On May 6, the Earl of Manchester stormed Lincoln before leaving with Cromwell to join the siege of York. On the other side of the Pennines, Rupert took over Stockport on May 25, and Bolton three days later. At Bolton, 1,600 Roundheads were killed and the town was savagely sacked in reprisal for refusing to surrender-typical in the 17th century. Early in June, Rupert was in Liverpool, now joined by Lord George Goring and the Newark cavalry. Rupert measured the strength he would need to help relieve York, but he intended to take the town of Manchester first.

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Other events now impinged upon the campaign. Rupert had worked out a plan to defend Oxford with outlying garrisons, backed by a cavalry reserve in Oxford that could go to the aid of any endangered garrison. At the urging of the notoriously unstable George Digby, second Earl of Bristol, King Charles abandoned Reading and Abingdon, which were promptly occupied by the Earl of Essex and Sir William Waller. Charles bolted out of Oxford with 3,000 cavalry on June 2 and headed for Evesham. Digby admitted later that, 'had Essex and Waller either pursued us or attacked Oxford, we had been lost.'

Fortunately for Charles, Essex marched for the southwest in an attempt to occupy Cornwall, a departure that allowed the king to turn on Waller at Cropedy Bridge and win a substantial victory on June 29. Charles, however, was disconcerted enough to have written a letter to Rupert on June 14 from Bewdley that caused Rupert to break off his Lancashire campaign and march for York. 'If York be lost,' the king said, 'I shall esteem my crown little less, unless supported by your sudden march to me, and a miraculous conquest in the south before the effects of the Northern power can be found here.'

Charles meant, in effect, that if York was lost, there would still be hope for him if Rupert could join him and write off the Roundhead forces in the south before the 'Northern power'-the Scots and others-could come to their help. 'But if York be relieved,' the letter went on, 'and you beat the rebel armies of both Kingdoms which were before it-then, but otherwise not, I may possibly make a shift upon the defensive to spin out time until you come to assist me; wherefore I command and conjure you…that, all new enterprises laid aside, you immediately march according to your first intention, with all your force, to the relief of York.'

By this convoluted sentence (which gives us a glimpse of his muddle-headedness) Charles implied that he could hold on in the south until Rupert had relieved York and won a great battle. He befuddled the issue with the three words 'but otherwise not,' which suggest that if Rupert could not relieve York and 'beat the rebel armies,' then Charles could not'spin out time' in the south. That did not square with the earlier suggestion that all might be well if Rupert could march south 'before the effects of the Northern power can be found here.' Rupert probably knew that Charles had no idea how to frame clear instructions, so he did the only thing possible-he marched out of Preston on June 23 to cross the Pennines on the way to York.

Cromwell and his lieutenants knew Rupert was at Knaresborough on June 30. On July 1, they faced west along the York-Knaresborogh road, pulling some of their forces back over a bridge of boats at Poppleton.

They soon realized that they had not adequately anticipated the enemy's movements. Rupert shot across the map like a line on a graph, crossing the Ure at Boroughbridge and the Swale at Thornton Bridge before dropping to the south, with the Ouse River protecting his right flank. That night he seized the bridge of boats at Poppleton and sent his messengers into York over the very trenches the Roundheads had so speedily abandoned. His infantry had marched more than 20 miles that day; the cavalry had ridden even farther. It was a remarkable piece of strategy, but the advantage gained was to be negated within a few hours.

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