Battle of Naseby Battle of Naseby The Battle of Naseby was a decisive engagement of the English Civil War, fought on 14 June 1645 between the main Royalist army of King Charles I and the Parliamentarian New Model Army, commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. It was fought near the village of Naseby in Northamptonshire. After the Royalists stormed the Parliamentarian town of Leicester on 31st May 1645, Fairfax was ordered to lift his siege of Oxford, the Royalist capital, and engage the King's main army. Eager to bring the Royalists to battle, Fairfax set off in pursuit of the Royalist
Prince Rupert of the Rhine led the relief of Newark and York and its castle. Having marched north, taking Bolton and Liverpool along the way in two bloody assaults, Rupert then intervened in Yorkshire in two highly effective manoeuvres, in the first outwitting the enemy forces at Newark with speed; in the second, striking across country and approaching York from the north. Rupert then commanded much of the royalist army at its defeat at Marston Moor, with much of the blame falling on the poor working relationship between Rupert and the Marquess of Newcastle, and orders from the King that wrongly conveyed a desperate need