After the Royalist reverse at the Battle of Cheriton, nearly a month earlier, Sir William Waller was flush with success. He began seeking out his foe, but the Royalists were looking for redress after Cheriton. Waller’s foe in fact contained a great friend. Sir Ralph Hopton was a commander in the King’s army and both were still good friends, despite fighting on opposing sides. A clear example of how the war split relations, but Waller and Hopton rose above this, respecting each other’s positions. Waller’s famous letter to Hopton reveals their thoughts: Certainly my affections to you are so unchangeable that hostility itself cannot violate my friendship to your person, but I must be true to the cause wherein I serve…That great God, which is the searcher of my heart, knows with what sad sense I go upon this service, and with what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy.. Waller confidently occupied a strong position north of Bath on Lansdown Hill, a three mile ridge. Below them were the Royalists, commanded by Hopton, Prince Maurice and the Earl of Caernarvon. The Royalists waited patiently, hopeful that they could entice Waller down from their strong position and safe in the fact that the enemy cannon on the ridge were too high up to fire accurately at them. The barrels could not be depressed low enough to reach. All morning passed and hour passed into hour in the afternoon until Hopton seemed to give up waiting and turned his army to march away. It was three o’clock. In true 1066 Stamford Hill fashion, Waller immediately acted, coming to the hasty conclusion that he was about to win another victory. He threw several troops of horse down the hill, with the orders to occupy the hedges of the Royalist lines of ‘retreat’ Temporarily stunned, the royalist horse broke, but the Cornish foot soldiers stood firm and resolute; action that had made their well known reputation. Soon the royalist horse rallied again. According to Sir Edward Hyde, later Earl of Clarendon, they were rallied by the efforts of Prince Maurice and Caernarvon, and pushed the Roundheads back towards the hill, by which time the Roundhead guns were firing on them as best they could. Drunk on this momentary success, the royalists responded immediately to a captain’s shout of “Let us fetch those cannon!” Defying the Odds Defying the huge odds against them, they forced their way up the hill, looking for any small shelter from the flying shot and bullets on their way. Execution was great, but still they went onwards. Richard Atkyns, a royalist captain of horse described his experiences in the battle; “As I went up the hill, which was very steep and hollow, I met several dead and wounded officers brought off; besides several running away, that I had much ado to get up by them. When I came to the top of the hill, I saw Sir Beville Grenville’s stand of pikes, which certainly preserved our army from a total rout, with the loss of his most precious life: they stood as upon the eaves of an house for steepness, but as unmovable as a rock; on which side of this stand of pikes our horse were, I could not discover; for the air was so darkened by the smoke of the powder that for a quarter of an hour together there was no light seen, but what the fire of the volleys of shot gave; and twas the greatest storm that ever I saw, in which though I knew not whither to go, nor what to do, my horse had two or three musket balls in him presently, which made him tremble under me at that rate, and I cold hardly with spurs keep him from lying down; but he did me the service to carry me off to a led horse and then died: by that time I came up to the hill again, the heat of the battle was over and the sun set, but still pelting at one another half musket shot off. Waller had realised all too late his folly – his horse were beaten back three times when they tried to stop the Cornishmen and after a long fight, Waller withdrew his force behind a stone wall. Exhausted by the fight, his men were glad of the momentary lapse, while the Royalists were equally pleased, their bravery was expensive in human cost. They had lost many men, as well as one well respected and revered leader, Sir Beville Grenville. Clarendon tells us that both sides were too exhausted to continue and out of two thousand Royalist horse, not six hundred remained. Darkness fell and the royalists could see flickerings of light behind the wall, as though the enemy were settling down for the night. Waller had managed to pull off one trick, leaving lighted match cords on pikes to impersonate his men, who had by now left the field and were on their way to Bath. Behind him he had left ten barrels of powder and arms, as well as the field and the claim of victory. Food was short for the royalists now, their cavalry had taken a severe hit in numbers through death and the Cornish were anxious to go back to their county. Ammunition was also low, especially when a powder wagon exploded the day after the battle, temporarily blinding Hopton. Dejected despite this heroic victory, the royalists made towards Devizes while Waller boosted his men by taking some of the garrison of Bristol. Like a leech, Waller was draining the surrounding Parliamentary town garrisons to strengthen his army. He and indeed the garrison towns could not afford to lose the next encounter. Back to Table of Contents -- King or Parliament # 6 Back to King or Parliament List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Mark Turnbull. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com