Battle of Leeds 1643
Who Fought
Royalists: circa 2,000 under Sir William Savile; Parliamentarians: over 3,000 under Sir Thomas Fairfax, including 800-1,000 musketeers, 400-500 mounted troops and roughly 2,000 clubmen
History & Significance
The battle of Leeds took place during the First English Civil War on 23 January 1643, when a Parliamentarian force attacked the Royalist garrison of Leeds, Yorkshire. The attack was partly dictated by the need to maintain local support for the Parliamentarian cause; the Earl of Newcastle had recently shifted the balance of power in Yorkshire in the Royalists' favour with the addition of his 8,000-strong army, and sent one of his commanders, Sir William Savile to capture Leeds. The West Riding of Yorkshire relied on the cloth trade, and Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax sent his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax to bolster the defences of nearby Bradford, before agreeing to his request to attack Leeds.
Savile, who had command of around 2,000 men in Leeds, built a trench on the western edge of Leeds, destroyed one bridge on the approach to the town and heavily fortified another. Fairfax attacked during a heavy snowstorm, bringing an army of roughly 3,000 men to attack Leeds in three places. The battle lasted around two hours before the Parliamentarians secured the town, and captured about 500 prisoners. Fairfax lost around 20 men during the attack, while the Royalists suffered roughly double as many fatalities.
In January 1643, the First English Civil War had been formally ongoing for five months, since King Charles I had raised his royal standard in Nottingham and declared the Earl of Essex, and by extension Parliament, traitors. That action had been the culmination of religious, fiscal and legislative tensions going back over fifty years.
Upon the formal start of the civil war in August, Charles appointed the Earl of Cumberland as commander of the Royalist forces in Yorkshire. A contemporary writer, Sir Philip Warwick, said that Cumberland's "genius was not military", and combined with insufficient forces, the Royalists suffered a series of defeats across the county. Negotiations were made for the Earl of Newcastle to assist them, which resulted in Cumberland handing over command of the counties' forces. Newcastle advanced into Yorkshire with around 8,000 men, defeating the Parliamentarians at Piercebridge, and established himself in York on 3 December. Among his men was Sir William Savile, who he sent to secure the West Riding towns of Leeds, Wakefield and Bradford. Savile was a deputy lieutenant of the West Riding who had raised a regiment of 900 men from the region in 1639. With 1,500 infantry and 500 cavalry, Savile took Leeds and Wakefield without a fight, but had to split off a portion of his force to attempt to capture Bradford on 18 December, where he was repelled.
Newcastle's advance into Yorkshire had shifted the balance significantly; until that point the Parliamentarians, led by Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax, had recruited and manoeuvred their forces better than the Royalists, giving them the upper hand in the county. The introduction of an army of 8,000 Royalists left the Parliamentarians heavily outnumbered, and unable to effectively defend the clothing districts that the area relied upon. Fearing that their popular support in the area would slip away, Lord Fairfax sent his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, to support Bradford. He arrived in the town in late December, bringing 120 dragoons and three cavalry troops.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Leeds 1643 lies on Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Lower Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Westphalian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.
- Royalists: 40-50 killed, 460 captured, 2 cannons and 14 barrels of gunpowder captured; Parliamentarians: circa 20 killed
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- Battle of Leeds · Wikidata
- Battle_of_Leeds · Wikipedia