Athèe family may be a royal officer. Article 51 provides all foreign knights and mercenaries should leave the realm.

Articles 60, 62 and 63 provide for the application and observation of The Charter and say that The Charter is binding on the Kings and his heirs forever, but this was soon deemed to be dependent on that specific King reaffirming The Charter under his own seal.
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Popular perceptions

In 1957 the American Bar Association acknowledged the debt American law and constitutionalism had to Magna Carta by erecting a monument at Runnymede.Magna Carta is often a symbol for the first time the citizens of England were granted rights against an absolute king. However this is not entirely accurate. In practice the commons could not enforce Magna Carta in the very rare situations where it affected them, so its effects in reality were limited. In addition a large part of Magna Carta was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties of Henry I, issued when Henry I ascended to the throne in 1100, which bound the king to certain laws regarding the treatment of church officials and nobles, effectively granting certain civil liberties to the church and the English nobility.

The document commonly known as Magna Carta today is not the 1215 charter, but a later charter of 1225, and is usually shown in the form of The Charter of 1297 when it was confirmed by Edward I. At the time of the 1215 charter many of the provisions were not meant to make long term changes but simply to right the immediate wrongs, and therefore The Charter was reissued three times in the reign of Henry III (1216, 1217 and 1225) in order to provide for an updated version. After this each individual king for the next two-hundred years (Until Henry V in 1416) personally confirmed the 1225 charter in their own charter, so one must not think of it as one document but a variety of documents coming together to form one Magna Carta in the same way many treaties such as the treaties of Rome and Nice come together to form the Treaties of the European Union and the European Community.

The document is revered in America, since it is seen as an antecedent of the Bill of Rights and Constitution. They have contributed the Runnymede Memorial and Lincoln Cathedral offers a Magna Carta USA week [1]. When the Lincoln copy was last exhibited in the USA, at the Pentagon, a US Airforce serviceman said:

“I suppose this is what we fight for”.

In 2006, BBC History magazine held a poll to recommend a date for a proposed "Britain Day". June 15, as the date of the signing of the original 1215 Magna Carta, received most votes, above other suggestions such as D-Day, VE Day, and Remembrance Day. The outcome was not binding, although Chancellor Gordon Brown had previously given his support to the idea of a new national day to celebrate British identity. [1]

wikipedia.org

16th June 1487 - the Battle of Stoke Field took place. It was the last major battle of the Wars of the Roses, an English civil war fought between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, two branches of the Plantagenet royal house, over the English Throne. This battle was a decisive Lancastrian victory. The end of the Wars heralded the start of the Tudor dynasty.
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The Battle of Stoke Field, which took place on 16 June 1487, marked the last dying breath of the Wars of the Roses.

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The pretender
Henry VII of England now held the throne for the House of Lancaster, and had gained the acceptance of the Yorkist faction by his marriage to their heiress, Elizabeth of York, but his hold on power was not entirely secure.

The best surviving male claimant of the York dynasty was the queen's first cousin, Edward, Earl of Warwick (son of George, Duke of Clarence). This boy was kept confined in the Tower of London.

An impostor named Lambert Simnel came to the attention of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. Lincoln, although apparently reconciled with the Tudor king, himself had a claim on the throne; moreover, the last Plantagenet, Richard III of England, had named him as the royal heir. Although he probably had no doubt about Simnel's true identity, Lincoln saw an opportunity for revenge and reparation.

Lincoln fled the English Court on 19 June 1486 and went to the Court of Malines and his Aunt, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. Margaret provided finanical and military support in the form of 1500 crack German and Swiss mercenaries, under the veteran German commander, Colonel Martin Schwartz. Lincoln was joined by a number of rebel English Lords at Malines, in particular Richard III's loyal supporter, Lord Lovell, Sir Richard Harleston, the former Governor of Jersey and Thomas David, a Captain of the English garrison at Calais.

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The Yorkist rebellion
The Yorkist fleet set sail and arrived in Dublin on 4 May 1487. With the help of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lincoln recruited 4,500 Irish mercenaries, mostly Kern: lighly armoured but highly mobile infantry.

With the support of the Irish nobility and clergy, Lincoln had the pretender Lambert Simnel crowned "King Edward VI" in Dublin on the 24 May 1487. Although a Parliament was called for the new "King", Lincoln had no intention of remaining in Dublin and instead packed up the army and Simnel and set sail for north Lancashire.

On landing on the 4 June 1487, Lincoln was joined by a number of the local gentry lead by Sir Thomas Boughton. In a series of forced marches, the Yorkist army, now numbering some 8,000 men, covered over 200 miles in 5 days. On the night of 10 June, at Bramham Moor, outside Tadcaster, Lovell led 2,000 men on a night attack against 400 Lancastrians, lead by Lord Clifford. The result was an overwhelming Yorkist victory.

Lincoln then outmanoeuvred King Henry's northern army, under the command of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland by ordering a force under John, Lord Scrope to mount a diversionary attack on Bootham Bar, York, England on 12 June. Lord Scrope withdrew northwards, taking Northumberland's army with him.

Lincoln and the main army continued southwards. Outside Doncaster, Lincoln encountered Lancastrian cavalry under Lord Scales. There followed 3 days of skimishing through Sherwood Forest. Lincoln forced Scales back to Nottingham. However, the fighting had slowed down the Yorkist advance sufficiently to allow King Henry to receive substantial reinforcements, under the command of Lord Strange on arriving at Nottingham on 14 June.

On the 15th June, King Henry began moving north east toward Newark after receiving news that Lincoln had crossed the Trent. Around 9 in the morning of the 16 June, King Henry's forward troops encountered the Yorkist army ensembled in a single block, on a brow of a hill, surrounded on 3 sides by the Trent at the village of East Stoke.

In an unusual military manoeurve, the Yorkists surrendered the high ground by immediately going on to the attack. The battle was bitterly contested for over 3 hours, but eventually, the lack of body armour on the Irish troops meant that they were cut down in increasing numbers.

Unable to retreat, the German and Swiss mercenaries fought it out. All of the Yorkist commanders: Lincoln, Fitzgerald, Boughton and Schwartz fell fighting. Only Lovell escaped and died hidden in a secret room at his house, Minister Lovell. Simnel was captured, but was pardoned by the king in a gesture of clemency which did his reputation no harm.

Location: Nottinghamshire, England

Yorkist Commander - John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln.

Lancastrian Commander - King Henry VII (who, after the War, combined the red rose of the Lancastrians with the white rose of the Yorkists to form the red and white Tudor rose, and thus starting the Tudor dynasty, whose most famous monarchs were Henry VIII and Elizabeth I)

Yorkist strength - 8000

Lancastrian strength - 12,000

Yorkist casualties - 4000

Lancastrian casualties - 3000


Lancastrian red rose.


Yorkist white rose.


At the end of the Wars of the Roses, Henry VII merged the red rose with the white rose to form the red and white Tudor rose.

wikipdia.org

Also on this day -

1779 - Spain declares war on Britain (as nearly everybody did in those days) and lay siege to Gibraltar.

1903 - the Ford motor compay is formed.

17th June 1775 - the Battle of Bunker Hill (which actually took place at Breed's Hill) took place between the American colonists and the British. As is normal for the bad guys and the losers, many Americans today believe that they won this battle, as that is what they were wrongly told at school, but it was actually a victory for the British.
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The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull

Bunker Hill was a battle of the American Revolutionary War that took place on June 17, 1775 during the Siege of Boston. It is considered by some to be the bloodiest battle of the American Revolutionary War. General Israel Putnam was in charge of the revolutionary forces, and Major General William Howe commanded the British forces. Colonel William Prescott, the revolutionaries' second in charge, is known as the officer who said: "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!" Although the battle is known as "Bunker Hill", most of the fighting did not take place there, occurring on Breed's Hill nearby. On their third assault the British forces overran the revolutionaries' fortified earthworks on Breed's and Bunker Hill. The battle was a Pyrrhic victory for the British who suffered more than 1000 casualties. Howe's immediate objective was achieved.

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Background

Since May of 1774 the Province of Massachusetts Bay had been under martial law under General Thomas Gage. After armed conflict with the colonists started on April 19, 1775 at the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Gage's forces had been besieged in Boston by 8,000 to 12,000 militia led mainly by General Artemas Ward. In May, the British garrison was increased by the arrival of about 4,500 additional troops and Major General Howe. Admiral Samuel Graves commanded the fleet within the harbor.

General Gage started work with his new generals on a plan to break the siege of Boston. They would use an amphibious assault to remove the Americans from Dorchester Heights or take their headquarters at Cambridge. To thwart these plans, General Ward gave orders to General Putnam to fortify Bunker Hill.

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The battleground

The Charlestown Peninsula was narrow to the northwest and it extended about 1 mile (1600 meters) toward the southwest into Boston Harbor. At its closest approach less than 1000 feet (300 meters) separated it from the Boston Peninsula. Bunker Hill is an elevation at the north of the peninsula, and Breed's Hill is near the Boston end, while the town of Charlestown occupied the flats at the southern end.

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Description of the battle

On the night of June 16, American Colonel William Prescott led 1,500 men onto the peninsula. At first Putnam, Prescott, and their engineering officer, Captain Richard Gridley, disagreed as to where they should locate their defense. Breed's Hill was viewed as much more defensible, and they decided to locate their primary redoubt there. Prescott and his men, using Gridley's outline, began digging a fortification 160 feet (50 m) long and 80 feet (25 m) wide with ditches and earthen walls. They added ditch and dike extensions toward the Charles River on their right and began reinforcing a fence running to their left.

In the early predawn, around 4 am, a sentry on board HMS Lively was first to spot the new fortification. The Lively opened fire, temporarily halting the Americans' work. Admiral Graves, on his flagship HMS Somerset, woke irritated by gunfire he hadn't ordered. He ordered it stopped, only to reverse himself when he got on deck and saw the works. He ordered all 128 guns in the harbor to open up on the American position. The broadsides proved largely ineffective, since the ships couldn't elevate their guns enough to reach the fortifications.

It took almost six hours to organize an infantry force, gather up and inspect the men on parade. General Howe was to lead the major assault, drive around the American left flank, and take them from the rear. Brigadier General Robert Pigot on the British left flank would lead the direct assault on the redoubt. Major John Pitcairn led the flank or reserve force. It took several trips in longboats to assemble Howe's forces on the northwest corner of the peninsula. On a warm day, with full field packs of about 60 pounds (30 kg), the British were finally ready about two in the afternoon.


The Battle of Bunker Hill, Howard Pyle, 1897.

The Americans, seeing this activity, had also called for reinforcements. The only troops to get to the forward positions were two New Hampshire regiments (1st NH and 3rd NH) of 200 men under John Stark and James Reed. Stark's men took positions along the fence on the left or north end of the American position. Since low tide opened a gap along the Mystic River, they quickly extended the fence with a short stone wall to the north. Gridley or Stark placed a stake about 30 meters in front of the fence and ordered that no one fire until the regulars passed it. Private John Simpson, however, disobeyed orders and fired as soon as he had a clear shot, thus starting the battle (Americans were trigger happy even in those days).

Prescott had been steadily losing men. He lost very few to the bombardment, but had ten volunteers to carry every wounded man to the rear. Others took advantage of the confusion to join the withdrawal. Two generals did join Prescott's force, but both declined command, and simply fought as individuals. One of these was Dr. Joseph Warren, the president of the Council and acting head of Massachusetts' revolutionary government. The second was Seth Pomeroy. By the time the battle started the total involved defenders numbered about 1,400 and they faced 2,600 regulars.

The first assaults both on the fence line and the redoubt were met with massed fire at close range and repulsed, with heavy British losses. The reserve, gathering just north of the town, was also taking casualties due to rifle fire from a company in the town. Howe's men reformed on the field and made a second unsuccessful attack at the wall.

The Americans had lost all fire discipline (no surprises there) In traditional battles of the 18th century, companies of men fired, reloaded, and moved on specific orders, as they had been trained (see the warfare tactics section in "Muskets"). After their initial volley, the Americans all fought as individuals, and every man fired as quickly as he could reload and find a target (thus running out of ammunition too quickly and not being as clever as the British at tactics). The British withdrew almost to their original positions on the peninsula to regroup. The navy, along with artillery from Copp's Hill on the Boston peninsula, fired heated shot into Charlestown. All 400 or so buildings and the docks were completely burned, but the snipers withdrew safely.

The third British assault carried the redoubt, due to a number of factors. The British reserves were included in this assault and both flanks concentrated on the redoubt. Also, the Americans ran out of ammunition, reducing the battle to a bayonet fight, but most of the American soldiers' muskets didn't have bayonets.

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Aftermath


According to the John Trumbull painting, the flag carried by the colonists during the battle was this historical flag of New England

The British had taken the ground, but at a stiff cost; 1,054 were shot (226 dead and 828 wounded), and a disproportionate number of these were officers. The American losses were only about 450, of whom 140 were killed (including Joseph Warren), and 30 captured (20 of whom died). Most American losses came during the withdrawal.

British dead and wounded included most of their officers. Of General Howe's entire field staff, he was the only one not shot. Major Pitcairn was dead, and Colonel James Abercrombie fatally wounded. The American withdrawal and British advance swept right through to include the entire peninsula, Bunker Hill as well as Breed's Hill. But the number of Americans to be faced in new positions hastily created by Putnam on the mainland, the end of the day, and the exhaustion of his troops removed any chance Howe had of advancing on Cambridge and breaking the siege.

The attitude of the British was significantly changed, both individually and as a government. Thomas Gage was soon recalled, and would be replaced by General Howe. Howe himself lost the daring he had shown at Louisbourg, and was cautious through the rest of his service. Gage's report to the cabinet repeated his earlier warnings that "a large army must at length be employed to reduce these people" and would require "the hiring of foreign troops."

The famous order, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" was popularized by stories about Bunker Hill. However, it is uncertain as to who said it, since various writers attribute it to Putnam, Stark, Prescott and Gridley. Another reporting uncertainty concerns the role of African-Americans. There were certainly a few involved in the battle, but their exact numbers are unknown. One of these was Salem Poor, who was cited for bravery and whose actions at the redoubt saved Prescott's life, but accounts crediting him with Pitcairn's death are highly doubtful. Other African-Americans present were Peter Salem; Prince Whipple; and Brazillari Lew [1]. A mulatto Phillip Abbot of Andover was killed in the battle.

Among the Colonial volunteers in the Battle were James Otis, Henry Dearborn, John Brooks, William Eustis, Daniel Shays, William Barton and Israel Potter. Among the British Officers were General Henry Clinton, General John Burgoyne, and Lord Francis Rawdon.

wikipedia.org

18th June 1685 - the Monmouth Rebellion (or Pitchfork Rebellion) takes place in England. This was an attempt to overthrow King James II, the younger brother of previous monarch Charles II, because he was a Roman Catholic and many people were opposed to a "papist" king. The leader of the Rebellion was the 1st Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II. Monmouth was eventually executed for treason on 15 July 1685, and many of his supporters were executed or transported in the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys.


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The Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, also known as the Pitchfork Rebellion, was an attempt to overthrow the King of England, James II, who became king when his elder brother, Charles II, died on 6 February 1685. James II was unpopular because he was Roman Catholic and many people were opposed to a "papist" king. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, claimed to be rightful heir to the throne and attempted to displace James II.

The rebellion ended with the defeat of Monmouth's forces at Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685 (often, rather incorrectly, said to be the last pitched battle on English soil). Monmouth was executed for treason on 15 July, and many of his supporters were executed or transported in the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys.
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Duke of Monmouth
Monmouth was an illegitimate son of Charles II. There had been rumours that Charles had married Monmouth's mother, Lucy Walter, but no evidence was forthcoming and Charles always said that he only had one wife, Catherine of Braganza.

Monmouth was a Protestant. He had been appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army by his father in 1672 and Captain-General in 1678, enjoying some successes in the Netherlands in the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Monmouth's military reputation, and his Protestantism, made him a popular figure in England. An attempt was made to pass an Act of Parliament to exclude James from the succession and substitute Monmouth in 1681, but Charles outmanoeuvred his opponents and dissolved Parliament for the final time. After the Rye House Plot to assassinate both Charles and James, Monmouth exiled himself to Holland, and gathered supporters in the Hague.

So long as Charles II remained on the throne, Monmouth was content to live a life of pleasure in Holland, while still hoping to accede peaceably to the throne. The accession of James II to the throne put an end to these hopes. Prince William of Orange, although also a Protestant, was bound to James by treaties and would not accommodate a rival claimant. He suggested Monmouth should take a commission with Emperor Leopold in his fight against the Turks. Monmouth, however, at the urging of his fellow exiles, moved to take the Crown of England by force.
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From Lyme Regis to Sedgemoor



In May 1685, Monmouth set sail for South West England, a strongly Protestant region, with three small ships, four light field guns and 1500 muskets. He landed with 82 supporters, including Lord Grey of Warke, and around 300 men, at Lyme Regis in Dorset on 11 June. Monmouth had been promised a large army and universal support by his supporters in the Hague, thinking that on landing he would be able to march unopposed to London. King James was soon warned of Monmouth's arrival: two customs officers from Lynne arrived in London on 13 June having ridden some 200 miles post haste.

Instead of marching on London, he marched north into Somerset, picking up a disorganised group of around 6,000, mostly nonconformist, artisans and farmer workers armed with farm tools (such as pitchforks): one famous supporter was a young Daniel Defoe. Monmouth proclaimed himself king at Taunton on 18 June, and continued north, via Bridgwater and Shepton Mallet (23 June), hoping to capture the city of Bristol (which at that time was the second largest and second most important city in the country, after London). Meanwhile, the Royal Navy captured Monmouth's ships, cutting off all hope of an escape back to the continent.

After unsuccessful attempts on Bristol and Bath, including inconclusive skirmishes with a force of Life Guards commanded by Louis de Duras, 2nd Earl of Feversham (an elderly nephew of Turenne who had spent some time in English service and later became a Knight of the Garter) at Keynsham on 26 June and Norton St Philip on 27 June, Monmouth's forces turned back.

Monmouth was counting on rebellion in Scotland, led by Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, weakening the King's support and army. Argyll landed at Campbeltown on 20 May and spent some days raising a small army of supporters, but was unable to hold them together while marching through the lowlands towards Glasgow. The Earl and his few remaining companions were captured at Inchinnan on 19 June and he was taken to Edinburgh to be executed on 30 June. Expected rebellions in Cheshire and East Anglia also failed to materialise. The morale of Monmouth's forces started to collapse after news of the setback in Scotland arrived while the makeshift army was resting in Frome on 28 June.

Monmouth retreated via Shepton Mallet, which no longer welcomed him, and Wells. Eventually he was pushed back to the Somerset Levels (where Alfred the Great had found refuge in his conflicts with the Vikings), becoming hemmed in at Bridgwater on 3 July. Monmouth was finally defeated by Feversham (with John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, his second in command) on 6 July at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Monmouth had risked a night attack, but surprise was lost when a musket was discharged. His untrained supporters were quickly defeated by the professionals, and hundreds were cut down by cannon- and musket-fire.

The battle of Sedgemoor is often referred to as the last battle fought on English soil, but this is incorrect: the Battle of Preston in Lancashire was fought on 14 November 1715, during the First Jacobite Rebellion, and the Second Jacobite Rebellion saw a minor engagement at Clifton Moor near Penrith in Cumbria on 18 December 1745.
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After Sedgemoor
Monmouth fled from the field of battle but was captured in a ditch on 8 July (either at Ringwood in the New Forest, or at Horton in Dorset). He was condemned to execution for committing treason against the king, and beheaded in the Tower of London on 15 July. It is said that it took eight blows of the axe from famous executioner Jack Ketch to sever his head.

The subsequent Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys were a series of trials of Monmouth's supporters in which 320 people were condemned to death and around 800 sentenced to be transported to the West Indies.

James II took advantage of the suppression of the rebellion to consolidate his power. He asked Parliament to repeal the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act, used his dispensing power to appoint Catholics to senior posts, and raised the strength of the standing army. Parliament opposed many of these moves, and on 20 November 1685 James dismissed it. In 1688, when the birth of James Francis Edward Stuart heralded a Catholic succession, James II was overthrown in a coup d'état by William of Orange in the Glorious Revolution at the invitation of the disaffected Protestant Establishment.
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Literary References
The Monmouth Rebellion plays a key role in Peter S. Beagle's novel Tamsin, about a 300-year-old Ghost who is befriended by the protagonist.

Arthur Conan Doyle's historical novel Micah Clarke deals directly with Monmouth's landing in England, the raising of his army, its defeat at Sedgemoor, and the reprisals which followed.

Several characters in Neal Stephenson's novel Quicksilver play a role in the Monmouth Rebellion.

Dr. Peter Blood, main hero of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood novel, was sentenced by Judge Jeffreys for aiding wounded Monmouth rebels. Transported to the Caribbeans, he started his career as a pirate there.

wikipedia.org
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Also on this day -

1815 - the Duke of Wellington defeats Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.

1822 - London unveils its first nude statue - a bronze figure of Achilles. Because people were more easily shocked in those days, a fig leaf was later added.

1935 - Germany signs a treaty with Britain limiting the size of the German fleet to 35 percent that of the Royal Navy.

Article from World War II Magazine
Operation Bagration: Soviet Offensive of 1944
In size, scope -- and results -- Operation Bagration, the Soviet offensive of 1944, made the Normandy landings look like a mere scuffle.

By Jonathan W. Jordan

Geographically, it dwarfed the campaign for Normandy. In four weeks, it inflicted greater losses on the German army than the Wehrmacht had suffered in five months at Stalingrad. With more than 2.3 million men, six times the artillery and twice the number of tanks that launched the Battle of the Bulge, it was the largest Allied operation of World War II. It demolished three Axis armies and tore open the Eastern Front. Operation Bagration, the Red Army’s spring 1944 blitzkrieg, was designed to support Allied operations in France, liberate Russian territory and break the back of the Wehrmacht once and for all.

In the south, Germany and its allies -- mostly Hungarians and Romanians -- held the line near the Ukraine’s western borders, south of the impassable Pripyat Marshes, with two army groups. To the north, in the Baltic republics, three Red Army groups faced Germany’s Army Group North.



It was in the center, in Belorussia (so-called White Russia), where the main Soviet blow would fall. There Adolf Hitler fielded 38 infantry divisions, two Luftwaffe field divisions, seven security divisions, two Panzergrenadier divisions and one panzer division, all grouped into four armies and led by Field Marshal Ernst Busch, a commander whose promotion was mainly due to his unquestioning loyalty to the Führer.

While Belorussia was the center of gravity for Germany’s eastern forces, it had by no means come fully under Wehrmacht control. Partisan activity was more pronounced there than in other sectors, where Nazi reprisals since 1941 had been brutal even by Eastern Front standards. Punitive operations by the Germans in January, February and April 1944 had left entire villages leveled, their inhabitants lined up and executed. All told, an estimated 1 million people, including the region’s entire Jewish population, had been exterminated. In response to this terror, by mid-1944 partisan numbers had swelled to something between 143,000 and 374,000, depending on who was counting.

What was worse for the occupiers, those partisan forces were becoming increasingly well organized and in better touch with Soviet authorities -- who could direct their activities to maximum advantage.

The Red Army’s earlier progress in the Baltic region and Ukraine left a “Belorussian Bulge” in the center, from which Field Marshal Busch requested permission to withdraw in order to shorten his line and relieve the danger of a pincer movement against the salient. Hitler, concerned with wavering support among his Finnish, Hungarian and Romanian allies, was determined to cling to his defenses at the eastern end of the bulge, and the army high command, Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH, denied Busch’s request.

Hitler’s no-retreat policy in the east left Busch in a vulnerable position. His sector was a tempting target for the Red Army, since the eastern end of the bulge included the 50-mile-wide land bridge between the Dniepr and Dvina rivers that guarded Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Control of that gap would allow armies to pass overland to Moscow -- or Berlin.

Another problem for Busch was that his army, while strong in raw numbers, included a large proportion of Luftwaffe field units, security troops, Hungarian and Slovak divisions, and Volksdeutsche -- ethnic Germans from the occupied territories whose desire to lay down their lives for the Führer was rightly suspect. By 1944 the German army, still dependent on horse-drawn wagons for supply and movement, was an old-fashioned, slow force compared to its Communist opponents, who had been liberally supplied with the ubiquitous 2.5-ton Studebaker truck manufactured in capitalism’s heartland. Worse yet was the lack of air cover; Germany’s Sixth Air Fleet was vastly outnumbered along Army Group Center’s front.

The offensive would be a characteristically Soviet enterprise, a massive push along a 450-mile-long axis of advance. Four army group fronts would launch artillery barrages and attack simultaneously. To the north, the First Baltic Front under General Ivan Bagramyan, ultimately fielding 359,500 men, would push into Latvia to screen the right flank of the main assault and support forces farther south. Below him, the Third Belorussian Front under General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, with 579,300 men, would capture heavily defended Vitebsk and the area north of Orsha, then push southwest toward Minsk, the Belorussian capital, and Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, crushing or encircling Busch’s Third Panzer Army at Vitebsk and his Fourth Army, centered around Orsha. South of Orsha, General Georgy Zakharov’s Second Belorussian Front, with 319,500 men, would help complete the encirclement of Minsk and push west toward Grodno on the Niemen River as part of a mopping-up operation in the wake of the other fronts.

Farthest south, the First Belorussian Front -- 1,071,100 men commanded by General Konstantin Rokossovsky -- would assault Busch’s Ninth Army, skirting the Pripyat Marshes and pushing due west toward Bobruisk on the Berezina River, then in the general direction of Minsk. The First and Third Belorussian fronts, which held the bulk of the armor and firepower, would attack along converging lines with the aim of encircling the German armies east of Minsk, not simply pushing them back into Poland. To aid the attackers, partisan units coordinated by Stavka, the Red Army high command, would launch demolition attacks against Belorussian railways to prevent reinforcements from reaching the threatened zone. Because the undertaking was so extensive and complex, the four army group fronts would fall under the overall command of two trusted Stavka representatives. Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, the organizer of victory at Stalingrad, would direct the two northern fronts, while the southern fronts would be supervised by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, who directed the defenses of Leningrad, Moscow and, with Vasilevsky, Stalingrad.

For an offensive of this scope, the Red Army assembled 118 rifle divisions, eight tank and mechanized corps, 13 artillery divisions and six cavalry divisions, a total of approximately 2.3 million frontline and support troops. The attack would be led by the rifle and tank divisions, which collectively fielded 2,715 tanks and 1,355 assault guns. To feed the offensive, the Red Army stockpiled 1.2 million tons of ammunition, rations and supplies behind the front lines.

The assaulting troops would be supported on the ground by 10,563 heavy artillery pieces and 2,306 Katyusha multiple rocket launchers, nicknamed “Stalin’s Organ” because of their pipe-organ appearance. Air cover would be provided by 2,318 fighters of various types, 1,744 Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik ground-attack planes, 655 medium bombers and 431 night bombers; another 1,007 medium bombers would be drawn from the Soviet strategic bomber reserve. The code name selected for the operation referred to General Piotr Bagration, the fiery Russian prince who died fighting Napoleon at Borodino in 1812.

If successful, Operation Bagration promised huge rewards for Stalin. Minsk and other major Belorussian cities would fall back into Soviet hands, and a successful push would isolate Army Group North, which could then be dispatched more or less at Stalin’s leisure. To capitalize on the anticipated success, as Bagration achieved its objectives and the Nazis fed troops from northern Ukraine into Belorussia to stop the onslaught, a secondary Red Army attack would thrust toward Lwow in northern Ukraine, driving Axis troops out of Soviet territory; Romania, Hungary, Warsaw and East Prussia would become the new front lines of the war.

In the days preceding Bagration, Stavka executed a massive deception plan designed to convince its German counterpart, OKH, that the main attack would come farther south. Forces in the Ukraine were ordered to prepare deceptive concentrations similar to the phantom army that had assembled under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton opposite the Pas de Calais prior to the landings at Normandy. The Red Army Air Force clamped down on Luftwaffe reconnaissance missions along the front, allowing only occasional flights that would spot the phony troop concentrations, while headquarter units made greater use of more secure telephone lines in lieu of radio communications.

For its part, OKH concluded that the presence of oil-rich Romania and the more maneuverable terrain of the Ukrainian steppes made that sector the most likely target, particularly since the Red Army had just concluded an offensive in that region during the late winter.

Hitler and OKH were convinced that the next attack would be launched in the northern Ukraine, and reinforcements to the east -- including the potent 56th Panzer Corps -- were diverted to Field Marshal Walter Model’s Army Group North Ukraine, leaving Busch’s Army Group Center with only about 11 percent of the tanks and assault guns allocated to the Eastern Front. While some members of Busch’s intelligence staff predicted a major Belorussian offensive in mid- to late June, Busch himself was evidently persuaded to accept the OKH assessment as more accurate and, following Hitler’s policy to the letter, he refused to let his army commanders pull back to shorten their fronts and pack their defensive lines more tightly.

Operation Bagration was preceded by coordinated partisan attacks on German supply lines, code-named “Rail War” and “Concert.” Between June 19 and 23, Belorussian guerrillas sabotaged rail networks and bridges -- detonating some 10,500 demolition charges during the night of June 19-20 alone -- impeding the movement of ammunition, food and reinforcements to the front.

Originally timed for June 14, 1944, the operation’s start was delayed by Soviet rail congestion until June 22, 1944 -- three years to the day from the Nazi invasion of Soviet territory. The offensive opened at 5 a.m. with a massive artillery bombardment. Each of the thousands of guns along the line was allotted roughly 6 tons of ammunition to fire during a two-hour barrage. The shelling was conducted in a rolling manner so as to destroy the Wehrmacht’s forward trenches and pillboxes, then catch retreating soldiers in the open before they could reach the safety of their intermediate lines. The less precise Katyusha batteries showered artillery targets with 82mm and 132mm rockets to ensure that nothing remained alive in the forward zone. Shocked German survivors described this barrage as the most intense and destructive they had ever witnessed.

The preliminary work on several fronts began the same day with a reconnaissance in force, with company- to brigade-size raids designed to gather intelligence and fix German troops in place so they could later be destroyed. Several divisions also launched attacks against Busch’s Third Panzer Army to bore openings in the line, while the flanks of a four-division German salient at Vitebsk were squeezed to create jumping-off points for the encirclement of that city. That night, Soviet medium bombers flew 1,000 sorties to soften up the German line.

The next day, June 23, the full weight of the assault lurched forward. Abandoning their costly human-wave techniques of 1941, Red Army soldiers concentrated their fire upon tactically valuable ground, seized it, and then called up tanks to the new positions to deliver a larger breakthrough. By the afternoon of the second day, the Third Panzer Army’s line was perforated and Vitebsk was in danger of encirclement by two Soviet armies.

As the Soviet Forty-third Army closed in around Vitebsk from the north and the Thirty-ninth Army attacked from the south, Busch meekly requested permission from OKH to withdraw to a secondary line of defense, called the “Tiger Line.” But Hitler, still waiting for the main blow to fall elsewhere, had designated Vitebsk a “fortified place,” to be held to the last man. By nightfall, two German divisions were encircled and two others were fighting for their lives.

Subsequent attacks by the Soviet Thirty-ninth Army crushed Busch’s LIII Corps, and within three days, five German divisions -- about 28,000 men -- were wiped out. A continued drive west shattered the Third Panzer Army’s IX Corps by the end of the month, effectively destroying the Third Panzer Army.

Fifty miles south of Vitebsk, Busch’s Fourth Army, fielding 12 divisions, was fighting to hold the line around the Dniepr River and Orsha, a critical juncture along the Moscow–Minsk highway. Lead elements of the Eleventh Guards Army ran headlong into the 78th Sturm (Assault) Division, which had been kept at high strength and was heavily supplied with artillery to hold the crucial highway.

Anticipating well-prepared fixed defenses, each of the assaulting rifle divisions was preceded by a company of T-34 tanks fitted with mine-rollers, a heavy tank regiment, a heavy artillery regiment and an engineer assault battalion. Following this came a wave of flamethrower tank companies and light artillery regiments to liquidate pockets of resistance.

This massive push bogged down in a cluster of tank traps, mines and German infantry positions liberally supplied with Panzerfaust antitank rockets. But before long, General Chernyakhovsky managed to move his tanks north of Orsha, and promptly fed a mixed task force through the woods to exploit the gap. By the end of the day, the road to Minsk was within reach of the Third Belorussian Front.

By June 25, Chernyakhovsky had fed the Second Guards Tank Army through the breach, demolishing one of Fourth Army’s two corps. Despite Hitler’s firm refusal to allow a withdrawal from Orsha -- and Busch’s endorsement of this policy -- the commander of Fourth Army quietly pulled his units back toward more defensible lines. The next evening Orsha fell to the Red Army, and the road to Minsk now lay open.

Farther south, 13 divisions of Busch’s Ninth Army successfully resisted initial attacks by Rokossovsky’s First Belorussian Front (consisting of the Third, Forty-eighth and Sixty-fifth armies), which had to contend with bad weather as it worked its way around the north edge of the Pripyat Marshes. During the morning of June 24, the first day of the main assault in this sector, the Soviet Third Army -- equipped with 500 tanks and assault guns and 200 heavy antitank guns -- was repulsed, but at heavy cost to the Axis.

As the weather began to improve, the Third Army mauled two infantry divisions and began to break through German lines, driving a wedge between Busch’s Ninth and Fourth armies. The Ninth Army’s commander, General Hans Jordan, moved up his reserve, the understrength 20th Panzer Division. But as Rokossovsky committed his Sixty-fifth Army and the I Guards Tank Corps to the battle, 20th Panzer began taking losses with no appreciable effect on the advance. Jordan therefore ordered the division to move toward Bobruisk. By the end of June 24, Soviet tanks were six miles behind the Ninth Army’s lines, the vanguard of a spearhead three miles wide at its tip and 18 miles wide at its base.

It was not until June 26, three days after the main assault began, that the first Axis reinforcement, the 5th Panzer Division, arrived from the Ukraine to plug the gap between the Third Panzer and Fourth armies. Boasting 70 Panther and 29 Tiger tanks, 5th Panzer was sent to hold the line east of the Berezina River until Busch’s retreating Fourth Army could establish a proper defensive line. Soon thereafter, the Fourth Army endured a scene reminiscent of Napoleon’s 1812 campaign: A mass of troops retreating from the east had abandoned their heavy equipment on the east side of the Berezina and were fleeing west in disorder, crossing small crowded bridges under fire.

Rokossovsky’s men drove west toward Bobruisk, a critical crossing point on the Berezina, threatening to cut off those German units fighting on the east side of the river. As Rokossovsky’s Third Army crept toward Bobruisk, Busch, following Hitler’s “no retreat” injunction, refused to allow his infantry to cross. When the Soviet IX Tank Corps and I Guards Tank Corps captured Bobruisk and the major crossings over the Berezina, several German infantry divisions found themselves trapped on the east side. Rokossovsky exploited the collapse of German resistance in this sector with a cavalry and a mechanized corps, killing or capturing thousands of German soldiers.

As Soviets were pouring across the Belorussian border, Hitler and OKH were slow to grasp the danger Army Group Center faced. On June 26, Busch and Ninth Army’s General Jordan flew to Hitler’s headquarters to convince the Führer to relent on the no-retreat policy that was destroying armies a division at a time. Furious with the near-collapse of the Ninth Army, Hitler relieved both Jordan and Busch, replacing the latter with Field Marshal Walther Model, commander of Army Group North Ukraine and the Führer’s top troubleshooter.

At the end of June, Model arrived at Minsk to find the Red Army across the Berezina, only eight miles from his new headquarters, and Army Group Center without reserves left to counterattack Soviet bridgeheads. The city of Borisov, the Berezina crossing point for the Moscow–Minsk highway, fell the day after Model’s arrival, and some 40,000 Germans were trapped east of Bobruisk. Soviet artillery and the Red Air Force turned a 15-mile German pocket east of the Berezina into a slaughter pen, and about 10,000 troops were killed and another 6,000 captured. Many of those who escaped the slaughter east of the river became trapped a second time at Bobruisk as two tank corps closed in around the city and captured it on June 29, effectively destroying the Ninth Army. In a week’s fighting, Rokossovsky’s forces had killed about 50,000 German soldiers, captured another 20,000 (including 3,600 wounded prisoners at Bobruisk who would be murdered by their Soviet captors) and destroyed some 3,000 artillery pieces and armored vehicles.

Picking up at the Berezina line, Rokossovsky continued his drive northwest toward Minsk, hoping to trap Model’s retreating Fourth Army along with any remnants of the Ninth Army that had escaped the cauldron at Bobruisk. Meanwhile, farther north, Model’s 5th Panzer Division, on the Moscow highway, braced itself for the onslaught of two converging Belorussian fronts, Rokossovsky’s First and Chernyakhovsky’s Third. Because Hitler refused to permit an orderly withdrawal, the only reinforcements available at Minsk were stragglers who had filtered in from the front, and they were for the most part unarmed, disorganized and demoralized.

On July 1 and 2, the 5th Panzer Division fought a series of intense battles against the Fifth Guards Tank Army northwest of Minsk, buying time for wounded and administrative personnel to be evacuated west along railway lines. By the end of a week’s fighting, 5th Panzer, a supporting Tiger battalion and some smaller reinforcements had knocked out 295 Soviet armored vehicles. By July 8, however, all the Tigers were lost, the division was reduced from 125 tanks to eight, and its position was outflanked to the south. The remaining panzers withdrew westward to regroup, abandoning comrades retiring toward Minsk from the Berezina. When the Fourth Army was permitted to retire west of the Berezina, there was almost nothing left to save. By the end of the operation, it had lost some 130,000 of its 165,000 men.

On the evening of July 2, even Hitler conceded that Minsk was a lost cause, and OKH permitted the evacuation of remaining Axis forces -- some 1,800 organized troops from differing units, another 15,000 unarmed stragglers from the east, 8,000 wounded and 12,000 rear-echelon staffers. The next morning, Chernyakhovsky’s tanks entered Minsk, closing off another large eastern pocket and trapping some 15,000 isolated German soldiers lurching west in division- and brigade-size groups. As food and ammunition ran low for these marooned units, they broke into smaller formations, which quickly became vulnerable to unforgiving partisan bands and special Red Army infantry detachments. About 900 of the 15,000 trapped soldiers managed to reach German lines, and by July 8 the pocket collapsed. Model’s Fourth Army ceased to exist. To the north, other units of the Third Panzer Army became isolated as a result of the rapid advance on Minsk and were quickly crushed. Meanwhile, Stavka expanded the objectives of its exhausted soldiers, ordering them to push westward toward Grodno, Brest and other cities along the Polish and Lithuanian borders despite dwindling supplies of gasoline and ammunition.

As Model’s intermediate lines were collapsing, he tried to form a line of resistance from Vilnius to the Ukraine, partly based on a series of trenches left over from World War I. In the center, he took the remnants of the Ninth Army, reinforced them as best he could, and redesignated the thin group as a component of the Second Army. With a 45-mile gap yawning between the tattered shards of the Third Panzer Army and Army Group North, Model was exceedingly vulnerable, but sooner or later the Soviet tanks had to outrun their fuel and ammunition supplies, and Model could give East Prussia and Poland a respite while he rebuilt his forces.

The Soviet juggernaut was not yet spent, however. By July 8, portions of Model’s line cracked, and Vilnius was soon surrounded. Despite Hitler’s initial orders to hold the Lithuanian capital “at all costs,” on the night of July 12-13 some 3,000 of the 15,000 trapped men broke free, leaving the rest to face the certainty of death or captivity when the city fell on July 13. Pinsk and Grodno fell by July 16, and Third Panzer Army’s line collapsed by the end of the month, pushing Model’s northern flank onto Prussian soil. As Bagration drew to a close, the Red Army held bridgeheads over the Niemen River, the traditional border of Russia and Poland, and had reached the Gulf of Riga at the Baltic, isolating Army Group North. By mid-August Model could do nothing more; he was decorated and transferred to the Western Front for a brief term as supreme commander in that crumbling theater.

All told, Operation Bagration cost Hitler 350,000 men (including 31 generals), plus hundreds of tanks and more than 1,300 guns. Of the men lost, 160,000 were taken prisoner, half of whom were murdered on the way to prison camps or died in Soviet gulags. In a throwback to ancient times, 57,000 German prisoners taken from pockets east of the Berezina were shipped to Moscow and paraded before Muscovites on July 17, partly to refute Nazi claims of a “planned withdrawal” from Belorussia, and partly to rebut suggestions by Western newspapers that the operation had been made easy because large numbers of German troops had been tied down in western France.

During their 400-mile drive from Vitebsk to Warsaw’s outskirts, the Soviets lost some 765,000 troops, of which 178,000 were either killed or missing, plus 2,857 tanks and assault guns, and 2,447 artillery pieces. Despite those losses the Red Army launched a follow-up campaign in northern Ukraine, the Lwow-Sandomierz offensive, employing more than 1 million men, 1,600 tanks and assault guns, 14,000 artillery pieces and mortars, and 2,800 combat aircraft. The offensive, launched on July 13, smashed Army Group North Ukraine, which had released units to help stop the collapse of Army Group Center.

By early August, the German Fourth Army and almost all of the Ninth and Third Panzer armies were gone. Thirty German divisions disappeared, and nearly 30 more were crippled. The Red Army was within striking distance of the Vistula and had reached the outskirts of Warsaw. By mid-August, Red Army soldiers were entrenched on Prussian soil, only 350 miles from Berlin, and Romania, with its vital oil fields, was poised to desert the Axis cause. Until January, however, the exhausted Soviet giant would remain relatively quiet, refitting and re-equipping for the final push from the Vistula to Berlin.

Many German and Soviet accounts agree that Operation Bagration was Hitler’s worst military setback of the war. But the offensive lacked a single, dramatic focal point, such as at Stalingrad, and the commanders and place names sound strange to Western ears. For those reasons, the operation was never acknowledged in the West to the same degree as any number of smaller campaigns -- such as Overlord, the Ardennes Offensive, the Torch landings in Africa or Operation Husky in Sicily. Given the massive waves of soldiers and tanks that Stalin mustered for the offensive and marked improvements in Soviet war-fighting capabilities -- Stavka’s successful deception campaign, the effective use of partisans, improved infantry-armor tactics and superior weaponry such as the Shturmovik ground-attack plane and the T-34 medium tank -- it is an unfortunate omission. Nevertheless, Bagration, combined with the Lwow-Sandomierz offensive in the Ukraine, dramatically turned the tide of war against the Third Reich.

The irreplaceable German losses in Belorussia, in conjunction with the Normandy landings and the July 20 attempt on Hitler’s life, spread demoralization throughout the upper ranks of the Wehrmacht’s command structure, and made certain that the Red Army would ever after move west. Operation Bagration also ensured that the former Soviet republics, from the Baltic Sea to the Crimea, would return to the Communist fold. In so doing, it set the stage for Soviet domination of much of Eastern Europe for the next 40 years.

21st June 1798 - The Battle of Vinegar Hill takes place between forces of the British Crown and Irish rebels. It was a victory for the British.
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The battle of Vinegar Hill was an engagement on 21 June 1798 between forces of the British Crown and Irish rebels when over 10,000 British soldiers launched an attack on Vinegar Hill outside Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, then the largest rebel camp and headquarters of the Wexford rebels. It marked a turning point in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 as it was the last attempt by the rebels to hold and defend ground against the British military and forced rebels to rely on tactics of mobile warfare for the remainder of the Wexford rebellion. The battle was actually fought in two locations, on Vinegar Hill itself and in the streets of nearby rebel-held Enniscorthy.
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Bombardment of Vinegar Hill



The battle began shortly before dawn with an artillery bombardment of rebel positions on the hill. Advance units quickly moved forward against rebel outposts under cover of the shelling, and moved artillery closer as forward positions were secured. The rebel strength was estimated at some 20,000 men but they were accompanied by thousands of women and children who had sought refuge in the camp. The tightening ring forced the thousands of rebels into an ever shrinking area and increased exposure to the constant shelling including new experimental delayed fuse explosives resulting in hundreds of dead and maimed. At least two mass charges by the rebels on Vinegar Hill brought temporary relief and heavy casualties but failed to break the advancing lines of military.

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Attack on Enniscorthy
In Enniscorthy town, the military simultaneously launched an attack on the town to cut off escape via the bridge linking Vinegar Hill with Enniscorthy town. British progress in the town was much slower and they suffered heavy casualties as Enniscorthy experienced heavy street fighting for the second time in the space of one month. The rebels were eventually driven across the bridge but were reinforced by a large contingent of newly arrived rebels, and rallied to prevent the military from breaking through with fighting taking place along the entire length of the bridge.
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Taking of Vinegar Hill


" Charge of the 5th Dragoon Guards on the insurgents – a recreant yeoman having deserted to them in uniform is being cut down"
William Sadler (1782-1839)

Meanwhile, the rebel position on the Vinegar Hill was becoming more desperate and when troops crested its eastern summit, the rebels began a withdrawal through a gap spotted in the British lines later known as “Needhams Gap” after the General whose late arrival allowed the bulk of the rebels to reach safety.

When it became clear that the rebels were retreating, the British cavalry were unleashed and a massacre of stragglers, mostly women and children, ensued causing hundreds more deaths. The infantry followed and were guilty of more atrocities including multiple incidents of gang rape of females amongst the rebels and the incineration of about 80 rebels trapped in buildings in the town of Enniscorthy.
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Aftermath
The bulk of the rebel forces streamed unmolested towards the Three Rocks camp outside Wexford town and following the decision to abandon the town, split into two separate columns, one setting out to the west, the other northwards in a new campaign to spread the rebellion beyond Wexford. The defeat was therefore not the crushing blow to the rebels that it has traditionally been depicted but it did alter the course of the rebellion in that "liberated areas" could no longer be held. Continuing resistance now took the form of mobile warfare, raids and large scale guerilla-type operations.

24th June 1314 - the Battle of Bannockburn takes place between Scotland and England. It was a rare victory for the Scots and regained Scottish independence.
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Bruce inspects his troops, painted 1902.


The Battle of Bannockburn (June 23, 1314 – June 24, 1314) was a significant Scottish victory in the Wars of Scottish Independence.

Prelude
In 1313 Edward Bruce, brother of the Scottish king, began the siege of Stirling Castle, commanded by a Scot, Sir Philip Mowbray. Unable to make any headway he agreed to a pact with Mowbray. The governor was to be allowed to hold the castle unmolested for a year. If no relief came by midsummer 1314 he agreed to surrender. By this rash treaty Edward Bruce undermined the strategy and tactics his brother had been diligently pursuing for the past six years. He may have believed that he had bought a cheap victory; for it was now two years since an English army had come to Scotland, and Edward II had so recently been on the verge of war with his barons after the murder of Piers Gaveston in the summer of 1312. Yet this was a challenge that could not be ignored in the same way that the bleeding of northern England had. Stirling was of vital strategic importance and its loss would be a serious embarrassment. The time allowed in the Bruce-Mowbray pact was ample for Edward to gather a powerful army. King Robert Bruce rebuked the folly of his brother, but felt bound to honour the terms of the Stirling agreement. Mowbray had a breathing space and looked forward to the summer of 1314. In England Edward and his barons reached an uneasy peace and made ready.


Edward Comes North
Edward came to Scotland in the high summer of 1314 with the notional aim of relieving Stirling Castle: the real purpose, of course, was to find and destroy the Scottish army in the field, and thus end the war. England, for once, was largely united in this ambition, although some of Edward's greatest magnates and former enemies, headed by his cousin, Thomas of Lancaster, did not attend in person, sending the minimum number of troops they were required to by feudal law. Even so, the force that left Berwick-upon-Tweed on 17 June 1314 was impressive: it comprised between two and three thousand horse and seventeen thousand foot, at least two or three times the size of the army Bruce had been able to gather. Edward was accompanied by many of the seasoned campaigners of the Scottish wars, headed by the Earl of Pembroke, and vetrans like Henry Beaumont, Robert Clifford and Marmaduke Tweng. The most irreconcilable of Bruce's Scottish enemies also came: Ingram de Umfraville, a former Guardian, and his kinsman the Earl of Angus, as well as others of the MacDoualls, MacCanns and Comyns. Most poignant of all came Sir John Comyn of Badenoch, the only son of the Red Comyn, who had grown up in England and was now returning to Scotland to avenge his father. This was a grand feudal army, one of the last of its kind to leave England in the Middle Ages. King Robert awaited its arrival just south of Stirling near the Bannock Burn.


Preparations
The English army marched rapidly towards Stirling to be there before Mowbray's agreement expired on 24 June. Edinburgh was reached on the 19th and by the 22nd it was at Falkirk, only 15 miles short of its objective. Edward's host followed the line of the old Roman road, which ran through an ancient forest known as the Tor Wood, over the Bannock Burn and into the New Park, a hunting preserve enclosed at the time of Alexander III. Bruce's army had been assembling in the Tor Wood, an area providing good natural cover, from the middle of May. On Saturday 22 June, with his troops now organised into their respective commands, Bruce moved his army slightly to the north to the New Park, a more heavily wooded area, where his movements could be concealed and which, if the occasion demanded, would provide cover for a withdrawal.

Bruce's army, like William Wallace's before him, was chiefly composed of infantry armed with long spears. It was divided into four battalions or schiltrons. Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, commanded the vanguard, which was stationed about a mile to the south of Stirling, near the church of St. Ninians, while the king commanded the rearguard at the entrance to the New Park. His brother, Edward, led the third division. By hereditary right the fourth was headed by Walter Stewart, the son and heir of James, the High Stewart; but owing to his youth the real command was in the hands of his cousin, James, the Black Douglas. Bruce also had a light cavalry force of some 500 horse under Sir Robert Keith, which was to play a small but crucial role in the coming battle. The army numbered about 9000 men in all, gathered from the whole of Scotland: knights and nobles, freemen and tenants, town dwellers and traders, all hand-picked and trained for their task.

Since he landed in Ayrshire in 1307 King Robert had demonstrated time and again that he was willing to take risks; but these were always measured and calculated. He had no intention of chancing all on the outcome of a day, as William Wallace had at the Battle of Falkirk. Almost to the last minute he was prepared to withdraw. He was persuaded to remain by news of the poor state of morale in the English army. But undoubtedly the most important factor in convincing him to make a stand was the ground which lay before him.

The Bannock Burn, over which the English army had to cross on the way to Stirling, and its sister streams flowed over the Carse of Stirling, a flat area of soft peaty earth, before joining the River Forth to the north-east. The area was so criss-crossed by small waterways that it was known at the time as 'The Pows' or 'Les Polles' from an old Gaelic word pol, meaning an area of muddy streams. With the trees of the New Park covering Bruce's army to the west, the only approach apart from the Pows to the east was directly over the old road from Falkirk. If this route, virtually the only solid ground on which heavy cavalry could deploy freely, were to be denied to the English, they would have no choice but to wheel right to the north-east, on to the boggy ground of the Carse. To force Edward to take this route Bruce adopted similar tactics to those he had used at the Battle of Loudon Hill: both sides of the road were peppered with small pits or 'pots', each three feet deep and covered with brush, which would force the enemy to bunch towards the centre of a dangerously constricted front. Once on the Carse the English army would be caught in a kind of natural vise, as the main action on 24 June was to show, with waterways and marshes to the north, east and south. Such natural advantages were not easily obtained, and were unlikely to occur again.


The Battle-Day One
It was on the old road that the preliminary actions of the Battle of Bannockburn took place on Sunday 23 June. For the English things started to go wrong before the first blow had been struck. Sir Philip Mowbray, the commander of Stirling Castle, who had observed Bruce's preparations on the road, appeared in Edward's camp early in the morning, and warned of the dangers of approaching the Scots directly through the New Park. Mowbray also pointed out that there was no need to force a battle, as Edward was now close enough to the castle to constitute a technical relief in terms of the agreement with Edward Bruce. But even if the king was disposed to act on Mowbray's advice it was already too late; for he was showing signs of losing control of his formidable but unwieldy host.

The vanguard under the earls of Gloucester and Hereford, appointed to joint command by Edward after a quarrel about who would take the lead, a compromise that satisfied no-one, were already closing in on the Scots from the south, advancing in the same reckless manner that had almost brought disaster at Falkirk. Following the line of the Roman road, they crossed the ford over the Bannock Burn towards King Robert's division at the opening of the New Park. There now occured one of the most memorable episodes in Scottish history. Sir Henry de Bohun, nephew of the Earl of Hereford, was riding ahead of his companions when he caught sight of the Scottish king himself. De Bohun lowered his lance and began a charge that carried him out of history and into legend. King Robert was mounted on a light horse and armed only with a battle-axe. As de Bohun's great war-horse thundered towards him he stood his ground, watched with mounting anxiety by his own army. With the Englishman only feet away Bruce turned aside, stood in his stirrups and hit the knight so hard with his axe that he split his helmet and head in two. This small incident became in a larger sense a symbol of the war itself: the one side heavily armed but lacking agility; the other highly mobile and open to opportunity. Rebuked by his commanders for the enormous risk he had taken the king only expressed regret that he had broken the shaft of his axe. Cheered by this heroic encounter Bruce's division rushed forward to engage the main enemy force. For the English, so says the author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi, this was the beginning of their troubles. After some fierce fighting, in which the Earl of Gloucester was knocked off his horse, the knights of the vanguard were forced to retreat back to the Tor Wood. The Scots, eager to pursue, were held back by the command of the king.

In the meantime, another English cavalry force under Robert Clifford and Henry Beaumont skirted the Scottish position to the east and rode towards Stirling, advancing as far as St. Ninians. Bruce spotted the manoeuvre and ordered Randolph's schiltron to intercept. Randolph's action was to be a sampler of the main contest the following day: unsupported by archers the horsemen were unable to make any impression on the Scots spearmen, precisely what happened in the opening stages of Falkirk. But the difference now was that the schiltrons had learnt mobility and how to keep formation at the same time. The English squadron was broken, some seeking refuge in the nearby castle, others fleeing back to the army. The captives included Sir Thomas Gray, whose son and namesake was later to base his account of the Battle of Bannockburn in his book, the Scalacronica, on his father's memories.


The Battle-Day Two
News of the day's defeats soon spread, causing considerable unease in the main body of the English army, still approaching Stirling from the south. The experience of the vanguard confirmed the intelligence brought to Edward by Mowbray: Bruce's preparations had made the direct approach to Stirling too hazardous. It was now late in the day. The army needed to rest and the horses had to be watered. Having failed in a frontal attack Edward made the worst decision of all: after consulting with his commanders he ordered the army to abandon the highway and cross the Bannock Burn to the east of the Scots in the New Park, onto the firm but restricted ground betweeen the Bannock and Pelstream burns, an area known as the Carse of Balquhiderock, where he made ready to spend the night of 23/24 June. It was a prelude to disaster.

After knocking down houses to obtain material for rudimentary bridges to help them across the streams of the Carse, the knights and at least part of the infantry took up position north of the Bannock Burn. With the marshy ground close to the waterways churned up under the hoofs of the horses, and fearful of a sudden Scottish attack, the army spent an uncomfortable and sleepless night preparing for the following day. Sir Thomas Gray describes the scene thus: The King's army...debouched upon a plain near the water of Forth beyond Bannockburn, an evil, deep wet marsh, where the said army unhorsed and remained all night, having sadly lost confidence and being much dissafected by the events of the day. The general mood was so bad that King Edward ordered heralds to travel the camp, explaining that the vanguard had only been involved in some unimportant skirmishing, and that victory was assured.

News of the despondency in Edward's camp was brought to Bruce by Sir Alexander Seaton, a Scots knight defecting from the English. Bruce had been heartened by the day's successes, but he was still on the verge of ordering a withdrawal westwards into the Lennox, where the terrain was too difficult for the English knights to follow, rather than take the risk of confronting the main enemy force, humbled but still immensely powerful. Seton's report helped him change his mind. The king now made the most important decision in his life. He had defended his position well and learned much from Randolph's attack. He would neither withdraw nor would he wait for the enemy; when dawn came he would take the offensive.

Not long after daybreak on 24 June the Scots spearmen began to move towards the English, cramped in the narrow neck of land between the Forth to the north and the Bannock to the south and east. The English soldiers were well accustomed to Scots guerilla warfare, and while they had feared a sudden night attack, the last thing they expected was to see the enemy take the offensive in broad daylight. Edward was most surprised of all to see Robert's army emerge from the cover of the woods; And when the King of England saw the Scots thus take on hand to take the hard field so openly and upon foot he had wonder and said What! Will yon Scots fight? As Bruce's army drew nearer they paused and knelt in prayer. Edward was even more amazed; They kneel and ask for mercy., the chronicler John Barbour reports him as saying. To this Ingram de Umfraville responded; They ask for mercy but not from you. To God they pray. For them it's death or victory.

Perceiving the danger of the English position both Umfraville and Gilbert de la Clare, earl of Gloucester, urged the king to delay giving battle. Edward promptly turned on Gloucester and accused him of cowardice. Angered by this taunt Gloucester mounted his horse and led the vanguard on a ruinous charge against the leading Scots schiltron, commanded by Edward Bruce. Gloucester, the last of the de Clares, was killed in the forest of Scottish spears. He died in the company of John Comyn, Sir Robert Clifford and many other prominent knights. King Robert ordered Randolph and Douglas forward in support of his brother, while he held his own schiltron in reserve. The remaining English battalions were now so tightly confined that they had to bunch together in a single mass, with the infantry impotently trapped behind the archers. The very size and strength of the great army was beginning to work against it. If Edward had been a bad king he was now showing himself a worse general. He must have heard his father talk of his triumph at Falkirk, but the archers who had enabled the cavalry to penetrate Wallace's schiltrons were now confined with the rest of the infantry. With casualties high and mounting Edward at last managed to deploy a company to the north of the Scots; but unsupported by cavalry or spearmen they were quickly driven off by the charge of Sir Robert Keith and the Scottish light horse, which had been held back for just such an eventuality.

Bruce now committed his own division to an inexorable bloody push into the disorganised English mass. All the reserves were now committed: the whole Scots army was fighting side by side across a single front. A small force of archers added to the misery in Edward's army, which was now so tightly packed that if a man fell he was immediately crushed underfoot. The knights began to give ground as the rear ranks did their best to escape back across the Bannock Burn. With the English formations beginning to break a great shout went up from the Scots; Lay on! Lay on! Lay on! They fail. This cry was heard by Bruce's camp followers, the poor folk of Scotland, who had been to the rear with the baggage on Coxet Hill. They prompltly gathered weapons and banners and charged forward. To the English army, close to exhaustion, this appeared like a fresh reserve and they lost all hope. The end had come and Edward, whose personal courage in battle had done nothing to make up for his fatal mistakes, was forcibly taken from the field by the earl of Pembroke and his personal bodyguard.

Edward's enforced flight ended the remaining order in the army; panic spread and defeat turned into a rout. In trying to recross the Bannock Burn the English suffered their greatest casualties. The Lanercost Chronicle says; Many nobles and others fell into it with their horses in the crush, while others escaped with much difficulty, and many men were never able to extricate themselves from the ditch.

Just to the north the king and his bodyguard arrived at the gates of Stirling Castle seeking refuge, only to be refused entry by Sir Philip Mowbray, who was now compelled to surrender by his agreement with Edward Bruce. Edward managed to circle round the victorious Scots to the west, escaping south and then east with James Douglas in close pursuit. He arrived eventually at Dunbar Castle, where he was admitted by his ally, Earl Patrick. From here he took ship to England.

From the carnage of Bannockburn the rest of the army escaped as best they could. The earl of Pembroke, acting with considerable coolness, managed to take charge of a large body of frightened Welsh infantry, leading them across the border to safety. Many others were attacked and killed by the country people as they fled south. Scotland had won the greatest triumph in her history; England had experienced one of her worst defeats. The author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi laments; O famous race unconquered through the ages, why do you who used to conquer knights, flee from mere footmen? At Berwick, Dunbar and Falkirk you carried off the victory, and now you flee from the infantry of the Scots...the hand of the Lord was not with you.

Bannockburn had joined the earlier Battle of the Golden Spurs at Courtrai as a milestone towards a new age in warfare. Their example was to be followed in the next year when the Swiss defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Morgarten. In his History of the English Speaking Peoples, Sir Winston Churchill says of the Battle of Bannockburn; No more grevious slaughter of English chivalry ever took place in a single day. Even Towton in the Wars of the Roses was less destructive. The Scots...feat in virtually destroying an army of cavalry and archers by the agency of spearmen must...be deamed a prodigy of war.

The long day of feudal cavalry was over. Thirty years later the English took this lesson to France in the Hundred Years' War.


Legacy
The Scottish victory was complete and, although full English recognition of Scottish independence was not achieved until more than ten years later, Robert Bruce's position as king was greatly strengthened by the events at Bannockburn.


The modern Bannockburn monument

A modern, abstract monument stands in a field above the battle site, where the warring parties are believed to have camped on the night before the battle. The monument consists of two hemicircular walls depicting the opposing parties. Nearby stands the 1960s statue of Bruce by Pilkington Jackson. The monument, and the associated visitor centre, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the area.

In 1932 the Bannockburn Preservation Committee, under Edward Bruce, 10th Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, presented lands to the National Trust for Scotland. Further lands were purchased in 1960 and 1965 to facilitate visitor access.

"Bannockburn" is also the title of a patriotic poem by Robert Burns.

wikipedia.org

Also on this day -

1497 John Cabot claims eastern Canada for England
1509 - Henry VIII is crowned King of England

25th June 1483 - the reign of Edward V ended when Parliament declared his reign illegitimate. He was imprisoned int he Tower of London with his brother. Along with Edward VIII, Edward V is one of only two British monarchs never to have been crowned. When he died is unknown. He may have been murdered in the Tower - but what really happened to him and his brother, whether he lived or was killed, is a mystery.
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Edward V (4 November 1470 – 1483?) was the de jure King of England from 9 April 1483 to his death. His reign was dominated by the influence of his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who succeeded him as Richard III. Along with his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Edward was one of the Princes in the Tower, who were never seen alive after being sent (ostensibly for their own safety) to the Tower of London. Richard III has been widely blamed for their deaths, though this is not proven.

Along with Edward VIII, Edward V is one of only two British monarchs never to have been crowned.



Early Life
Edward was born in sanctuary within Westminster Abbey while his mother, Elizabeth Woodville, was taking refuge from the Lancastrians who dominated the kingdom while his father, the Yorkist King Edward IV of England, was out of power. He was created Prince of Wales in June, 1471, following his father's restoration to the throne, and appeared with his parents on state occasions.

He was a younger brother of Elizabeth of York, Mary of York and Cecily of York. He was an older brother of Margaret of York, Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, Anne of York, George Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford, Catherine of York and Bridget of York.



Reign
Edward IV, having established a Council of Wales and the Marches, duly sent his son to Ludlow Castle to be its nominal president. It was at Ludlow that the prince was staying when news came of his father's sudden death. Edward inherited the throne on April 9, 1483, at the age of twelve. His father's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was entrusted with the role of protector to his young nephews, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. He intercepted Edward's entourage on its return journey from Wales and escorted the princes to London. Less than three months later, Richard took the throne himself. On June 25, Parliament declared his nephews illegitimate after clergyman Ralph Shaa presented evidence that Edward had contracted to marry Lady Eleanor Butler before he married Elizabeth Woodville; this would have made his marriage to Elizabeth invalid. Richard's other brothers, Edmund and George, Duke of Clarence, had both died before Edward, leaving Richard next in line for the throne.



Imprisonment
Once the two boys went into the Tower of London, they were never seen in public again. What happened to them is one of the great mysteries of history, and many books have been written on the subject. It is generally believed that they were killed, and the usual suspects are: their uncle, King Richard; Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; and Henry Tudor, who defeated Richard and took the throne as Henry VII.


Legacy
After the princes' disappearance, there was much uncertainty as to their fate. If they were killed, the secret was well kept; conversely, there was no evidence of their survival or of their having been shipped out of the country. When a pretender, Perkin Warbeck, turned up claiming to be Prince Richard, in 1495, William Stanley (younger brother of King Henry's stepfather, Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby), who, despite his Yorkist sympathies, had turned against Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field and helped King Henry win it, said that, if the young man was really the prince, he would not fight against him, thus demonstrating that some Yorkists had not given up hope of the princes being still alive.

In 1674, some workmen remodelling the Tower of London dug up a box containing two small human skeletons. They threw them on a rubbish heap, but some days or weeks later someone decided they might be the bones of the two princes, so they gathered them up and put some of them in an urn that Charles II of England ordered interred in Westminster Abbey. In 1933 the bones were taken out and examined and then replaced in the urn in the vault under the Abbey. The experts who examined them could not agree on what age the children would have been when they died or even whether they were boys or girls. (One skeleton was larger than the other, and many of the bones were missing, including part of the smaller jawbone and all of the teeth from the larger one.)

wikipedia.org

27th June 1450 - Jack Cade leads a revolt against unfair taxes, corruption and King Henry VI, a notoriously weak monarch who managed to lose some of the lands in France that England had conquered. It is known as the "1450 Kent rebellion." He was killed in a skirmish on the Kent/Sussex border during the rebellion and, as was common for traitors in England up until the early 19th Century after they had been killed or executed, his head was displayed on a pike on London Bridge along with the heads of some of the other rebels.

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Jack Cade (possibly named John Mortimer) was the leader of a popular revolt in late medieval Europe in the 1450 Kent rebellion which took place in the time of King Henry VI in England.

Some sources suggest Cade was of Irish origin but raised in Sussex where he is alleged to have murdered a woman in 1449. He escaped to France but returned to live in Kent under an assumed name.

In the spring of 1450, Kent peasants protested against what they saw as the weak leadership of King Henry, unfair taxes, corruption and the damaging effect of the loss of France, and in a clever move issued The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent, a manifesto listing grievances against the government -- grievances not only of the people, but of several MPs, lords and magnates.

In early June, around 20,000 rebels gathered at Blackheath, south-east of London. They were mostly peasants but their numbers were swelled by shopkeepers, craftsmen and - unfortunately for Henry - a fair number of soldiers and sailors returning from the French wars via Kent, and a few landowners (the list of pardoned shows the presence of one knight, two MPs and eighteen squires). While the King sought refuge in Warwickshire, the rebels advanced to Southwark. They set up headquarters in The White Hart before crossing London Bridge on 3 July. The Lord Treasurer was captured and beheaded, along with a few other favourites of the King.

Many of the rebels, including Cade himself, then proceeded to loot London, although Cade had made frequent promises not to do so during the march to the capital. When the army returned to Southwark for the night the London officials made preparations to stop Cade reentering the city. The next day, at about ten in the evening a battle broke out on London Bridge, lasting until eight next morning, when the rebels retreated having suffered heavy casualties.

After the battle, Archbishop John Kemp, the Lord Chancellor persuaded Cade to call off his followers by issuing official pardons and promises to fufil the demands written in Cade's manifesto.

However, after the peasant forces disbanded, a week later, Cade learned that the government regarded him as a traitor and had issued a reward for him dead or alive. He was subsequently killed in a skirmish on the Kent/Sussex border, after which his body was taken to London and quartered for display in different cities, his head ending up on a pike on London Bridge (along with other leaders of the rebellion).

Despite all the rebels being pardoned, thirty four were executed after Cade's death.

Cade appears as a character William Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Part 2. It is one of Cade's followers, in discussion with Cade himself, who has the well-known line, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

wikipedia.org

Also on this day -

1743
The British defeat the French at the Battle of Dettingen. The British were led by King George II - the last occasion that a British monarch led an army into battle.

1746
In Scotland, Flora MacDonald helps Jacobite leader Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to the Isle of Skye dressed as an Irish maid following his defeat by Crown forces at the Battle of Culloden.

29th June 1613 - the first Globe Theatre, where most of Shakespeare's plays were first introduced, burnt down. The roof was accidentally set on fire by a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII. The entire theatre burned in about an hour. Altogether there have been 3 Globe Theatres. The second was closed by the Puritans during the Civil War in 1642 as were all the playhouses in London and was demolished in 1644. The present Globe Theatre only opened in 1997.
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The Globe Theatre of 1599

"Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear"



The Globe Theatre in London was where most of William Shakespeare's plays were first presented. It was built in 1599 by two brothers, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, who owned its predecessor 'The Theatre' at Shoreditch in north London. Before 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men performed in public primarily at The Theatre, which had been leased by James Burbage, father of Richard.

In the winter of 1598 the lease on this theatre was due to expire because of an increase in rent to a level which the Globe's company could no longer afford. The landlord was Giles Allen, a puritan, and disapproved of theatrical entertainment. The Chamberlain's Men were forced to move to The Curtain, another public playing house near The Theatre. In the meantime the Theatre stood empty. (At this time, while considering alternative playing houses, Burbage purchased the Blackfriars for £600, within the city but under the control of the crown, and not city officials who were almost definitely anti-players. The local residents protested however, so it would be years before the players were allowed to use the Blackfriars as a playhouse.) Negotiations to move back in to The Theatre were at an impasse, the landlord being exceedingly avaricious. In the meantime James Burbage died, leaving the struggle to his two sons. Allen's intentions was to demolish the Theatre and to "...convert the wood and timber thereof to some better use..." (S Schoenbaum: 'William Shakespeare A Documentary Life', Oxford, 1975).

However, the company owned the wood from which the theatre was built. In the winter after the rent increase, members dismantled the building piece by piece, shipped it across the Thames to Southwark on the south bank and reassembled it there. Allen was powerless to do anything, reporting of the dismantling party (in Schoenbaum's book, p 153) as:

"ryotous...armed...with divers and manye unlawfull and offensive weapons...in verye ryotous outragious and forcyble manner and contrarye to the lawes of your highnes Realme...and there pulling breaking and throwing downe the sayd Theater in verye outragious violent and riotous sort to the great disturbance and terrefyeing not onlye of your subjectes [that Allen claimed were attempting to stop them]...but of divers others of your majesties loving subjectes there neere inhabitinge."

The reconstructed theatre was completed in 1599 and was renamed 'The Globe'. Built by carpenter Peter Smith the building was the most magnificent theatre that London had ever seen. It was situated just a few hundred metres from the Rose Theatre, run by Philip Henslowe and his son in law Edward Alleyn, the famous actor of the time (famous for his portrayal of Marlowe's great characters). A year later and feeling the pressure of competition, Henslowe and Alleyn moved to new quarters, building the Fortune Theatre in St. Giles without Cripplegate.

Shares of the new theatre were divided between the Burbage brothers, the land owner Sir Nicholas Brend, and five members of the Lord Chamberlain's men: Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope and William Kemp. It worked so that the Burbage brothers were responsible for half the lease on the land and shared in half the profits. The five players were responsible for the other half of the lease and shared among themselves the other half of the profits. Shakespeare's share, as a 'householder' was one-fifth of fifty percent of the profits, or 10% of the total profits. Kemp later departed the Chamberlain's Men so Shakespeare's share increased in value, but soon two new partners - Will Slye and Henry Condell joined them, so that his share decreased again. In any event, these were the ownership provisions of the Globe and the foundation of Shakespeare's prosperity. It is not possible to determine exactly how much Shakespeare earned, but the common consensus among scholars is that it was somewhere near £200 - £250 per year, a very substantial sum by Elizabethan standards. After The Globe had been reopened The Lord Chamberlain's Men continued to perform there. Shakespeare created his plays with his unique venue in mind.

The exact physical structure of the Globe is unknown, although scholars are fairly sure of some details because of drawings from the period. The theatre itself was a closed structure with an open courtyard where the stage stood. Tiered galleries around the open area accommodated the wealthier patrons who could afford seats, and those of the lower classes - the 'groundlings' - stood around the platform or 'thrust' stage during the performance of a play. The space under and behind the stage was used for special effects, storage and costume changes. Surprisingly, although the entire structure was not very big by modern standards, it is thought to have been capable of accommodating fairly large crowds - perhaps as many as 2000 people - during a performance.

The Globe may have been designed similarly to another of its time - The Fortune. It is said to have been shaped like a cylinder with a thatched gallery roof which was made of straw. The roof had to be coated with a special fire-protectant. In 1613 the roof was accidentally set on fire by a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII. The entire theatre burned in about an hour. The Globe was rebuilt a year later but with a tilted gallery roof and more circular in shape. In 1644, 30 years after it was rebuilt the Globe was torn down.


The 1614 reconstruction of The Globe

In 1603 Queen Elizabeth died and James VI of Scotland became James I of England. The Jacobean age was initiated. Its practical impact was that the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the most popular acting company under the old queen, became the King's Men and continued to receive royal patronage. No company performed more at court over these years. Between 1 November 1604 and 31 October 1605 the King's Men performed 11 performances before the King. Seven of these performances were of Shakespeare's own plays: The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, Measure for Measure and two of The Merchant of Venice. In spite of the emphasis on comedy, the new reign was known for its cynicism. There was a marked shift to darkness in Shakespeare's works of this period.

The theatre was rebuilt in 1614 but 30 years later was demolished by Puritans. A brewery now stands on the site.

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Also on this day -


1620
After denouncing smoking as a health hazard, King James I of England bans the growing of tobacco in Britain.

1801
Britain holds its first population census - producing a population figure of 8,800,000.

June 29, 2006
I passed my last exam.

30th June 1643 - the Battle of Adwalton Moor during the English Civil War. The Royalists defeated the Parliamentarians. The battle occured near to the city of Bradford. There is a display relating to the battle at Bolling Hall, one of Bradford's Museums which lies a few miles from the site. Oakwell Hall is another museum which throws light on the Civil War.
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Newcastle's army outnumbered the parliamentary forces in the North, where support for Parliament was scant. With this in mind he marched on Bradford, intending to catch their army in a siege.
Fairfax, knowing that he could not survive such a siege, struck out to meet him, even though he was outnumbered by at least two to one.

The two armies met on the ridge overlooking Adwalton Moor. The terrain was favourable for Fairfax, since the hedges and lanes that stretched across the ridge made it difficult for the royalist cavalry to make contact with the enemy.

The parliamentary forces drove the royalist skirmishers away, and then set up a defensive position that offset the difference in numbers between the armies, trying to funnel the attackers into a narrow front.

"...found sharp entertainment, and those that were not yet [engaged], as hot welcome from the musketeers that flanked them in the hedges."

'Stuart Tracts 1603-1693', H.C.Firth (1964)

The parliamentary army drove off several assaults whilst in this defensive stance, but the discipline of the troops was to let Fairfax down.

On seeing yet another royalist assault beaten back, a large part of the force took it upon themselves to chase the enemy. However, once out of their defenses, they began to feel the pressure of the Royalist's greater numbers.

Eventually these troops were beaten back, and found that they had been out-flanked by the royalist cavalry. Attacked from both sides they routed, and the remaining forces were forced to withdraw to Bradford to await the inevitable.

This defeat left Parliament with only one remaining stronghold in the North, at Hull.

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Just deleted the repeated post.

1st July 1858 - Charles Darwin presents his Theory on Evolution and Natural Selection to the Linnaean Society in London.
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Darwin with his son William Erasmus Darwin, 1842. (It was normal for boys in 19th Century England to wear dresses)

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British naturalist who achieved lasting fame by producing considerable evidence that species originated through evolutionary change, at the same time proposing the scientific theory that natural selection is the mechanism by which such change occurs. This theory is now considered a cornerstone of biology.

Darwin developed an interest in natural history while studying first medicine, then theology, at university. Darwin's observations on his five-year voyage on the Beagle brought him eminence as a geologist and fame as a popular author. His biological finds led him to study the transmutation of species and in 1838 he conceived his theory of natural selection. Fully aware that others had been severely punished for such "heretical" ideas, he confided only in his closest friends and continued his research to meet anticipated objections. However, in 1858 the information that Alfred Russel Wallace had developed a similar theory forced early joint publication of the theory.

His 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (usually abbreviated to The Origin of Species) established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, continued his research, and wrote a series of books on plants and animals, including humankind, notably The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.
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Darwin found an answer to the problem of how genera forked in an analogy with industrial ideas of division of labour, with specialised varieties each finding their niche so that species could diverge. He experimented with seeds, testing their ability to survive sea-water to transfer species to isolated islands, and bred pigeons to test his ideas of natural selection being comparable to the "artificial selection" used by pigeon breeders.

In the spring of 1856, Lyell read a paper on the Introduction of species by Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist working in Borneo. Lyell urged Darwin to publish his theory to establish precedence. Despite illness, Darwin began a 3-volume book titled Natural Selection, getting specimens and information from naturalists including Wallace and Asa Gray. In December 1857 as Darwin worked on the book he received a letter from Wallace asking if it would delve into human origins. Sensitive to Lyell's fears, Darwin responded that "I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices, though I fully admit that it is the highest & most interesting problem for the naturalist." He encouraged Wallace's theorising, saying "without speculation there is no good & original observation." Darwin added that "I go much further than you." His manuscript reached 250,000 words, then on 18 June 1858 he received a paper in which Wallace described the evolutionary mechanism and requested him to send it on to Lyell. Darwin did so, shocked that he had been "forestalled". Though Wallace had not asked for publication, Darwin offered to send it to any journal that Wallace chose. He put matters in the hands of Lyell and Hooker. They agreed on a joint presentation at the Linnean Society on 1 July of On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. Darwin's infant son died and he was unable to attend.

The initial announcement of the theory gained little immediate attention. It was mentioned briefly in a few small reviews, but to most people it seemed much the same as other varieties of evolutionary thought. For the next thirteen months Darwin suffered from ill health and struggled to produce an abstract of his "big book on species". Receiving constant encouragement from his scientific friends, Darwin finally finished his abstract and Lyell arranged to have it published by John Murray. The title was agreed as On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, and when the book went on sale to the trade on 22 November 1859, the stock of 1,250 copies was oversubscribed. At the time "Evolutionism" implied creation without divine intervention, and Darwin avoided using the words "evolution" or "evolve", though the book ends by stating that "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." The book only briefly alluded to the idea that human beings, too, would evolve in the same way as other organisms. Darwin wrote in deliberate understatement that "light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."

wikipedia.org

Also on this day -

1898 - China allows Britain to lease Hong Kong for 99 years. It was returned on 1st July 1997.

1916 - At least 20,000 British soldiers are killed and a further 40,000 are injured on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. At the end of the battle, around 57,500 British soldiers had been killed. It is the greatest number of British casualties in a single day's fighting in modern history.

2nd July 1644 - the Battle of Marston Moor took place, the largest battle of the English Civil War. It was the first victory of the war for the Parliamentary forces with Cromwell's Roundhead Army defeating the Royalist Cavaliers, commanded by Prince Rupert.


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The Battle of Marston Moor, which took place on July 2, 1644, was the largest battle of the English Civil War, and one of the most decisive. It resulted in a Parliamentarian victory, and meant that the north of England effectively came under Parliamentary control.




Campaign
In early 1644, the English Civil War widened when a Scottish Covenanter army under the Earl of Leven invaded northern England, on the side of Parliament. The Royalist army under the Marquess of Newcastle disputed the border country, but had to hastily retreat to York when that city was threatened by a Parliamentarian army under Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax.

Leven and Fairfax began a Siege of York on April 22. Newcastle's cavalry under George, Lord Goring broke out of the city, and made their way to Lancashire. On June 3, the besiegers were joined by another Parliamentarian army, that of the "Eastern Association" under the Earl of Manchester, and siege operations began in earnest. By common consent, the veteran Leven was accepted as Commander in Chief of the three combined Allied armies.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine, nephew of King Charles I, had moved north from Shrewsbury with the aim of relieving York as early as May 16. He had been busily gathering recruits and reinforcements (including Goring) and restoring Royalist fortunes in Lancashire. On June 14, King Charles wrote to him, peremptorily ordering him to relieve York and then return south to rejoin the King. These orders were hastily written, as the King himself was hard-pressed by Parliamentarian armies, and contained some ambiguous sentences.

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"Yorke march"
Rupert marched across the Pennines with an army of 6000 horse and 8000 foot. On June 30, he reached Knaresborough, a day's march north-west of York. The Allies had been hoping that reinforcements from the Midlands under Sir John Meldrum and the Earl of Denbigh could ward off this threat, but they learned that these forces could not intervene in time. Therefore they abandoned the siege and concentrated at Marston Moor, on the flank of Rupert's expected direct march to York (along Ermine Street, the modern A59). However, Rupert made a flank march via Boroughbridge and Thornton Bridge, which put the River Ouse between himself and the Allied Armies. Late on July 1 his forces defeated Manchester's dragoons, left to guard a bridge of boats across the Ouse at the village of Poppleton a few miles north of York. Goring meanwhile gained touch with the garrison of York, entering the city through Bootham Bar.

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The armies deploy
With York successfully relieved, it was almost certain that the Scots, Manchester and Fairfax would retreat and split up, but Rupert insisted that his orders from the King (which he did not show to Newcastle) were to defeat them in the field. On July 2, the Allied armies were already marching south from Marston Moor when their rearguard reported that the Royalists were crossing the captured bridge of boats and advancing onto the moor. The Allied troops were hastily recalled, but Rupert did not attack immediately. He had ordered Newcastle to join him with part of the garrison of York, but these troops had mutinied over lack of pay and supplies, and consequently they arrived late.

When both armies were assembled in the late afternoon, they were deployed as follows:

Scots and Parliamentarians
The Parliamentarians occupied Marston Hill, a low but nevertheless prominent feature in the flat Vale of York, between the villages of Long Marston and Tockwith. They had the advantage of height, but cornfields stretching between the two villages hampered their deployment.

Their left wing was under the command of Oliver Cromwell, and consisted of 3000 horse from the Eastern Association, including Cromwell's own regiment of "Ironsides", and 600 detached musketeers. 1000 lighter Scots horse under Sir David Leslie were deployed to Cromwell's rear, and 500 Scots dragoons (mounted infantry) on the extreme left.

The centre, under several Generals with no overall commander, consisted of over 14000 foot, with 30 to 40 pieces of artillery. The various regiments had been hastily deployed as they returned to the field and were considerably mixed up, but most of Manchester's foot under Sergeant Major General Lawrence Crawford were on the left of the front line, and Lord Fairfax's in the centre. Scots brigades made up the right of the front line (under Lieutenant General William Baillie, and almost all the second and third lines (under Sergeant Major General James Lumsden).

The right wing was commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax, with 2000 horse from Yorkshire and Lancashire, and 600 musketeers, with 1000 Scots horse to his rear.



The Royalist armies
The Royalists occupied the low-lying moor, behind a drainage ditch. When the contingent from York belatedly arrived, Rupert's dispositions were criticised by Lord Eythin, one of Newcastle's senior officers, as being drawn up too close to the enemy. However, Eythin also pontificated that it was too late in the day to attack or redeploy, so the Royalist army did not move back.

Their left wing consisted of 2100 cavalry, mainly from the "Northern Horse", and 500 musketeers, under Goring.

Their centre was nominally commanded by Eythin, although Sergeant-Major General Henry Tillier led most of the troops. A forlorn hope of musketeers lined the ditch. The infantry units of Rupert's army, 7000 strong, formed the first line, with the 3000-man infantry contingent from Newcastle's army, and a brigade of "Northern Horse" numbering 600 under Sir William Blakiston, behind them. There were also 14 field guns.

The right wing was commanded by Lord Byron, with 2600 horse and 500 musketeers.

Rupert commanded a reserve of 600 cavalry, including his elite Lifeguard of Horse, in person.

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The battle

Opening phase
Although there had been brief exchanges of artillery fire and some skirmishes between outposts during the afternoon, Rupert thought that he still had the initiative and that the battle would not take place until the next day. However, at about 7:30 pm, Leven suddenly attacked under cover of a rainstorm, taking the Royalists by surprise.

On the Allied left, Cromwell's deliberate advance, supported by Lawrence Crawford, shattered Byron's wing. Byron had ordered a counter-charge, thus disrupting his own troops and preventing his musketeers from firing, which Rupert was later to blame for the defeat. In the centre, most of the Allied front line of infantry managed to force their way across the ditch. On the right, Sir Thomas Fairfax's wing fared less well. His cavalry were disordered by the ditch and by royalist musket fire and when Goring counter-attacked, Fairfax's men were driven from the field.

Most of Goring's troops scattered in pursuit or fell out to loot the Allied baggage train, but some of them under Sir Charles Lucas wheeled to attack the right flank of the Allied infantry. At the same time, some of Newcastle's foot and Blakiston's brigade of horse counter-attacked them in front. Under these assaults in the confusion and the gathering darkness, over half the Scots and Parliamentarian infantry fled. Leven and Lord Fairfax also left the field, believing all was lost. Manchester remained, but commanded no more than his own regiment of foot near the Allied rear. However, one Scottish brigade under the Earl of Crawford-Lindsay and Viscount Maitland stood firm against Lucas, and behind them the Scottish Sergeant Major General Sir James Lumsden managed to reform part of the Allied centre.

Meanwhile, Rupert rallied some of Byron's men (including Rupert's own Regiment of Horse) and led them and his reserve against Cromwell. A Parliamentarian officer wrote, "Cromwell's own division had a hard pull of it; for they were charged by Rupert's bravest men both in front and flank; they stood at the sword's point a pretty while, hacking one another; but at last (it so pleased God) he brake through them, scattering them before him like a little dust.". Sir David Leslie's Scots eventually swung the balance for Cromwell. Rupert's cavaliers were routed and he himself narrowly avoided capture.

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Cromwell's victory
By now it was fully dark. The battlefield was a scene of wild confusion, and thousands of fugitives from both sides were scattered over the countryside for miles around. A messenger from Ireland riding in search of Prince Rupert wrote, "In this horrible distraction did I coast the country; here meeting with a shoal of Scots crying out, 'Weys us, we are all undone'; and so full of lamentation and mourning, as if their day of doom had overtaken them, and from which they knew not whither to fly; and anon I met with a ragged troop reduced to four and a Cornet; by and by with a little foot officer without hat, band, sword, or indeed anything but feet and so much tongue as would serve to enquire the way to the next garrisons, which (to say the truth) were well filled with the stragglers on both sides within a few hours, though they lay distant from the place of the fight 20 or 30 miles".

All five armies had lost their commanders-in-chief. Newcastle, who in any case rarely led in the field, had charged with a body of "gentleman volunteers" and was out of touch. An indecisive drawn battle might have resulted, but Cromwell's disciplined horsemen had rallied and were the key to victory. Sir Thomas Fairfax had managed to make his way alone through Goring's men to reach Cromwell and relate the state of affairs on the Allied right flank. Cromwell now led his cavalry right around the Royalist rear to attack Goring's wing from behind. Goring tried to rally his tired troops to meet this threat, but they too were routed.

Cromwell and Crawford now turned on the remains of the Royalist centre, routing successive units. Finally some of Newcastle's foot, the "whitecoats", gathered for a last stand in an enclosure named White Sike Close, where for a while they repulsed all Cromwell's attacks. They refused to surrender and eventually they were overwhelmed, only a handful surviving.

The Royalists lost 4000 men killed, many from the last stand of the whitecoats. 1500 Royalists were taken prisoner, including Sir Charles Lucas and Henry Tillier. The Scots' and Parliamentarian casualties were much lighter; perhaps as few as 300 killed. The brunt of the Allied casualties fell on Fairfax's army. Sir Thomas Fairfax's brother Charles was mortally wounded.

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Aftermath
Two days after the battle, Rupert rallied 5000 cavalry and a few hundred infantry in York. He considered that he was required to return south to rejoin the King, and marched back over the Pennines. Meanwhile, the Marquess of Newcastle (who had spent all of his vast fortune in the Royalist cause) and his senior officers went into exile overseas. With Rupert's and Newcastle's departure, the Royalists effectively abandoned the North of England.

The Allies regrouped themselves and resumed the siege of York. The garrison surrendered on honourable terms on July 16. Over the next few months the Scots and Parliamentarians slowly eliminated the remaining Royalist garrisons throughout northern England.

For the first time in the war, Prince Rupert had been decisively beaten, and lost his reputation for invincibility. In the aftermath of the battle, the body of his lapdog, "Boye", was discovered. Parliamentarian propaganda made much of this, treating Boye almost as a Devil's familiar.

In contrast, Oliver Cromwell's warty reputation as a cavalry commander was made. Over the following months, he was to exert increasing influence both in the House of Commons and in the Parliamentarian armies in the field.

wikipedia.org
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Also on this day -

1819
Britain passes the Factory Act - banning the employment of children under 9 in textiles factories and limiting children under 16 from working more than 12 hours a day (nowadays, children hate just tidying their rooms).

1881
James Garfield, 20th President of the United States, is shot in Washington. Dies in September

1940
World War II: Adolf Hitler orders German military commanders to draw up plans for the invasion of England.

1997
Six IRA terrorists who plotted to blow up electricity supply stations in the Home Counties (the counties around London) were each jailed for 35 years