Shortly after the skirmish at Stone Bridge, Northfleet, the Royalist rebels faced a conclusive showdown with General Fairfax and his Parliamentarian, New Model Army at Maidstone. The battle, fought later that same day, 1st June 1648, was fought in a raging summer thunderstorm. A metaphor for the chaos that was unleashed on that bloody, summer’s evening.
Fairfax Deploys the New Model Army in Kent
Before the decisive clash at Maidstone, General Fairfax had split his original force of men of the New Model Army. Part of this force was sent to relieve Dover Castle, which had been under Royalist rebel siege, some to Rochester and some to Maidstone. The force sent to Rochester, which had been involved in the skirmish at Stone Bridge, found it well-defended and returned to the north bank of the Medway, rejoining Fairfax’s main force at Malling.
The Earl of Norwich and the Kentish Royalist Rebels
Meanwhile, the Royalist command in the Home Counties fell to George Goring, the Earl of Norwich, assisted by Sir Gamaliel Dudley, the Governor of Maidstone, his Lieutenant Sir John Mainey and Sir Edward Hales of Tenterden, who had been a key figure in raising the rebel army for the King in Kent and had also been involved in an attempt to free the King from Roundhead imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle.
The Royalists had managed to recruit around 11,000 rebels (many of whom more resembled an armed mob than an army), and mustered many of them to the north of Maidstone, around Kit’s Coty and Penenden Heath. Detachments were sent to Maidstone, earthworks and barricades were erected and a cannon was positioned at the top of Gabriel’s hill. Fairfax knew of the rebel’s deployments and elected not to approach Maidstone from the North or West, instead, a screening force was deployed at Aylesford, and his main force headed south.
Fairfax Outflanks the Roylist Rebels at East Farleigh
Fairfax’s masterstroke was to outflank Goring’s Royalist force by crossing the Medway at the poorly defended East Farleigh bridge, late in the afternoon of 1st June 1648. The New Model Army were able to brush aside the small Royalist picket who had been defending the bridge, which was to prove fatal to the Royalist cause. On hearing this news, Norwich sent Colonel William Brockman with another 800 men to reinforce Maidstone, bringing the garrison up to around 4000 men.
Storm of Steel: The Battle of Maidstone
Fairfax’s intention was to storm Maidstone the next day, but the leading elements of his force became involved in heavy skirmishing with Brockman’s troops. Fairfax’s New Model Army was soon drawn into intense street-to-street fighting and so the battle commenced in the late evening in heavy, torrential rain.
The Parliamentarians fighting pushed their way down Tovil Lane and Stone Street, across the River Len and up Gabriel’s Hill, forcing back Royalist pikemen while Musketeers fired on them from the houses on either side. Braving the point-blank fire of the guns at the top of Gabriel’s Hill the Parliamentarians stormed the guns and pushed the remaining Royalists back along Weeke Street into the grounds of St Faith’s church.
Parliamentarian George Thompson recounted the assault on Maidstone in a letter:
The fight began at 7 at night, about a mile from Maidstone and before we could beat them from hedge to hedge and get at the barricades it was past 9 o’clock. After we entered the town we disputed every street and the enemy had 8 pieces of ordinance which they discharged about 20 times when our men came into the streets. And by God’s mighty help and assistance we overcame them between 12 and 1, being every minute of the time firing upon them and they upon us… There were in all 200 slain in and about the town. Captain Prize, a gallant and honest man, and Colonel Hewson’s Captain Lft was also slain of ours and about 30 men most of them fell at the cannon’s mouth with case shot.
Norwich decided to lead further reinforcements into Maidstone, but meeting resistance, and fearing that the fate of the town was sealed he withdrew his forces towards Rochester.
Despite their inexperience, the Kentish, Royalist, rebels fought bravely, with each street barricade ferociously defended. However, they were fighting against the battle-hardened, professional troops of the New Model Army, and stood no chance of victory. The rebels finally accepted defeat at midnight at the height of a wild electric storm. The last act of the battle was the surrender of the remaining Royalist garrison at St Faith’s church sometime after midnight, leaving Fairfax’s army victorious.
Fairfax shows mercy to the defeated Royalists at All Soul’s Church Maidstone
The lads who had joined the rebellion from Crayford were almost certainly amongst the Royalist rebels who surrendered on that storm-lashed night. Three hundred rebels were killed and a thousand were taken prisoner and held captive in All Saints Church. Having acquitted themselves well in a bloody defence against the professionals of the New Model Army, Fairfax showed them mercy. After being disarmed, they were allowed by Fairfax to return home.
We know from records that Crayford men were among those later fined for their part in the Kentish insurrection. We can imagine that of those men fined, some would have been among those released from All Souls church by Fairfax and allowed to return home to Crayford. We can imagine the miserable march home. Just a week before, they had marched triumphantly along the Dover Road joining the rebel battle cry:
‘For Kent, King Charles and Christmas!’
Crayford’s Royalist Rebels Defeated
They had hoped that the Kent petition would turn back the clock and restore what they saw as the happy times that had existed before the war. They thought that the return of King Charles I would achieve this. However, the Crayfordian rebels were to be disappointed. We know just a few of the Royalist, Crayfordian rebels: Rector Edward May, Churchwarden Thomas Andrews, William Parry, George Binny, Dan Esterson, Thomas Laurence, Richard Wiles and Richard Willcocks. Artist Kate Morton was asked to picture them, drenched by the summer storm surrendering outside All Souls church in Maidstone that fateful night.
The Royalist’s losses at Maidstone were severe, with around three hundred dead, one thousand four hundred men taken prisoner and eight guns captured. Parliament claimed to have lost only eighty men. The mismatch of the untrained Royalist Kentish rebels against the military machine that was the New Model Army is clear in these figures.
The End of the Second Civil War and Defeat of the Royalist Rebels
As a result of this Parliamentary victory, the still sizeable Royalist force of around 6,000 men dispersed from Burham Heath with the bulk retreating northwards under the Earl of Norwich with a view to regrouping and taking London itself. When they found the city gates were closed, the remnant of the Royalist force moved on into Essex with Fairfax in hot pursuit. The retreating Royalists decided to make their defence from the Earl of Norwich’s home town of Colchester on 13 June 1648. Here the rebels were besieged by Fairfax and finally surrendered in late August after some ten weeks of deprivation and famine.
All hope had been lost for the rebels besieged at Colchester, when Cromwell defeated a Royalist Scots army, commanded by the Duke of Hamilton, at the Battle of Preston. The Scottish army had hoped to restore Charles II to the throne and create a unified Presbyterian church for England and Scotland. However, defeat dashed Royalist hopes of victory and ended the Second Civil War.
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