Battle of Maidstone (1648)
Who Fought
Parliamentarian: approximately 4,000 veteran troops under Sir Thomas Fairfax. Royalist: approximately 2,000 defenders within Maidstone, with a further force of around 6,000 remaining on Burham Heath.
History & Significance
The Battle of Maidstone (1 June 1648) was fought in the Second English Civil War and was a victory for the attacking Parliamentarian troops over the defending Royalist forces.
In May 1648, a significant part of the Royalist uprising gathered in Kent and Essex. The Kentish Royalists assembled outside Maidstone at Penenden Heath with over 10,000 men raised for the Earl of Norwich. The force then dispersed to hold various towns for the King including Gravesend, Rochester, Dover and Maidstone. Together with the rebellion in South Wales, this gathering constituted one of the main uprisings that marked the Second Civil War. The New Model Army had already been split in two and the larger part sent under Cromwell to deal with the rebellion in South Wales, leaving Sir Thomas Fairfax with a force of only 6,000 men. Fairfax marched on Maidstone with 4,000 veteran Parliamentary troops to recapture it from the defending 2,000 strong Royalist force within the town. Most of the Royalists were not soldiers, being described as 'cavaliers, citizens, seamen and watermen.'
The battle took place on 1 June. After outflanking Norwich's main Royalist forces on Burham Heath and a diversionary feint towards Aylesford, Fairfax crossed the River Medway at East Farleigh Bridge virtually unopposed. Early skirmishes began on Penenden Heath, located strategically to launch an attack between the two defending Royalist forces led by Sir William Brockman and Sir John Mayney in Aylesford and Maidstone. The Earl of Norwich did not realise the significance of the attack until late afternoon when Fairfax decided to use his advantage to storm the town itself that same day from the south side.
The battle moved into a phase of intense fighting in heavy rain, street by street and 'inch by inch' as each Royalist barricade was ferociously defended. The battle lasted for the rest of the day with the Royalists retreating towards Gabriel's Hill, then Week Street before their last position in St Faith's Churchyard. Fairfax finally overcame fierce resistance to take command of the town just after midnight during a raging thunderstorm. Fairfax was said to be astonished when about a thousand Royalists emerged from inside St Faith's Chapel to offer their surrender.
Royalist prisoners were initially held captive in All Saints Church. Having acquitted themselves well in a bloody defence against a professional parliamentarian attack, 1,300 Royalist men were allowed by Fairfax to return to their homes after the surrender. As a result of this Parliamentary victory, the still sizeable Royalist force of around 6,000 men remaining on Burham Heath started to disperse with the bulk retreating northwards under the Earl of Norwich with a view to regrouping and taking London itself. When they found the city gates were closed, the remnant of the Royalist force moved on into Essex with Fairfax in hot pursuit. The retreating Royalists decided to make their defence from the Earl of Norwich's home town of Colchester on 13 June where the rebellion was besieged and finally surrendered in late August after some ten weeks of deprivation and famine.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Maidstone (1648) lies on Wealden Group, bedrock that formed in the Barremian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
One of the most arresting moments of the entire battle came just after midnight, as a thunderstorm raged over Maidstone and the fighting had at last died down. Fairfax, having driven the defenders back through every street and barricade in the town, was already in command of the place when the door of St Faith's Chapel swung open and approximately a thousand Royalists filed out to surrender. The sight of so many men emerging from a single small chapel astonished even the battle-hardened general. That same chapel, in which those men had packed themselves during hours of ferocious street fighting, was later replaced by the Victorian church visible in Brenchley Gardens today, though the doublet Fairfax wore during the battle survives and can still be seen on display at Leeds Castle near Maidstone.
- Royalists: 800+ (one source states 300 dead/dying and 1,000 captured); Parliamentarians: 80
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything a full report reveals about Battle of Maidstone (1648)
This page covers Battle of Maidstone (1648). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside scheduled monuments and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Scheduled Monuments near Battle of Maidstone (1648)
Battles near Battle of Maidstone (1648)
Explore the landscape around Kent
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the UK — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
- Battle of Maidstone · Wikipedia
- List of military engagements of the English Civil War · Wikipedia