Battle of Wigan Lane (1651)
Who Fought
Royalist: approximately 600 cavalry (divided into two divisions of 300 men each), plus infantry. Commonwealth: Lilburne's cavalry with dismounted dragoons, companies of foot from Manchester and Chester, and militia under Colonel Thomas Birch; Cromwell's regiment of foot arrived after the battle.
History & Significance
The Battle of Wigan Lane was fought on 25 August 1651 during the Third English Civil War, between a Royalist army led by the Earl of Derby and forces loyal to the Commonwealth of England under Colonel Robert Lilburne. The Royalists were defeated, losing nearly half their officers and men.
After the execution of Charles I in January 1649, the Scots Covenanters proclaimed his son Charles II king of Scotland. They agreed to restore him to the throne of England, which led to the Third English Civil War; although Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army won a series of victories over the Scots during the course of 1650, Charles II was crowned at Scone on 1 January 1651.
Oliver Cromwell decided to focus on Scotland, confident his forces in England could deal with any invasion. On 6 August 1651, Charles crossed into England at the head of a predominantly Scottish Royalist army, heading for Lancashire, an area strongly Royalist in sympathy. He reached Worcester on 22 August 1651, where he halted and awaited English reinforcements before pressing on to London.
One of these was a small Royalist contingent of recruits from the Isle of Man and Lancashire commanded by the Earl of Derby. Regular troops under Colonel Robert Lilburne, supported by militia led by Colonel Thomas Birch, were ordered to intercept them before they reached Worcester.
Lilburne with a company of foot from Manchester, two more from Chester, and fifty or sixty dragoons marched to Wigan, where the enemy was gathering, hoping to surprise them but found they had moved off to Chorley. The next day, on hearing the Royalists were at Preston, Lilburne set off in pursuit. He bivouacked within two miles of the town and sent out patrols to harass the enemy. The next afternoon they retaliated. "A party of the enemy's horse fell smartly amongst us, where our horse was grazing, and for some space put us pretty hard to it: but at the last it pleased the Lord to strengthen us, that we put them to the flight, and pursued them to Ribble bridge (this was something like our business at Mussleburg) and killed and took about thirty prisoners."
Lilburne heard Cromwell's regiment of foot was approaching Manchester. Cromwell had detached the regiment with a troop of horse from Rufford Abbey in Nottinghamshire on the 20th or 21st. Lilburne halted by the Ribble, thinking the foot would join him but though it had marched very rapidly as far as Manchester, Cromwell's regiment was now obliged to advance with caution as Royalists were reported to have 500 men in Manchester. In addition, some of Derby's levies were lying between the regiment and Lilburne.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Wigan Lane (1651) lies on Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Moscovian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.
The most striking detail of the action at Wigan Lane is the sheer personal determination of the Earl of Derby under hopeless conditions. Aware that Lilburne's cavalry were inferior to his combined force, Derby seized the initiative and drove back through Wigan to destroy the Commonwealth units before they could unite. Yet even with this tactical advantage, he was compelled to lead his cavalry in three separate charges against Lilburne's improvised choke point of dismounted horsemen lining the hedgerows of a narrow Lancashire lane. Each charge bled his ranks further. By the third assault, the Royalists were so reduced that the belatedly arriving Commonwealth infantry overwhelmed them entirely. Derby escaped alive, but with a mere thirty horsemen at his side, bringing to Worcester nothing but the news of catastrophe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything a full report reveals about Battle of Wigan Lane (1651)
This page covers Battle of Wigan Lane (1651). 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 Wigan Lane (1651)
Battles near Battle of Wigan Lane (1651)
Explore the landscape around Lancashire
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 Wigan Lane · Wikipedia
- Matthew Boynton · Wikipedia