For a time the skirmishing escalated and the Scots cavalry received the support of some commanded musketeers. Then the weather closed in again and the Royalists safely retired to Durham, having accomplished nothing but the loss of a considerable number of horses to the bad weather and consequent shortage of forage. These were losses which Newcastle could ill afford. Leven tried to follow up his advantage by advancing towards Durham on the 12th but Newcastle failed to oblige him with a battle. As there was no forage to be found for his cavalry he in turn retired back to Sunderland on the l3th and tried to take steps to improve his supply position. Since neither food nor forage could be obtained locally he was totally dependent on the provisions being shipped in through the port. Unfortunately the same bad weather which hampered military operations was also causing havoc at sea.

Of five ships sent from Scotland at the beginning of March three were lost and two driven to take shelter in the Tyne. Both of the latter were of course seized by the Royalists.

Consequently Leven now turned his eyes northwards. On the 15th an unsuccessful attempt was made to storm one of the Royalist forts covering the mouth of the Tyne, at South Shields. Undismayed, the Scots made a second and this time successful attempt on the 20th. Royalist morale was not improved when Lieutenant Colonel Ballentyne of Leven's Horse beat up some Royalist cavalry at Chester-le-Street on the same day. Stirred into action the Marquis once again drew his army out of Durham on the 23rd and moved forward to offer battle for a second time. On this occasion he moved along the north bank of the Wear, perhaps hoping to force the Scots to relinquish the fort at South Shields.

Leven very quickly got the bulk of his own army across the river and on Sunday the 24th of March both took up their positions facing each other about three miles apart. The Marquis drew up his army on the imposing Boldon Hill (now known as Down Hill) facing northeastwards to the Scots on the only slightly lower Whitburn Lizard. Between them lay a flat expanse of moorland cut across by the valley of a stream called the Don and interspersed with hedged enclosures around the villages of West Boldon, East Boldon and Cleadon. The latter played no part in the battle but the two former lie at the foot of Down Hill [3] It was not particularly suitable ground for cavalry to operate upon and the fight which followed was very largely an infantry battle.

With the aid of some local keelmen (boatmen employed in transporting coal) Leven's General of Artillery, Sandie Hamilton managed to get one of his big guns across the Wear, together with a number of smaller ones, but in the process two other large pieces were lost in the river . [4] For most of the day both sides then contented themselves with a fairly ineffectual cannonade. Neither side was keen to launch a frontal attack. The Marquis had came north with some 5,000 foot and although many of those raised by Glenham were perforce left as a garrison for Newcastle, he had also been joined by some of the Durham Trained Bands. Even allowing for the inevitable heavy wastage attendant on a winter campaign he still ought to have been able to bring about 5-6,000 men into the field.

The Scots were in a similar situation. Leven had crossed the border with around 10,000 infantry in January but close on 3,000 men were left behind at Heddon to mask Newcastle. Sir James Lumsden brought some or all of the cavalry left there across on the 23rd, but nevertheless by the time smaller detachments and wastage are taken into account, his total field force cannot have outnumbered that of the Royalists.

Late in the afternoon Fraser's Dragoons opened the battle with an attack on some Royalist musketeers lining the hedges around East Boldon. The fight quickly escalated and according to the Royalist account in Mercurius Aulicus four of Newcastle's Regiments were engaged by six Scots ones. [5] Once begun the fighting continued through the night [6]:

After the Armies had faced each other most part of that day, toward five oclock the Cannon began to play, which they bestowed freely though to little purpose, and withall the commanded Foot fell to it to drive one another from their hedges, and continued shooting till eleven at night. in which time we gained some ground, some barrels of gunpowder, and ball and match. wee lost few men, had more hurt and wounded of whom no Officcr of note hurt with danger but the Lieutenant Colonel of the Lord Lothian's Regiment; (Patrick Leslie) what their loss was is yet uncertain to us, but we know they had more slain. as wee finde finde being masters of their ground.