Siege of Barnstaple, 1646
Who Fought
History & Significance
Events from the year 1646 in England. This is the fifth and last year of the First English Civil War, fought between Roundheads (Parliamentarians) and Cavaliers (Royalist supporters of King Charles I).
9 January – Battle of Bovey Heath: Parliamentary troops secure a significant victory over the Royalists in mid-Devon.
16 February – the Battle of Torrington at Great Torrington in north Devon, the last major battle of the First English Civil War, gives a decisive Parliamentary victory over the Royalists.
2 March – the Prince of Wales escapes from Cornwall into exile.
13 March – Parliament captures Cornwall after Royalists surrender at Truro.
21 March – last Royalist army in the field surrenders at Stow-on-the-Wold, although individual fortresses still hold out.
27 April – King Charles I flees from Oxford (where he has been overwintering) in disguise and begins his journey to the Scottish army camp near Newark.
5 May – King Charles I surrenders his forces to a Scottish army at Southwell, Nottinghamshire.
20 June – Third Siege of Oxford concludes with signing of the surrender of the Royalist garrison at Oxford to General Thomas Fairfax's Parliamentary New Model Army; on the 24th of June the main force marches out, ending the First English Civil War.
July – John Lilburne is imprisoned for a second time, this time in the Tower of London, for denouncing his former commander as a traitor and Royalist sympathiser; the campaign to free Lilburne gives rise to the populist political movement called the Levellers.
7 July – Levellers William Walwyn and Richard Overton publish Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens calling for the abolition of the monarchy.
22 July – the Siege of Worcester ends with the city's capture by the Parliamentary forces led by Thomas Rainsborough.
27 July – Wallingford Castle surrenders to Sir Thomas Fairfax after a 65-day siege.
30 July – Commissioners of Parliament and Scottish Covenanters meeting in Newcastle upon Tyne set out the Heads of Proposals ("Newcastle Propositions") demanding that the King gives up control of the army and place restrictions on Catholics, as the basis for a constitutional settlement.
August – The Westminster Assembly of Divines begins to draw up the Westminster Confession of Faith; the draft is printed and sent to Parliament in December.
17 August – the garrison at Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, the last mainland English Royalist stronghold, surrenders after a 155-day siege.
19 August – Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester, surrenders Raglan Castle in Monmouthshire to General Fairfax after a 2-month siege.
23 December – the Covenanters hand over the King to the Parliamentarians.
The ground they fought on
The site of Siege of Barnstaple, 1646 lies on Upper Devonian Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Late Devonian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
Barnstaple surrendered to Parliamentary forces on 19 April 1646, just six days after the fall of Exeter, as the Royalist cause in the West Country rapidly disintegrated following the decisive Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Torrington in February of that year.
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