ABSTRACT
Rupert’s march to York was not a rash and unconsidered response to the crisis caused by the disaster at Selby but the outcome of lengthy, and at times agonizing, engagement with the quandary at the heart of Royalist strategic thinking, namely how to apportion scarce resources in such a way as to be able to conduct a war effectively on two fronts, one to the north of the Trent and the other in the Thames valley. For the first year and a half of the war, resources had moved very largely from the north to the south. Indeed, Oxford, the headquarters for the southern theatre of war, would have been untenable had not two large convoys of arms and ammunition arrived there from York, the northern headquarters, in May and July 1643 escorted by troops from Newcastle’s command. However, the invasion of England by the Scots, promised in the Solemn League and Covenant in September 1643 and delivered when the Scottish army under the Earl of Leven crossed the Tweed on 19th January 1644, changed the situation completely. Now the northern theatre of war was the more threatened. The Scottish army combined with the Parliamentary troops in Lincolnshire, Lancashire and the East Riding of Yorkshire outnumbered Newcastle’s army by two to one. Moreover, the army of the Eastern Association could operate in either theatre of war depending on military priorities. Not surprisingly, the marquis looked to the south for military assistance commensurate with that which his command had provided earlier in the war for the Thames valley theatre of war.
