Talk:Battle of Marston Moor

Untitled
According to Dupuy and Dupuy's Encyclopedia of Military History, the Earl of Manchester was in command of parliamentary forces here. john 21:48 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes, my sources say he was "nominally" in command. The article doesn't make that very clear, does it? Deb 21:59 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)


 * The fall of York is worth mentioning, as there are several unusual aspects to it. Any takers?

The reference to Southern France in the final paragraph - surely not true is it?

Re-write
I have rewritten this article, but it needs alot more information in the background section and the battle. Not to mention copy-editing...better prose...but I've started to cite sources, of which this article needs alot more. Additionally, I don't really have a good grasp of the aftermath or general historical analysis of the outcome.

Also, I have little information on the exact number of troops and their layout before the battle began (who led what, etc). That needs to be expanded, and clarified. Qjuad 13:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The aftermath section mentions the impact that this battle had on driving Royalist forces out of northern England. But I can't tell from this article who actually won the entire war and what impact this battle had on that. CLA 02:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

GA Review
This looks to be a very promising article; just going through it for the GA review, but for the moment I feel I need to put the nomination on hold. There are a few, hopefully easily fixed, issues that I think prevents me from passing it at the moment. I shall try to list them here, so you know what needs addressing.
 * In the lead, I'm curious as to why there is a single reference, at the end of the 2nd paragraph. Personally, I prefer to see a lead without any references, since there shouldn't be anything there that isn't mentioned in more detail in the main article.✅
 * [edit]Oh, and the lead could probably do with being expanded per WP:LEAD. I am, unfortunately, terrible at writing leads, so can't offer any suggestions :(  Carre 14:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)✅
 * First paragraph of Background: Leven should, I think, be named in full (Earl of Leven) and wikilinked.  I know that this is done in the lead, but for some reason I vaguely recall something in MoS that suggests first use excludes the lead (I can't find the relevant part of MoS at the moment, so I could be just imagining it!).  Same with Marquess of Newcastle.✅
 * First para, Background, first sentence: "...Ireland which" requires a comma;  there are a few instances of this – per Fowler, "which" should always be preceded by a comma, and some of them should probably be replaced with "that".  That whole sentence is pretty long, and could perhaps be broken up?  For example:  King Charles negotiated a "cessation" in Ireland, which allowed him to reinforce his armies with English regiments sent to Ireland following the uprising in 1641;[2] the Parliamentarians took an even greater step by signing the Solemn League and Covenant, sealing the alliance with the Scottish Covenanters✅
 * Relief moves section; generally, it's considered a bad thing to have prose sandwiched between two images, as is the case at the top of this section.  Can one of the images be shuffled elsewhere?✅
 * Same section, 2nd para: why is "6,000-foot" hyphenated?✅
 * "allegedly killing" - could do with an immediate citation there; I assume the one at the end of the para covers the whole, but an allegation should really be instantly sourced.✅
 * Lancashire wikilinked multiple times within a section.✅
 * Per WP:MOS, blockquotes shouldn't have quotation marks around them. Similarly, wikilinking within quotes is often frowned upon, although that part of MoS is disputed.✅
 * Third para of this section - repeated use of "ambiguous". I think the first occurrence can be lost without spoiling the prose.✅
 * Dates (day and month) should be wikilinked to allow autoformatting and user preferences to work.✅
 * Prelude sub-section. WP:MOS suggests that times should use am/pm, so 9 o'clock in the morning should become 9 am.✅
 * The allied army sub-section. Shouldn't have "The" in the section header, and the first three paragraphs are unreferenced.  Also, numbers over 1,000 should have a comma separator - I think that applies from here to the end of the article.✅
 * Third para; "14000-foot", again, why the hyphen?✅
 * The royalist army - again, "The" shouldn't be there.✅
 * First para of that section: there are a few statements in there would benefit from direct citation – "It was unfortunate" (POV without citation) and "seem quite insolent" (OR without citation).  Again, benefit of the doubt and all that, I'll assume that ref#21 covers these statements, but you could consider repeating the reference.✅
 * Two unreferenced paragraphs in that section.✅
 * Events: "half-past seven" would, I feel, be better as "7:30 pm" or "19:30" if you prefer the 24-hour clock (but be consistent throughout).✅
 * "right flank of the Allied infantry" -> "Allied infantry's right flank"?✅ No, but stet; looks better as it is.
 * "with no general present"; caps.  Elsewhere you've used General, even when not naming a General, so consistency.  There's another in the last para of this section and again in the 1st para of Aftermath.  Anywhere else?✅
 * "The Whitecoats refused to surrender and repulsed constant allied cavalry charges until the last 30 survivors finally surrendered." - repetition of "surrender". Could the last be changed to "gave in", "capitulated", or some other synonym?✅
 * Penultimate para - needs a citation.✅
 * "An additional blow came in the death of his loyal companion during the battle, his lapdog "Boye", who was a constant companion by his side throughout his campaigns;" - repetition of "companion". Maybe "who was a constant presence at his side throughout..."?  Or something else.✅
 * ", and his own leadership on the battlefield had been crucial to the victory" needs a comma after "battlefield".✅

Hmmm, this list grew a lot more than I was expecting! When I first saw the article, I thought it would be an easy pass, and indeed I don't think any of the above will be particularly hard to address. With a thorough copyedit and more references, I can even see this going to FAC in the near future. Great work! Carre 13:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * A GA hold is only supposed to last seven days. I see some of the above have now been addressed, but not all.  Therefore, I'm giving you a choice – I can extend the on-hold for a bit (will put a note on the GAN page) to give you a bit more time to finish up, or I can fail now and you can renom at a later date.  Up to you.  Please let me know, here or on my talk, within a day or so or I'll just fail anyway, which would be a shame since this is really very close.  Thanks. Carre 13:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Most of these issues look like they can be addressed quickly, so if you would please extend the on-hold deadline by a day or two I'll pitch in with addressing all of the remaining MOS/copyedit issues. --Malleus Fatuarum 16:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Done - give me a shout when you think you're done. I don't think the others over at GAN will shout at me for the extension ;)  Do you have the reference material too Malleus, or are you just going to be sorting out the MOS/prose hoops we all have to jump through?  Cheers. Carre 19:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have some of the reference material, hopefully enough to address the points you've raised if nobody else pitches in to help. Thanks for extending the deadline. I just hate to see an otherwise good article fail GA for the lack of addressing a reviewer's perfectly reasonable concerns. :) --Malleus Fatuarum 21:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[undent]You've done a sterling job here Malleus. The only comments I have remaining are a couple of requests for citations. The first three paragraphs of Scots and Parliamentarians are unreferenced, however, there is little in there that would raise eyebrows. The only sentence that may find itself fact slapped is "This was a common practice in the Swedish army of the Thirty Years' War" (although if the plan is to take this to FAC, you can be fairly sure those folks would want the lot sourced).

The other one is in Aftermath, and the sentence "but they became increasingly undisciplined and licentious, turning many former sympathisers away from the Royalist cause." That's a pretty bold statement to make without a source, I'm sure you agree.

Other than those two requests, it's a lovely job by all concerned. As I said after my first review, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this at FAC soon. I would suggest trying to get a copy-edit done on it before then (I speak from bitter experience - they can get vicious about prose & grammar over there!). MilHist A-class might be a good path to take too. Carre 10:14, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Having put those two statements in myself, though Heaven knows how many months ago, I'll have citations in a couple of hours if you can hold the guillotine blade up. Both are fairly well documented (in Young and in Royle for example). HLGallon 13:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Lovely work everyone; I have no problems passing this at GA now - ArticleHistory placed at the top of the page.  Carre 11:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

And every born man will fight
I don't suppose I'm the only person who's found this page because of the song on ELO's first album. Should that be mentioned? It's not entirely an instrumental and Roy Wood's narration could do with a bit of context. Asat (talk) 03:35, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * By all means, add a Battle in Popular Culture section to the article, but be careful to patrol it; similar sections in other articles have attracted all sorts of non-notable or frivolous information and cruft.HLGallon (talk) 20:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Does anyone know the source of the narration in this Electric Light Orchestra track? Its text is as follows:  "My Lord King, you stoop to betray your own people; and even in the eyes of God, do you not relent?  I am therefore bound by no other course.  I shall raise an army.  Together we will march against you and your kind, and every born man will fight to regain his own freedom, and cleanse his wretched soul."  Is this an actual historical quotation?  In my non-expert judgment, the quote sounds like it more likely belongs to the beginning of the Civil War than to 1644. &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 23:30, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Letter by Arthur Trevor to Lieutenant-General, The Marquis of Ormonde (10 July 1644)
I have not provided a courtesy link to the letter because the site where it lies is on Wikipedi'a black list. But here is the content:

The reason for wanting to in include a mention of "Hessam-Moor" in a footnote is because some older books use that name see for example: and the mention will mean that anyone searching for a battle using an alternative old name will come across this article. -- PBS (talk) 12:38, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
 * — see the last few words on 37 and the first two on 38.

Covenanter Updates
I have been adding some updates to the article, only just getting to grips with policy re using primary sources. Am I right in thinking that the cannot be used directly from a primary source, but CAN be used is quoted in a secondary one? Also I have added back in detail one editor removed about number of Covenanter Regiments. This was established in 1990 by Edward Furgol's work on the composition of the various Covenanter armies, and is quoted by numerous authors. The trouble is it is a cumbersome work to use as it goes alphabetically, so the Marston regiments are not listed together. It has been summarised in Murdoch & Grosjean in one page, which can then be used as a way into Furgol. Enjoying following the evolution of this one Tentsmuir (talk) 12:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)Tentsmuir


 * I have the Furgol book. I see the note you've made to it. It would be a chore to go through each regiment and add page numbers, but it could be done - thoughts? personally I think simply ref the book. Marston is well indexed in it.Thugcat (talk) 18:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The regiments should be listed in the article on Marston Moor order of battle, which at present lists only fifteen and a half regiments (based on Young and other works which in turn are based on Lumsden's map and letter) HLGallon (talk) 20:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at the OdB now and see which are missing and add them in. They are listed on contemoprary sources which i can't quote as they've not been published.Tentsmuir (talk) 09:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Right, I have added in the missing regiments and tied them into the Lumsden Key. By using the letters from the key itself you can see where Young had missed these regiments. I have added reference to the Key, citing the plate reproduced by Young. I have added in citation to Murdoch & Grosjean where they point out how the Key had been misread. I would argue that the Gordon Regiment which does not appear on the Key is actually the one attributed to Fairfax in the Van. None of the eyewitnesses accounts mention a Fairfax regiment there (but they do talk of one in the van of the right wing!). However, Lumsden commanded Gordon's after his main charge (Louden's) had fled. Did he assume command of Gordon's from its commander, or were they originally brigaded with Louden and he was in charge from the start? Anyway, 18 regiments located, Gordon's there, not located, but somewhere front and centre. 19 Covenanter regiments of foot in total. NB - I think one of the Covenanter Horse regimensts listed in this Order of Battle was not at Marston. Would need Furgol to check it. Any takers? Tentsmuir (talk) 10:47, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

James Somerville
I have added a corrective to the James Somerville account. The man who wrote the Somerville account of the battle was a relative trying to write a retrospective account of the lieutenant colonel (and other family members) in a time of Episcopalian ascendancy in Scotland - when all Presbyterians were being demonised in the period known as the Killing Times in Scotland. I add the URL to the account here so that it can easily be seen that this is a retrospective quoting other sources and stating specifically that the author is writing about someone else, for example on p.352 "But now I return to the remaining part of this Gentleman's memorie, haveing again brought him to live a countrey gentleman. Being freed of his military imployement etc .... ": https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eBAXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA489&dq=Memorie+of+the+Somervilles+volume+2&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LFemVOShGpDdav66gPAM&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Yorke&f=false Tentsmuir (talk) 08:46, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Cessation of arms
Maybe I missed it, but the offer by the king of a cessation of arms after the battle, on 04 July 1644, is not mentioned. Any context available? Shtove (talk) 08:28, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Unlikely to be related. The King would not have heard of the result of the battle within two days (York to Evesham is over 250 km as the crow flies, three or four days' journey even by relays of fast horses.) Rupert would have been unlikely to have dispatched a full account of the battle immediately. The King would have been influenced rather by his own recent victory at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge. HLGallon (talk) 09:50, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Add: according to H.C.B. Rogers, "Battles and Generals of the Civil War", p.152, the King first had news of the Battle of Marston Moor while at Bath (pursuing the Earl of Essex's army into the West Country) on 15 July.HLGallon (talk) 10:02, 10 June 2023 (UTC)