Battle of Hopton Heath
1643 battle of the First English Civil War
The Battle of Hopton Heath was a part of the First English Civil War, fought on Sunday 19 March 1643 between Parliamentarian forces led by Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet of Hopton and Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet and the Royalist forces under Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton.
Background
On 6 March 1643, Sir John Gell successfully captured the town of Lichfield in Staffordshire. Gell then decided that he would attack the Royalist stronghold at Stafford which protected the Royalist's supply route between the ports of Yorkshire and their capital at Oxford.
To capture such a garrison, however, Gell would need reinforcements and therefore he arranged to meet and combine forces with the cavalry of Cheshire commander Sir William Brereton. The two Parliamentary leaders decided to meet at Hopton Heath on the 19th of the month.
Meanwhile King Charles had sent an expeditionary force under the command of the Earl of Northampton on a mission to take control of the West Midlands and Staffordshire. Northampton had joined forces with Royalist allies led by Henry Hastings at Tamworth and on 18 March they arrived at Stafford.
Battle
On the morning of 19 March, Gell arrived at Hopton Heath. The Royalist forces became aware of the presence of the Parliamentarians mid-morning and shortly thereafter they began their preparations to advance to Hopton Heath. At 14:00 hours, Brereton arrived at the heath.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Battle of Hopton Heath” as 1643 battle of the First English Civil War. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as 1643 battle of the First English Civil War. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1164151. Authority coordinates are 52.833, -2.067. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1643.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Hopton Heath” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.