Battlefields Trust London & South East

Historical Background
On 22 August 1642, King Charles I raised the royal standard at Nottingham - a time honoured means for assembling retainers for military service, but in effect a declaration of war. Lacking troops to face parliament, the king proceeded to Shrewsbury where he assembled his forces.

On 13 July 1642, parliament had commissioned the Earl of Essex as its Captain General. Essex was an officer with experience in Dutch service during the Thirty Years War and had served as the second in command during the ill-fated war against the Scots in 1639. By mid-September Essex had assembled a force of over 15,000 men at Northampton and had been ordered by parliament to "..march with such forces as you think fit, towards the Army raised in his Majesties Name against the Parliament and Kingdom. And you shall use your utmost Endeavours, by Battle or otherwise, to rescue his Majesty's Person, and the Persons of the Prince and Duke of York, out of the hands of those desperate persons who are now about them". Essex marched from Northampton to Worcester, depleting his army to garrison towns along his line of communication.

On 12 October, having learnt that Essex was no longer between the royal army and London, the king ordered an advance on the capital with the intention of ending the war at a stroke. Slowed by its artillery train the royal army covered 100 miles from Shrewsbury to Banbury in ten days, arriving late on 22 October. Essex became aware of the King's departure from Shrewsbury by 18 October and marched the parliamentary army east, arriving in the vicinity of Edgehill on 22 October. Made aware of the proximity of the parliamentary forces, the king ordered his army to draw up on Edgehill in the early morning of 23 October.

Both armies fought each other to a standstill during the battle that day, but Essex left the king in possession of the field and fell back to Warwick to rally his broken units. Essex subsequently retreated back to London via Northampton, Woburn and St Albans arriving in the capital on 7 November. The royalists meanwhile occupied Banbury (24 October), Oxford (29 October) and Reading (4 November) as they advanced slowly on London.

On 10 November the King marched from Maidenhead to Colnbrook, whilst, according the Venetian Ambassador, parliamentary London was in a "great stir" at the prospect of a royalist attack. With the king's army deployed in a wide area to the west of London, including at Colnbrook, Egham, Ashford and Windsor, parliament voted to open peace negotiations with the royalists and members of both Houses of Parliament were sent to treat with the king, meeting him in Colnbrook on 11 November. The King agreed to talks at Windsor and the message was received "by both Houses with a great deal of joy" on 12 November.

The Battle
Parliament believed the king had promised to enter into peace negotiations and not attack London, but by early on the morning of 11 November the Royalists had decided to re-supply its troops with match, powder and shot ready to march from Colnbrook towards London the next day. A tertio of three Royalist regiments at Windsor, which was to be involved in the assault on Brentford, had been similarly re-provisioned on 10 November. During the morning of 12 November the royal army assembled on Hounslow Heath expecting to encounter parliamentary forces. Finding none, Rupert apparently intended to take command of the troops for the assault on Brentford, but General Patrick Ruthven Earl of Forth, a 69 year old officer with long military experience in Swedish service who would be made Earl of Brentford in 1644, came up and took overall control of royalist forces whilst Rupert retained command of the horse.

Whilst all the royal army, which probably totalled around 12,000 men, appears to have advanced to Hounslow, not all was engaged at Brentford. A parliamentary account refers to the royalist strength at Brentford being eight regiments of foot, twenty troops of horse and six pieces of artillery. But a royalist account describes six foot regiments being involved in the fighting in Brentford. Working from a number of contemporary accounts and, less reliably, restoration quarter session rolls and petitions, elements from at least eight royalist foot regiments and three cavalry regiments can be identified as being directly involved in the battle. Estimates based on surviving pay warrants from 16 and 24 November 1642 for the foot regiments and the Edgehill order of battle for those of the cavalry suggest that up to 3,800 royalist foot and 800 cavalry might have been engaged at Brentford; only just over one third of the forces available to the king. At Colnbrook the royalists also appear to have readied four cannon, two four-pounder minions and two nine-pounder demi-culverins, each with twenty rounds of shot for the advance on Brentford with the remainder of the artillery train following behind.

For parliament, New Brentford/Brentford End (the western part of modern day Brentford either side of the River Brent) was defended by Denzil Hollis' regiment of foot consisting probably around 800 men with Lord Brooke's regiment of foot of 480 men seemingly in Old Brentford (the eastern part of modern day Brentford). These regiments had arrived in Brentford by the morning of 11 November 1642. They were short of arms, match, bullet and powder and ransacked the shops in Brentford for supplies. According to John Lilburne, the future political radical who was then serving as a captain in Brooke's regiment, although the foot were supported by 10 or 12 troops of cavalry, most of the parliamentary horse fled on hearing of the royalist attack, leaving, apparently, only a troop commanded by Captain Robert Vivers. The parliamentary forces also seem to have had two or three artillery pieces.

The royalist attack appears initially to have been made by cavalry to the west of Brentford, probably along the London Road. Given that the royal army had to march from various locations west of London and assemble on Hounslow Heath before commencing the advance on Brentford, it seems unlikely that the attack commenced much before midday, a view supported by contemporary parliamentary news books and a letter written shortly after the battle from the Parliamentary Committee of Safety in London to the Herefordshire committee. Many accounts of the battle make reference to the heavy mist over Brentford that day which helped the royalists achieve tactical surprise.

Sir Richard Bulstrode, serving in the Prince of Wales' regiment of horse, noted that his regiment was forced to retreat after being surprised by parliamentary artillery placed behind a great hedge and had to await the arrival of the Royalist foot before pressing the attack. Moses Glover's 1635 map of the Manor of Isleworth around Brentford shows a number of enclosures either side of the London Road and the modern topography aligns well with the 17th century boundaries on the Thames side of the road. The fields were a mixture of arable and pasture and would have necessitated some form of enclosure, probably hedges, to prevent animals straying or eating crops in adjacent fields. The wide extent of enclosure around Brentford negated the utility of the Royalist cavalry and caused the engagement to become an infantry battle primarily, though not exclusively, involving musketeers.

John Gwyn, a soldier serving in Sir Thomas Salusbury's Welsh regiment of foot, indicates that the first Parliamentary forces, almost certainly of Denzil Hollis' red coated regiment of "butchers and dyers", were engaged by the Royalists at Sir Richard Wynn's house, west of Brentford End, as well as along the Thames, presumably in the vicinity of Syon House. Just before his regiment went into battle, Sir Thomas is said to have told his men "gentlemen, you lost your honour at Edgehill, I hope you will regain it here". Whilst the mist and the associated stillness might have diminished some of the sights and sounds of this initial engagement, the discharge of cannon must surely have been heard in Brentford. But no parliamentary reinforcements appear to have been sent from Brentford to support the detachment at Sir Richard Wynn's house. One possible explanation for this inactivity is provided by Lilburne who claims that on hearing of the royalist attack the remainder of Denzil Hollis' and Lord Brook's regiments, which were both lacking senior officers, began retreating to London and only his intervention caused them to return to Brentford to fight. Setting aside the self-serving aspects of Lilburne's account, such confusion could explain why the initial defence was not reinforced from Brentford. In addition, parliament, in the light of the peace negotiation agreement it judged it had with the King, had ordered that "�[its] soldiers should exercise no acts of hostility against any of [the king's] people" and this command alone might explain some of the inaction.

The Parliamentary pickets at Sir Richard Wynn's House were cleared and the Royalists advanced to find the entrance to New Brentford blocked by a small barricade, probably at the bridge across the River Brent. A further Royalist attack, with overwhelming numbers - one Royalist account talks of 1,000 musketeers, dislodged the Parliamentary troops in under one hour and forced them to retreat from this defensive position to another "work", probably a barricade, between New and Old Brentford, and join Lord Brooke's regiment of foot. The approaches to this new position were covered by a brick house and by two small pieces of artillery and, on the basis of the 1635 map of Isleworth Manor, the barricade is likely to have been positioned at the top of the ground that rises eastward through the western end of Old Brentford. This position could easily have been described by someone who did not know the area as being between the two towns. The Royalist forces seem to have had some difficulty in overcoming this obstacle. A Royalist soldier writing a few days after the battle noted that "my Colonel's (Sir Edward Fitton) regiment was the sixth that was brought up to assault, after five others had all discharged, whose happy honour it was (assisted by God, and a new piece of cannon newly come up) to drive them from that worke too". Gwyn also implies the fighting was hard throughout the battle when describing Royalist tactics as "after once firing suddenly to advance up to push of pikes and the butt end of muskets".

Parliamentary troops driven from this position are said to have routed; some through Old Brentford toward London but others into the River Thames with a significant number drowning, though probably less than the 200 claimed in one Royalist account. The parliamentary troops forced into the Thames must have been prevented from retreating toward London by Royalist forces that had either worked around the right flank of the Parliamentary defensive position through the enclosure and houses - making the barricade position untenable, or by a sudden breakthrough, exploited by the royalists with speed, that forced the Parliamentarians defending the left flank anchored on the river to surrender or swim.

The Royalists continued their advance through Old Brentford only to encounter fresh Parliamentary troops in an open field outside the town, possibly as far as Turnham Green. These were the green coats of John Hampden's regiment of foot, which were said (unsourced) by one nineteenth century historian to have come from Uxbridge, but are more likely to have advanced from Acton. According to one Parliamentary news sheet, Hampden's troops charged the Royalist forces five times in order to cover the retreat of what remained of Hollis' and Brooke's regiments toward Hammersmith. By now it was late afternoon and, with the light fading and Royalist forces exhausted from over four hours of combat, the opposing forces disengaged.

Aftermath
Once captured, Brentford was sacked, according to the Venetian ambassador, on Prince Rupert's orders. After drinking heavily the Royalist soldiers were said to have taken "money, linnen, wollen, bedding, wearing apparell, horses, cows, swine, hens, and all manner of victuals. Also pewter, brasse, Iron pots and kettles". The damage was so great that Parliament ordered that all parishes in London should contribute to the relief of Brentford's inhabitants and money was still being paid for this purpose in 1654. Whilst subsequent Parliamentary news books made much propaganda from the Royalist sack of Brentford, the Parliamentarian search for provisions in Brentford prior to the attack must have been responsible for at least some of the spoil.

The Parliamentary forces suffered in the action. According to Royalist accounts between six and eleven colours were captured, suggesting at least that many broken companies, and a number of officers, including a lieutenant colonel, two majors, some captains and other junior officers were killed. The burial registers of St Lawrence's Church Brentford for November and December 1642 record the interment of two Parliamentary captains and three lieutenants. At least two Parliamentary officers were also captured, captains Robert Vivers and John Lilburne. Accounts of casualty and prisoner numbers vary, but it appears that at around fifty Parliamentary soldiers were killed in the battle, with perhaps more drowning during the rout. Others would have succumbed to wounds following the battle. Four hundred Parliamentary prisoners were said to have been taken, but 140 were released shortly after the action; the remainder apparently enlisting with the Royalists. Perhaps the fact which best illustrates the impact of the battle on Hollis' and Brooke's regiments is that by early 1643 both had been disbanded, though in the case of the latter, Brooke's death at the siege of Lichfield in March 1643 is likely to have been the ultimate cause. Royalist losses are poorly recorded in contemporary accounts. One account details the deaths of sixteen men, including one captain and two lieutenants and the king, in a subsequent letter to Parliament, claimed ten Royalist dead. One unsubstantiated account suggests the Royalist dead were removed to Hounslow Heath.

On the 13 November 1642, the London Trained Bands were called out by the Earl of Essex and deployed with the Parliamentary field army, then mustered at Chelsea fields, to Turnham Green. Three thousand Parliamentary troops were also quartered at Kingston-upon-Thames and there was discussion amongst the Parliamentary command about ordering these forces to Hounslow in an attempt to encircle the king. But Essex, despite having around 24,000 men at Turnham Green, appears to have been reluctant to risk the troops at Kingston as a separate force and instead ordered their redeployment to the City via the south bank of the Thames.

Royalist accounts refer to Parliamentary troops and/or equipment also moving down the Thames by boat from Kingston. This appears to have been either to reinforce the Parliamentarian army at Turnham Green or to defend the approaches to London from Kent, which at that time was viewed as a potential source of Royalist threat. The most contemporary, Royalist, account indicates that fourteen barges with 600 troops and thirteen pieces of artillery passed by Brentford on the morning of 13 November. These were spotted by Royalist musketeers in Syon House and engaged. The action reportedly sank four or five vessels with the remainder being captured, with eight pieces of artillery, by the Royalists. But this appears improbable. The likelihood of musketeers alone sinking any vessel is remote. A separate Parliamentary account is more credible and indicates that eight barges were laden with cannon, powder, match, bullets and ammunition at Kingston and rowed down the Thames on the night of 12 November. The barges came under musket fire from Syon House as they passed by on the Thames and three or four crew members were injured. But between Old Brentford and the modern day Kew bridge the Royalists had deployed cannon covering the river and, judging they had no chance of escape, the Parliamentarian crews blew-up the powder in the barges and scuttled them.

Gwyn also refers to a barge with soldiers and ammunition being blown up by Sir Charles Lloyd "or some other engineer", but he may have conflated this single sinking with a separate incident which appears to have occurred on 13 November. According to a Parliamentarian pamphlet, on that afternoon two Thames guard ships attacked Syon House with cannon, damaging the house substantially. The Royalist counter-fire, from cannon located on the top of Syon House and "lower", was largely ineffective; the former apparently because it overshot the ships and the latter because it was inconvenient to use, potentially because it was may have been sited in water meadow. However, one of the vessels was sunk by Royalist fire, according to the pamphlet, due to the skill of the king's engineers. This appears to fit with other Royalist and Parliamentarian accounts which refer to one or two vessels being sunk. But it also possibly implies, taking Gwyn's account into consideration and given the ineffectiveness of the Royalist artillery, that some method other than cannon fire was used to sink the ship.

Back at Turnham Green, the king's forces were faced by the Essex's field army and Major General Philip Skippon's London Trained Bands. Neither side appeared willing to commit to battle and, with his army at a numerical disadvantage, the king ordered a retreat covered by dragoons at Brentford. The Royal army recovered to Hounslow Heath and then went on to Kingston and Reading before retiring to winter quarters in and around Oxford.

Conclusions
Whilst Brentford had been a tactical victory for the Royalists, the campaign had not been a strategic success. The king had lost the opportunity to end the war by taking London. This had, in part, been because of the slow Royalist advance on London; if the Royal army had reached the capital before Essex, the balance of forces would have been much more equal. But the attack and sack of Brentford, when in the midst of peace negotiations, also hardened Parliamentarian sentiment against accommodation and rallied opinion in favour of a stand against the king. The king appears to have realised the impact of his actions belatedly. As his army moved toward Oxford, he wrote to Parliament claiming that the battle at Brentford had resulted because both armies were in such close proximity, that he had been unable to prevent the clash and that he was still willing to continue negotiations. However, he also justified the attack on the grounds that to have let Parliament's forces garrison Brentford would have left the Royal army surrounded, with Parliamentary troops in the Colnbrook area and at Windsor, Kingston, Uxbridge and Acton.

Overall, the decision by the Royalists to attack Brentford appears to have been made on the basis of a perceived military necessity, probably with Prince Rupert's encouragement. Nonetheless, the king's claims that he only ordered the advance on Brentford after the Parliamentarian commissioners had left Colnbrook on 11 November were clearly disingenuous. Poor intelligence on both sides, particularly the assessment of enemy intent, also played some part. But the king's fortunes were running high and, focused on the goal identified at the start of the campaign - the capture of London, it seems likely that the strategy had developed a momentum of its own. In these circumstances and regardless of Parliamentary efforts to broker peace, a Royalist attack on London was almost inevitable.

The Walk
Distance: 2½ Miles
Time: 45 Minutes to 1 Hour

The walk commences from the Magistrates court on the A315, London Road. Leaving the court head west along London Road toward Isleworth, crossing Brentford Bridge and continuing for a further third of a mile until just beyond the old gates to Syon Park (1). Here to the south lies the approximate location of Sir Richard Wynn's House where first contact was made between Royalist and Parliamentary troops. Looking through the gates at the present day topography gives some idea as to the nature of the ground in 1642.

Retracing this route, head approximately one quarter of a mile toward Brentford and follow the footpath on the south side of the road toward Syon House (2). The House, owned at the time of the battle by Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland and member of the Parliamentary Peace Party, was captured by Royalist forces early in the battle and used early the following day to spot the movement of Parliamentary reinforcements moving down from Kingston and was the subject of bombardment by Parliamentary ships on 13 November 1642.

Return again to the London Road and walk east to Brentford Bridge (3), where Hollis's Regiment probably erected a barricade to defend the town. Continue east into Brentford passing the Magistrates Court and continue along the High Street. Outside the County Court beyond Half Acre is a pillar (4) with a plaque commemorating the battle as well as a battle in 1016 between Canute and Edmund Ironside. The top of the climb of the High Street (5) 200 yards beyond the County Court probably marks the location of the second Parliamentary barricade. Continue for a further half mile through what was Old Brentford. The close proximity of this part of the High Street to the Thames possibly explains why many of the routing Parliamentary troops attempted to swim to safety. At Kew Bridge (6) look toward the river to see the line of sight that the Royalist gunners would have had when the Parliamentary barges came up the river from Kingston on the night of 12 November. Beyond the bridge toward Turnham Green (7), the Royalists pursued the Parliamentarians to an open field where Hampden's regiment covered the retreat of the routing Parliamentary troops.

A map of the walk: