Battle of Braddock Down, 19 January 1643

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Royalist victory during the Civil War. Sir Ralph Hopton, commanding the Royalist forces in Cornwall, had made a futile attempt to raise Devon for Charles, and had been forced to fall back in the face of superior Parliamentary forces. Knowing how badly supplied Hopton was, the Scotsman Lord Ruthin, commanding the Parliamentary forces, chased him back into Cornwall. However, on 17 January three Parliamentary warships had been forced by a storm to seek refuge at Falmouth, and had been captured by the Royalists, replenishing their stocks of powder and arms. Thus reinforced, Hopton, now commander-in-chief of the King's forces in the west, decided to attack Ruthin. The Royalist force found Ruthin on Braddock Down, and took up positions facing him. Ruthin had more cavalry, Hopton more infantry, but Hopton also had two light cannon, which he kept hidden for the first two hours of fighting, a period of long range musket fire, with neither side willing to abandon their positions. Finally, Hopton decided to attack, and after revealing his cannon, ordered a general advance. Sir Bevil Grenvile and his Cornish foot charged the Parliamentarians with such force that they appear to have fled, probably after only firing a single volley, said to have killed two men, the only Royalist casualties. The fleeing Parliamentarians reached Liskeard, where the townsmen turned on them. The pursuing Royalists captured between 1,250 and 1,500 men, along with the Parliamentary arms and powder, including five invaluable guns, which greatly strengthened Hopton's army.
cover The English Civil War , Richard Holmes & Peter Young, an early work by one of the country's best known military historians, this is a superb single volume history of the war, from its causes to the last campaigns of the war and on to the end of the protectorate.
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See Also
Books on the English Civil War
Subject Index: English Civil War

How to cite this article: Rickard, J. (11 April 2001), Battle of Braddock Down, 19 January 1643, http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_braddock.html

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