The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England, and was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentarian New Model Army, 28,000 strong, defeated King Charles II's 16,000 Royalists, of whom the vast majority were Scottish.
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Cromwell's plan of battle divided his army into three parts, each part having a specific target: Colonel Robert Lilburne from Lancashire and Major Mercer with the Worcestershire horse were to secure Bewdley Bridge on the enemy's line of retreat. Lambert and Fleetwood were to force their way across the Teme and attack St John's, the western suburb of Worcester. Cromwell himself and the main army were to attack the town itself.
This plan was executed, and in the opinion of C.F. Atkinson the author of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article on the Civil War, the Battle of Worcester was indeed—as a German critic, Fritz Hoenig, pointed out—the prototype of the Battle of Sedan. Worcester resembled Sedan in much more than outward form. Both were fought by "nations in arms", by citizen soldiers who had their hearts in the struggle, and could be trusted not only to fight their hardest but to march their best. Only with such troops would a general dare to place a deep river between the two halves of his army or to send away detachments beforehand to reap the fruits of victory, in certain anticipation of winning the victory with the remainder. The result was, in brief, one of those rare victories in which a pursuit is superfluous.
This plan was executed, and in the opinion of C.F. Atkinson the author of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article on the Civil War, the Battle of Worcester was indeed—as a German critic, Fritz Hoenig, pointed out—the prototype of the Battle of Sedan. Worcester resembled Sedan in much more than outward form. Both were fought by "nations in arms", by citizen soldiers who had their hearts in the struggle, and could be trusted not only to fight their hardest but to march their best. Only with such troops would a general dare to place a deep river between the two halves of his army or to send away detachments beforehand to reap the fruits of victory, in certain anticipation of winning the victory with the remainder. The result was, in brief, one of those rare victories in which a pursuit is superfluous.
