On the morning of 5 July 1643, Sir William Waller's Parliamentarian army held the high ground on Lansdown Hill, his cannon commanding the slopes below. Lord Hopton's Royalist forces, bolstered by fiercely loyal Cornish infantry, faced an almost suicidal uphill assault.
The Cornish pikemen, led by Sir Bevil Grenville, had marched all the way from Cornwall as part of a western army that had swept through Devon and Somerset. Twice they charged up the steep, exposed hillside into a storm of musket and cannon fire. Twice they were beaten back. On the third attempt, Grenville's men finally reached the breastworks and overran Waller's guns. But in the hand-to-hand fighting that followed, Grenville was struck on the head with a poleaxe. He was carried to Cold Ashton rectory, where he died.
The Royalists technically won the field. Waller withdrew silently during the night, leaving lit matches along the wall to trick the exhausted Royalists into thinking he still held his position. But the victory was pyrrhic. Royalist casualties numbered between 200 and 300 killed, against perhaps 20 Parliamentarians dead. The following day, an ammunition cart exploded, temporarily blinding Hopton and destroying their remaining powder. The battered army limped to Devizes, so weakened that Waller — in an extraordinary gesture between old friends — offered Hopton hospitality in Bath. He refused.
“The Royalists technically won the field.”
The loss of Grenville proved devastating. He alone could command the loyalty of the Cornish infantry, and without him, the king's cause in the West Country slowly unravelled.
