1. Introduction
  2. The Civil War
  3. Naseby Campaign
  4. The Approach
  5. Formal Phase
  6. The Retreat
  7. The Flight
  8. The Aftermath
  9. The Armies
  10. Furthur Reading

The Fighting Retreat,
Noon to perhaps 3.30pm

Traditional accounts speak of the Royalist flight to Leicester immediately after the Bluecoats were overcome. The archaeological evidence proves a different tale, but one hard to relate to the eye-witness accounts we have.

Musketeers in action Line of Retreat The archaeological evidence for the fighting retreat

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All the way north, as far as the Sibbertoft to Clipston road, bands of shot lie across the route, suggesting a recurrent firefight, men turning to loose a volley on their pursuers and covering the retreat of their comrades before themselves falling back under the covering fire of others. At the junction with the Kelmarsh road the shot begins to make a huge arc, turning clockwise to the east as it crosses the Clipston road, fire emanating, it would seem, from the Royalist baggage train to their right.

The Last Stand at Wadborough

The flag marking the route from East Farndon had flown, or perhaps was still flying, on Moot Hill, to which this scatter of shot leads, and here another phase of resistance flared up. How long it lasted one cannot say, but the eastern slope has nothing but pistol shot: a cavalry attack on fleeing foot.

Cavalry engage pike Moot Hill The archaeological evidence for the fight on Wadborough Hill Detailed view of the archaeological evidence for the fight on Wadborough Hill

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Between Moot Hill and Wadborough, the next height to the east, the valley was thick with shot laid down as two forces stood opposed on opposite sides. To the south were the thick hedges of another enclosure, Englands, the inland stock-holding field of the deserted village of Nobold, and beyond it the road between Clipston and Sibbertoft, now jammed with fugitive Royalist camp-followers. The pursuing horse could not get through the hedges and the Royalist flank on Wadborough was therefore protected, but not just by the hedges; the field was filled with running women and servants, unable to escape by the road and seeking to get away through the gate on the Clipston side. Many failed.

To the north of Wadborough the shot traces grow more slender as fewer survived to resist, but show the routes men followed towards East Farndon, Market Harborough and Marston Trussell, turning and fighting and running to turn and fight again.