ABSTRACT
At Stow on the Wold on 8 May 1645, the royalist field army had split: Goring going towards the West Country to tackle Fairfax; Rupert and the King aiming northwards. Fairfax, however, was ordered to leave the West Country and to make for Oxford, whilst Goring, ordered to rejoin the main field army, failed to do so. On 14 May Fairfax came to Newbury, and on the 19th the New Model laid formal siege to Oxford itself, held by Will Legge, a close friend of Prince Rupert and unlikely to panic. For the time being the King continued northwards, reaching Market Drayton on 22 May, his movement causing the earl of Leven in Yorkshire to try to interpose his Scots between the King’s line of march and the successful Montrose in Scotland, thus disrupting parliamentarian efforts in the north. In the King’s rear, however, Evesham was taken by forces out of Gloucester garrison under Edward Massey, whilst Fairfax was himself restive and considered his siege operations around Oxford largely pointless.
