Leicestershire in the First Civil War, 1642-46

During the Civil War, Leicestershire witnessed few major battles and only one significant siege, yet the county was fought over for four years. Numerous skirmishes and sieges left their mark, while the demands and exactions imposed by both sides ultimately left the county impoverished and devastated.

The two factions within Leicestershire were each led by a younger son of one of the county’s leading families: the Greys for Parliament and the Hastings for the King. Yet loyalties were far from straightforward. Members of these families fought on opposing sides at various points during the conflict, while many other families across the county were similarly divided.

Leicestershire in the Civil War, 1642–46 examines the Parliamentarian and Royalist forces operating within the county and the military events that shaped its experience of the war.

The extent of Leicestershire’s suffering was vividly described in a Parliamentarian pamphlet of 1645: “Poor Leicestershire has suffered much spoil and misery ever since the destruction and war began in this Kingdom, and has seldom had any time of intermission from rapine, plunder, robbery, cruelty and ruination and now the calamities are freshly revived amongst them and the present seat of war is fixed there, to the utter impoverishment of that fertile county.”

Drawing extensively on primary source material, much of it previously unused or unknown, Leicestershire in the Civil War, 1642–46 focuses on events within the county and the actions of the forces that fought there. Providing a detailed account of the impact of the Civil War on Leicestershire and its inhabitants, it will be of particular interest to military and local historians alike.