ABSTRACT
On 23 March 1648 Pembroke Castle, throughout the first civil war a solid Parliamentarian garrison in South Wales, declared for the King. The motives of the governor (Colonel Poyer) were mixed, based upon frustration with the political events at London, despair at not receiving back pay, and resentment towards the New Model. On 28 April royalists and Scots under Sir Marmaduke Langdale occupied Berwick, Carlisle fell on the 29th, and in mid-May the county of Kent erupted, royalists and ex-parliamentarians co-operating to take several places, including Rochester and Dartford. The fleet in the Downs mutinied against its Indepenedent commanders. Sir Thomas Fairfax was in a difficult position, having only the New Model with which to cope with all theatres of war, and facing imminent Scottish invasion in support of the rebels. In his favour was the lack of coordination amongst the enemy-the insurrection in Wales appears to have been inordinately premature. Cromwell was sent at once into South Wales, whilst the major New Model garrisons were Newcastle upon Tyne, Oxford and Gloucester, with field forces of small size in North Wales, Yorkshire and Cheshire. The revolt in Wales soon collapsed: Rowland Laugharne, a former parliamentarian commander, was defeated at St Fagan’s, Tenby and Chepstow Castles fell, and by the end of May 1648 Cromwell lay before Pembroke.
