Considering the importance of Newcastle, there is surprisingly little know about his own regiment of Foot and indeed as the title of this piece suggests, the name of the man who actually commanded the regiment from day to day is not know for certain. With some annoyance for instance one finds in his wife's adulatory "Memoirs of the Duke of Newcastle" a list of the principal officers of his army, a list which frustratingly stops short of naming anyone other than staff officers. In the absence of any documented statement that one A.B. commanded the regiment one must seek clues elsewhere;

Brigadier Peter Young advanced the generally accepted view, in his "Marston Moor," that the commander of the regiment was Sir Arthur Basset an officer from Cornwall who may have been a professional soldier, since he appears to have been a Major in the 1640 army. His claim is based upon the 1663 "List of Indigent Officers," certain officers are listed, or otherwise mentioned in the list, under both he and Newcastle, suggesting that some had claimed their portion of the grant under their titular Colonel, and some under their actual commanding officer. For example, a Captain Ralph Selby from Northumberland appears in the List, under Newcastle and an Ensign William Hedworth from Haraton in County Durham who gave Basset as his Colonel also mentioned that his company commander had been a Captain Ralph Selby. Even more convincing apparently is the appearance under Newcastle of a Lieutenant Robert Nalson from Yorkshire who claimed that Basset himself was his company commander.

While it is fairly clear that Basset did indeed hold some command in the regiment there is room for some considerable doubt as to whether he actually commanded it. That a man appeared in the List under a particular officer did not always mean that he served in the actual regiment led by that officer.

Officers

No fewer than nine cavalry officers also appear under Newcastle, yet he never raised a regiment of Horse of his own (unless one excepts the small and rather informal Lifeguard led by old Sir Thomas Metham which appeared at Marston Moor) so that useful as the "List of Indigent Officers" is one cannot rely upon it alone. In his recent works, reassessing the battle of Marston Moor Peter Newman has pointed out that Basset is in fact a rather unlikely candidate since he served in the West Country for some time at the start of the war and did not appear in Yorkshire until late in 1643.

Indeed as a Cornish Trained Band officer he actually appears to have been fighting at Lansdown Hill in the summer of that year, within a week of Newcastle's greatest victory at Adwalton Moor. It may even be the case that some of the northern officers listed under Basset actually served with him in the West Country AFTER Marston Moor. For example a Lieutenant Robert Baker claimed that Basset was his Colonel and that he served in the Company of one Major George Berridge. Berridge appears in the list of those captured at Marston Moor, but only holding the rank of Captain thus implying that his service as Major to Basset dates from after July 1644 and to the West Country rather than the north.

Newman's suggestion as the commander's identity is Sir William Lambton, though in neither of his works does he offer any real evidence to support this assertion. He can in any case quickly be disposed of, as the commander of Newcastle's own regiment of foot he could not have held a rank greater than Lieutenant Colonel, yet in the Calendar of the Committee for Compounding and Sequestration we find the case of one Thomas Davison of Blackstone in the County of Durham, who held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel under Lambton!

Further, it may be noted that whilst Newcastle's Foot regiment was raised in Northumberland and in the city of Newcastle, the majority of the officers who are listed under Lambton are, like their Colonel, County Durham men. Possibly the most damning refutation of his candidacy comes from the pages of the Duchess of Newcastle's adulatory "Memoirs" of her husband. Throughout her tale Newcastle's Foot are consistently referred to as "My Lord's" yet she scruples not to mention Lambton by name when his regiment but not her husband's was engaged.

Candidate

The likeliest candidate in fact appears to be another West Country officer, a professional soldier from Somerset rejoicing in the rather odd name, Posthumous Kirton. This Colonel is know to have served under Newcastle and to have died at Marston Moor, yet no one single officer appears under his name in the 1663 List, implying that he actually served under or took over from a far better-known commander. The suggestion that none of his officers survived the battle can be immediately discounted since no other examples exist of regiments being so completely destroyed as to leave no trace in the List.

In the Duchess's account of the battle of Adwalton Moor she makes it quite clear that the decisive Royalist counter-attack was let by her dear husband's very own regiment a fact which assumes some significance when set beside Sir Thomas Fairfax's account which makes it equally clear that the OFFICER who led the assault was one "Colonel Skirton, a wild and desperate man"- clearly a reference to Posthumous Kirton.

Related:

Letter to Editor (#4)

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