Battle of Langport - Battle

Battle

The battle of Langport took place the next day. Goring had occupied a strong rearguard position to cover the withdrawal of his slow-moving artillery and baggage. His main force held a ridge running north to south, a mile east of Langport. In front of the ridge was a marshy valley occupied by a stream named the Wagg Rhyne. Only a single narrow lane lined with trees and hedges ran across the stream via a ford, and up to the top of the ridge. Goring placed two light guns in position to fire down the lane, and disposed two raw units of Welsh foot soldiers in the hedges. Three bodies of horse (Goring's Life Guard, and Goring's and Sir Arthur Slingsby's Regiments) waited at the top of the ridge. Goring hoped that Fairfax would be forced to make time-consuming outflanking moves.

Fairfax was prepared to rely on the superior morale of his cavalry to overcome Goring's position. While his artillery silenced Goring's two light guns, he sent 1500 detached musketeers through the marshes to clear the Welsh infantry from the hedges. He then ordered two 'divisions' (half regiments of horse) to charge up the lane. These two divisions were from regiments (Fairfax's and Whalley's) which had originally been part of Oliver Cromwell's double regiment of Ironsides before being merged into the New Model Army.

The first division under Major Christopher Bethel galloped up the lane four abreast, deployed into a line and charged and broke two of the Royalist cavalry regiments. A third Royalist regiment counter-attacked but the second division of Parliamentarian horse under Major John Desborough charged and routed them. As more Parliamentarian reinforcements streamed up the lane, Goring's men broke and fled the field.

Cromwell halted his well-disciplined cavalry at the top of the ridge until his forces had reformed. Then they moved rapidly in pursuit. Goring had set fire to Langport to delay the pursuers and tried to rally his army two miles further on, but his army dissolved as Cromwell's troopers approached, abandoning their baggage and most of their weapons. Many of the fugitives were attacked by local clubmen who had banded together to resist exactions by the armies of both sides in the Civil War.