Battle of Burton Bridge (1643)
Who Fought
Parliamentarians: 200 infantry; 60 dragoons; 1 cannon
History & Significance
The Battle of Burton Bridge was fought between Royalist and Parliamentarian forces at Burton upon Trent on 4 July 1643 during the First English Civil War. By the time of the battle, the town, which had at various times been held by both sides, was garrisoned by a Parliamentarian unit under the command of Captain Thomas Sanders and the town's military governor, Colonel Richard Houghton. The key river crossing at Burton was desired by Queen Henrietta Maria, who was proceeding southwards from Yorkshire with a convoy of supplies destined for King Charles I at Oxford. The Royalists, led by Colonel Thomas Tyldesley, launched a cavalry charge across the bridge which succeeded in defeating the Parliamentarians and capturing most of their officers, including Sanders and Houghton. The Queen's convoy proceeded on its way south to Oxford, with Tyldesley receiving a knighthood and a promotion in recognition of his victory. Burton changed hands several more times during the course of the war, before finally coming under Parliamentarian control in 1646.
The county of Staffordshire, several days travel from the main seat of power in London, had a long-standing disinclination to paying taxes and levies imposed by the King. James I's Privy Council was forced to write to the county's Justices of the Peace for their failure to raise a single penny to support the King's campaign to reclaim the Palatinate in Germany for his son-in-law Frederick V in the 1620s. The county was also slow to pay Charles I's ship money, which began to be levied (in defiance of the Parliament) on the inland counties in 1634 and saw much resistance. Open dissent against the King's decrees occurred in 1640 in objection to the levying of 300 men from the county for the King's campaign against the Scots. Riots took place in Uttoxeter, with an armed guard having to be formed to prevent the levy from deserting.
Upon the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, the town of Burton was largely sympathetic to the Parliamentarian cause. This was probably, in part, due to the large Puritan following in the town and Staffordshire's general disapproval of the High Church practices of the then Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud (who was later executed for his opposition of Puritanism).
Burton's river crossing, a 36-arched medieval structure known as "Burton Bridge", was desirable to both sides, being described as "the only passage over the Trent and Dove to the North", and was positioned between the Royalist towns of Lichfield, Tutbury, and Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Parliamentarian Stafford and Derby. Despite this strategic location the town was unfortified and possessed few natural defences. Burton would change hands at least a dozen times during the course of the war, first coming to the attention of the Royalists when the Earl of Chesterfield used it as a rendezvous for his forces in late 1642. Chesterfield withdrew his forces to Lichfield for the winter, garrisoning the cathedral, which would become the scene of much fighting during the war. There were rumours prior to the war that the town held secret supplies of gunpowder for a Catholic rebellion; these were investigated by Lord Paget (who began the war as a Parliamentarian, switched allegiance to the King in 1642, before returning to the side of Parliament in 1644) and found to be false, though the explosion of a store of gunpowder did occur in 1643, causing the roof of St Modwen's Church to be destroyed.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Burton Bridge (1643) lies on Triassic Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Triassic. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything a full report reveals about Battle of Burton Bridge (1643)
This page covers Battle of Burton Bridge (1643). 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 Burton Bridge (1643)
Battles near Battle of Burton Bridge (1643)
Explore the landscape around this battlefield
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 Burton Bridge · Wikidata
- Battle of Burton Bridge (1643) · Wikipedia