Cheriton 1644 : The Earl of Forth goes forth.

 

The battle of Cheriton, fought on an unusually hot day in March 1644, was not a large affair.  The Royalists with around 6,000 men faced about 10,000 Parliamentarians.  The Royalists had outmanoeuvred their opponents, placing themselves across their line of communications with London - which may have been dispiriting to the contingents from the London Trained Bands that formed a significant part of the Parliamentary army.

The commander of the Parliamentary army was Sir William Waller (centre right picture above).  He had served under Sir Horace Vere in the Venetian army and later in Holland.  Subsequently he served together with Sir Ralph Hopton - one of his opponents at Cheriton - in the bodyguard of Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, sister to Charles I, and helped her escape to Frankfurt after the Protestant defeat at the White Mountain.  Like Hopton he was an Oxford man, but had been at Magdalen Hall, a Presbyterian leaning establishment, while Hopton was at Lincoln College and a committed Bishops man.

Hopton (centre left picture) also had experience in Continental service before taking up a command in the civil wars in England, returning to action in the Palatinate and in the Dutch Republic after his adventures in Bohemia.  He was junior in experience and rank to the Earl of Forth (left picture) who shared command with him at Cheriton.  

Forth, a Scotsman, had served in the Swedish army from 1609 to 1637, commanding the Småland Regiment in Livonia in 1621 and being knighted by Gustavus Adolphus in 1627.  He was described as having ability to "drink immeasurably and preserve his understanding to the last", which made him useful in diplomatic as well as military undertakings.   He was second in command to Johan Banér during campaigns along the Rhine in 1634-5 and was largely responsible for defeating the Saxons at Dömitz.  Returning to England in 1637, he offered his services to Charles during the Bishops War in 1638.  At the outbreak of the Civil War he was given command of the King's army at Edgehill.  He had been sent to reinforce Hopton's small army after news that Waller had been reinforced by contingents from London.  Although outranking Hopton, he appears to have been on friendly terms with him and shared command rather than standing on rank.

The last officer pictured above (right) is Sir Alfred Haselrig, commander of the 'London Lobsters', a unit of fully armoured cuirassiers which played a significant part during the battle, more than compensating for their defeat at Roundway Down the previous year.

Turning from the commanders to the action, on the day before the battle, there was extensive skirmishing across the ridges and valleys that ran down from the higher ground around Cheriton Wood on the east to the village of Cheriton and valley of the Itchen river to the west.  The Royalists, coming from the north with a base at Alresford, seem to have had the better of these exchanges and ended the day controlling a central ridge, looking over the Parliamentary positions along a lower ridge to the south.  A strong picket was established in a wood on this ridge and overnight this sent back reports that the Parliamentarians appeared to be preparing to retreat.

It appears that the Council of War held by the Parliamentarians had indeed decided on retreat but this was not a decision welcomed by some of the subordinate commanders, especially one Colonel Birch who has left an opinionated and self-centred account of the action in which he claims to have so stirred up the army that it became too late to withdraw.  How to reconcile Birch's account - or the recorded decision of the Council of War to retreat - with the clear fact that by daybreak the Parliamentary side had advanced a large contingent of musketeers into Cheriton Wood, threatening the flank of the Royalist forward detachments, is one of the many uncertainties about the battle.  As Historic England's report on the action states "Cheriton was a confused battle which progressed through error and mishap, and despite the number of contemporary written sources that are available it is difficult to clarify the exact location and extent of the fighting".

English Heritage overlay of assumed positions on a modern ordnance survey map.  Cheriton wood today is much larger than at the time of the battle when it did not extend so far north or west.  The Parliamentary forces are mostly on a well defined ridge to the south-west of the wood, separated from the Royalists by a 'Y' shaped valley formed by a spur of higher ground extending westward from the wood.

These uncertainties have led to many different representations of the battle being made.  One wargaming refight I have found places the whole action in a valley, which simplifies terrain making but removes much of the difficulty that the men must have faced on the day.  The 'British Battles' site has the Parliamentary army fully drawn up on the ridge running up to Cheriton Wood, with the Royalists on the northern ridge beyond them. The ridges are given much greater definition than the ordnance survey maps indicate and the deployment assumes - as does the English Heritage map - that the Royalists withdrew from their forward position, for which there is scant evidence.  It does, however, give a clear view of the extent of the Royalist reaction to the occupation of Cheriton Wood by the Roundheads. 

"British Battles" map, which is hard to reconcile with the ordnance survey map and makes the armies appear much more equal in strength than the records allow.

The scenario given in the Twilight of Divine Right rules that we will be using for the battle has a map that covers all three ridges on a 4' by 4' table.  The map is not of the clearest, but when overlayed with the ordnance survey does appear to be reasonably faithful to the topography, other than making the central ridge higher than the ground to the north and east. The deployment appears to be based on assumptions as to where the forces were camped overnight.  The Royalists are on the northern ridge with a forward detachment on the centre ridge, the Parliamentarians on the southern ridge with a very forward detachment in Cheriton Wood.  

If this were all, it would allow the Royalist player to decide whether to advance to contest the centre ridge, building on the outpost already there, or to pull back the outpost and defend the northern ridge.  However, the scenario set up allows the Parliamentary player to select one of the Royalist infantry units (other than the outpost) and move it forward by a random number of base widths before battle starts.  This is based on the undisciplined advance by Sir Henry Bard's regiment of foot during the battle.  But, this event happened at a later stage of the battle, after the Royalists had cleared the Londoners out of Cheriton Wood, an action described by a Parliamentary sources as follows : "the enemies foot, under Collonel Appleyard, beat them clearly out and took possession, pursueing our men, whose heells then were their best weapon, to the amazement of our whole army".

Having the Parliament side move Bard's regiment forward at the start of the game makes it hard for the Royalists to avoid a forward deployment and reduces the chance of them making a successful attack on Cheriton wood before the enemy can come up.  Having only 4 small infantry units to begin with, they would be left with only two to tackle the full strength Parliamentary regiment in the wood. 

However, rather than try to modify the scenario, we will play it as it is to see how it all works out before considering any adjustments.

In the battle itself, after a day of hard fighting the Royalist army ended in full retreat but with Waller's forces too tired to pursue with vigour.  Clarendon wrote of the battle being as harmful to the Royalist cause as the much larger defeat at Marston Moor in the same year.  It did not lead to much loss of ground but it ended any threat the Royalists could make to the sources of Parliamentary guns and other military equipment from the iron works of the Sussex Weald and moved the Royalists towards a defensive posture for the remainder of the war.

Now it remains only to decide who will play the part of which general for the re-enactment and for them to determine how to deploy their men.  Perhaps I will be fated to draw the Earl of Forth?  Clarendon described him at the time of the battle thus : "The General - though he had been without doubt a very good officer, and had great experience, and was still a man of unquestionable courage and integrity - was now much decayed in his parts, and, with the long continued custom of immoderate drinking, dozed in his understanding, which had never been quick or vigourous - he having always been illiterate to the greatest degree that can be imagined".