William Vaughan (Royalist)
English Royalist commander of the English Civil War
Sir William Vaughan (died 1649) was a cavalry officer in the armies of Charles I of England. Initially serving in Ireland during the Confederate Wars, the outbreak of the First English Civil War led to him being sent to England in 1644, at the head of an Anglo-Irish cavalry regiment, to reinforce the Royalist army.
Appointed General of Horse for the area of Wales and the Marches, he was involved in a large number of battles and skirmishes in the north and west, including the defeat of the last Royalist field army at Stow, where he was wounded but escaped capture.
Vaughan subsequently rejoined Royalist forces in Ireland, where he was killed at the Battle of Rathmines.
Life
Almost nothing is known of Vaughan's early life, though he is often supposed to have been a member of one of the several landowning Vaughan families of Shropshire or Herefordshire. He is usually identified as the William Vaughan who was admitted to Shrewsbury School in 1596, based on a note by a later school headmaster Thomas Challoner, which would suggest his birth date was around 1585. He had at least two brothers: Charles, a parson, and James, noted as a captain in William's regiment in 1645; records suggest the three were nephews of Sir John Vaughan, a Welsh associate of Lord Docwra who came to Ireland in 1599 before becoming governor of Derry.
Having previously served on the Continent, by 1643 Vaughan had joined the forces of Charles I fighting the Confederate rebels in Ireland; he was knighted by the Lords Justices for his service under Grenville at the Battle of Rathconnell in February. At the end of January 1644 the Royalist commander Ormonde gave him a cavalry regiment originally intended for Sir Thomas Lucas and sent them to England. Landing at Neston, Vaughan's regiment joined Byron's Royalist forces at Chester and on 25 March Vaughan and Colonel Ellice defeated local Parliamentarian commander Thomas Mytton in a skirmish at Lilleshall.
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