Cirencester Taken

Within days of Sudeley falling to Massie's parliament troops, Prince Rupert stormed and won the more important prize of Cirencester, capturing and killing many parliamentarians in the process.

Cirencester was held for Parliament in early 1643, but it was a straggling town with inadequate defences. On 2^nd February Prince Rupert reached the town with an army of more than 4000, many of them cavalry for whom the landscape was ideal. The garrison was weakened by the loss of its own cavalry for the storming of Sudeley, along with dragoons and the best gunners.

The storming of the town was a bloody affair, as the defenders were forced back house by house, or trapped in strategic positions, but the Royalists eventually succeeded, and killed or captured all of the soldiers in the town, as well as some civilians.

The captured men were marched in irons to the King in Oxford, an act which inflamed the parliamentary forces.