In this ongoing series of specially commissioned programmes for the World Turned Upside Down, Peter Gaunt, Professor of History at the University of Chester and author of the acclaimed The English Civil War: A Military History, discusses some of the pivotal battles fought during the conflict.
As Professor Gaunt says in this programme the south-west of England had been a royalist stronghold since 1643, and while northern England, the Midlands and the South, had eventually succumbed to parliamentarian forces, counties such as Devon and Cornwall still fiercely supported the King at the beginning of 1645.
Then, as now, the key route into the region was through Somerset’s county town of Taunton. This was the road taken by the New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax after its victory at Naseby, to confront the royalist western army led by George, Lord Goring. They clashed at Langport and the royalists’ defeat was complete, leaving their survivors retreating westward.
