The Siege of Hawarden Castle took place in early 1646, during the final stages of the First English Civil War in north Wales and the Welsh Marches. The castle was a Royalist stronghold in Flintshire, and its reduction formed part of the broader Parliamentarian drive to clear remaining Royalist garrisons from the region following the decisive Battle of Naseby in June 1645. The campaign was directed under Thomas Mytton, the leading Parliamentarian commander pushing north into Denbighshire and beyond, with forces based at Oswestry.
George Twisleton, then serving as deputy to Colonel John Carter and holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of cavalry, was sent to blockade Hawarden Castle just before Chester capitulated to the Parliamentarians in February 1646. The blockade of Hawarden was thus conducted in close conjunction with the wider operations against Chester, which had served as a vital supply point connecting Royalist recruiting areas in Wales and Ireland with their armies in England. As Chester fell, Hawarden's position became untenable.
The sources do not record the precise terms or date of Hawarden Castle's surrender, nor the names of the Royalist garrison commander or the strength of forces on either side. What is clear is that its fall formed part of the steady collapse of Royalist resistance across north Wales in 1646, a process that continued until Denbigh Castle held out until October of that year, when its garrison was finally ordered to surrender by King Charles I himself.
The blockade of Hawarden Castle was set in motion by Twisleton at almost exactly the moment Chester, the great Royalist hub linking Wales and Ireland to the English war effort, finally gave way in February 1646. The two events were inseparable: as the major crossing over the River Dee was lost and Chester surrendered, any prospect of relief or resupply for the Hawarden garrison vanished with it, making the castle's position strategically hopeless before a shot need necessarily be fired.
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