| Fort Royal Hill | |
|---|---|
| Worcester, Worcestershire, England | |
 View from Fort Royal Hill into Worcester | |
  Fort Royal Hill | |
| Coordinates | 52°11′12″N2°13′20″W / 52.1867°N 2.2223°W Coordinates: 52°11′12″N2°13′20″W / 52.1867°N 2.2223°W |
| Grid reference | grid reference SO849543 |
| Type | Redoubt |
| Site information | |
| Open to the public | Yes |
| Site history | |
| Events | English Civil War |
Fort Royal Hill is a park in Worcester, England, and the site of the remains of an English Civil War fort.
Fort Royal was a Civil War sconce (or redoubt) on a small hill to the south-east of Worcester overlooking the Sidbury Gate. [1] It was built by the Royalists in 1651 to defend the hill, because during the siege in 1646 Parliamentary forces had positioned their artillery on the hill and had been able to severely damage the city's walls. [1]
During the final stages of the Battle of Worcester, fought on 3 September 1651, the last battle of the war and a Parliamentary victory, the Royalists retreat turned into a rout in which Parliamentarian and Royalist forces intermingled and skirmished up to and into the city. The Royalist position became untenable when the Essex militia stormed and captured Fort Royal, turning the Royalist guns to fire on Worcester. [2] [3]
In early April 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited Fort Royal Hill at the battlefield at Worcester. Adams wrote
Edgehill and Worcester were curious and interesting to us, as scenes where freemen had fought for their rights. The people in the neighborhood appeared so ignorant and careless at Worcester, that I was provoked, and asked, "And do Englishmen so soon forget the ground where liberty was fought for? Tell your neighbors and your children that this is holy ground; much holier than that on which your churches stand. All England should come in pilgrimage to this hill once a year." This animated them, and they seemed much pleased with it. Perhaps their awkwardness before might arise from their uncertainty of our sentiments concerning the civil wars.
— John Adams. [4]
On 23 October 2009 a Virginian oak tree was planted in Fort Royal Park by Rear Admiral Ronald H. Henderson, Defence Attaché to the Embassy of the United States, to commemorate this occasion. [5]
The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell defeated a largely Scottish Royalist force of 16,000 led by Charles II of England.
White Ladies Aston is a village in the Wychavon local government district of Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom, and also lends its name to the civil parish in which the village is located. The village is located to the east of the A44 which started as a Saltway linking Droitwich to Oxford. To the south is Pershore and five miles west is Worcester. The parish is bound to the east by the Bow Brook. The parish, according to the 2011 census, has 87 households with 220 residents.
The second and longest siege of Worcester took place towards the end of the First English Civil War, when Parliamentary forces under the command of Thomas Rainsborough besieged the city of Worcester, accepting the capitulation of the Royalist defenders on 22 July. The next day the Royalists formally surrendered possession of the city and the Parliamentarians entered Worcester 63 days after the siege began.
The Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold took place during the First English Civil War. It was a Parliamentarian victory by detachments of the New Model Army over the last Royalist field army.
1646 was the fifth and final year of the First English Civil War. By the beginning of 1646 military victory for the Parliamentary forces was in sight. A Royalist army was defeated in the field at the Battle of Torrington on 16 February and the last Royalist field army was defeated at the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold on 21 March. From then on the New Model Army mopped up the remaining Royalist strongholds. The politics moved into a post war phase with all major the factions in England and Scotland, trying to reach an accommodation with King Charles I that would further their own particular interests.
The Battle of Warrington Bridge was a skirmish fought on 13 August 1651 between the invading Royalist Scottish army of Charles II and Parliamentary forces under the command of Major-General John Lambert.
Worcestershire was the county where the first battle and last battle of the English Civil War took place. The first battle, the Battle of Powick Bridge, fought on 23 September 1642, was a cavalry skirmish and a victory for the Royalists (Cavaliers). The final battle, the battle of Worcester, fought on 3 September 1651, was decisive and ended the war with a Parliamentary (Roundhead) victory and King Charles II a wanted fugitive.
The Battle of Kings Norton was fought on 17 October 1642. The skirmish developed out of a chance encounter between Royalists under the command of Prince Rupert and Parliamentarians under the command of Lord Willoughby. Both forces had been on their way to join their respective armies which were later to meet at Edgehill in the first pitched battle of the First English Civil War. The Parliamentarians won the encounter and both forces proceeded to join their respective armies.
Sir William Russell, 1st Baronet, of Wytley, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1625. He was an officer in the Royalist army during the English Civil War and, as Governor of Worcester, he refused entry to the Parliamentary cavalry shortly before the Battle of Powick Bridge — the first cavalry skirmish of the Civil War.
The Battle of Tipton Green was an indecisive engagement fought during the First English Civil War in the area of Tipton Green, about one mile from Dudley Castle on 12 June 1644. The battle occurred when Royalist troops arrived from Worcester to break the Earl of Denbigh's siege of the castle. The battle itself was indecisive, as both sides withdrew from conflict. This granted the Royalists a tactical victory, as they forced the Parliamentarians to lift the siege.
Worcester's city walls are a sequence of defensive structures built around the city of Worcester in England between the 1st and 17th centuries. The first walls to be built around Worcester were constructed by the Romans. These early walls lasted beyond the fall of the Empire, and the defences encouraged several early Christian foundations to establish themselves in Worcester during the troubled 6th and 7th centuries. The Anglo-Saxons expanded Worcester in the 890s, forming a new walled, planned city, called a burh. The burh utilised the southern stretches of the old Roman walls, but pushed further north to enclose a much larger area. The Anglo-Saxon city walls were maintained by a share of taxes on a local market and streets, in an agreement reinforced by a royal charter.
Thomas Wylde of The Commandery, Worcester, England, was a wealthy and prominent cloth merchant.
The Battle of Upton was fought on 28 August 1651 when a New Model Army detachment under the command of Colonel John Lambert made a surprise attack on Royalists defending the river Severn crossing at Upton-upon-Severn, 6 miles (9.7 km) below Worcester. In the action which followed the Royalist commander Major General Edward Massey was severely wounded and the surviving Royalists were driven out of the town and north along the Worcester Road.
Colonel Sir Gilbert Gerard was a Royalist officer during the English Civil War.
The Battle of Ripple Field, fought on 13 April 1643, was an engagement in the First English Civil War. In the battle, a Royalist cavalry force led by Prince Maurice routed Parliamentarian cavalry and infantry forces led by Sir William Waller.
Worcester's early importance is partly due to its position on trade routes, but also because it was a centre of Church learning and wealth, due to the very large possessions of the See and Priory accumulated in the Anglo-Saxon period. After the reformation, Worcester continued as a centre of learning, with two early Grammar schools with strong links to Oxford University.
The Battle of Stourbridge Heath was a skirmish that took place during the First English Civil War, in which a Parliamentarian contingent under the command of Colonel "Tinker" Fox was defeated by a larger Royalist force under the command of Sir Gilbert Gerard, Governor of Worcester.
William Sandys, 6th Baron Sandys, was a Cavalier officer in the Royalist army during the English Civil War.
The short siege of Worcester was conducted by a Parliamentary army of about 3,000 under the command of Sir William Waller. They failed to capture the city, which was defended by about 1,700 Royalists under the command of Colonel William Sandys the acting governor, and retreated back to the Parliamentary stronghold of Gloucester.
The siege of Lichfield occurred on 8–21 April 1643 during the First English Civil War. During the military action, the Royalists under the command of Prince Rupert successfully besieged the Parliamentary garrison of Lichfield in Staffordshire under the command of Colonel Russell.