Talk:Battle of Preston (1648)/GA1

GA Review

Passed. Hog Farm _Talk 22:54, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 14:45, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 02:00, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Hog Farm and thanks for picking this up. If you wish, feel free to review this at a stricter level than GAN. Assuming that it is promoted here it will be moving on to FAC, so the more of my habitual sloppiness you can pick up, the better. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:46, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For information, this is the twin of my FA battle of Winwick. It is my intention to create an overarching article on the campaign as a whole. Among other things this will give more detail on some things dealt with lightly in this article, eg: the skirmishing between Carlisle and Preston; Cromwell's march from Wales; the pre-invasion politicking in Scotland; the post-war politicking in Scotland; Munro's corps. I imagine you get the idea. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:22, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from the articles of yours that I have read, my very limited knowledge of this period of English history comes from the riddle in "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual"; but I will try to give this as good of a pre-FAC review as I can. Hog Farm _Talk 05:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"then moved into Essex and began an eleven-week siege of Colchester." - should Siege of Colchester be linked somewhere around this spot?

It should. It is now.

A bit nit-picky, but while the lead notes that Cromwell's victory at Pembroke Castle was the last Royalist stronghold in south Wales, this is never directly stated in the body

That's not nit-picky. Thanks for spotting. Fixed.

"and joined up with Cromwell and his accompanying infantry at Weatherby on 12 August." - the link for Weatherby goes to an American firearms manufacturer

That's my spelling. Fixed at all three mentions.

"Cromwell concentrated 9,000 men in north Yorkshire and crossed the Pennines to fall on the flank of the much larger Royalist army at Preston. " - I'm struggling to figure out when Cromwell crossed the Pennines. So Lambert is at Barnard Castle, east of the Pennines, while Langdale and the Royalists are west of the Pennines, driving to Settle. Lambert and Cromwell then meet at Weatherby - is this east or west of the Pennines? Presumably Cromwell is coming up from west of the Pennines, since he was in Wales. Did Cromwell come from Wales, cross the Pennines, and then cross back to fall on the flank of the Royalists? Or was it Lambert's force that crossed the Pennines from east to west?

Good point. Cromwell marched his poor foot sloggers in a loop to the east before heading north, and so arrived on the Royalist flank. I shall try to clarify this in the article. And stick in a relief map of England and Wales with Wetherby and Preston on.

Both done.

"Most of these men were seasoned veterans, well trained and with experience of battle" - was there a notable enough quality difference between the New Model Army and the militia to be worth mentioning?

There was. These were soldiers any commander would give their left arm for. Cromwell launched them at at army more than twice as strong, unaware that the royalists had conveniently split themselves into groups unable to mutually support. He was entirely confident that if he could just get them into contact they would beat anything. Is your point that I do mention the quality difference and you wanted to check, or that I don't and should?

Is there a source that can verify that the details of File:Battle of Preston 1648.svg are correct?

Whoops. Sure. Done.

"Given as 600 men by Wanklyn – 200 mounted men and 600 infantry" - how does this add up?

Good question. Fixed.

The spelling of Kirkby Lonsdale is used, but so is Kirksby Lonsdale - which one is correct?

The former. My random spelling again.

"At some point, it is not clear when, the baggage discovered and it became clear that the Scots were making off, relying on the dark and the heavy rain to mask their march" - I'm not entirely sure what went wrong here, but I don't think this is grammatical

LOL. A verb had deserted. Now rounded up and pressed back into the line.

"Despite their exhaustion, Within 3 miles (5 km) they had closed with the few cavalry the Scots were using as a rear guard. " - should Within not be capitalized, or was something else being attempted here?

Nope, just sloppy proof reading.

What is "dead ground"?

Argh! I have tweaked the phrasing and added a Wiktionary link. It now reads "while their infantry took a circuitous route, taking care to stay out of sight behind woods and in dead ground, and emerged on the flank and rear of the Scots" which I think means that a reader can follow the flow even if dead ground means nothing to them.

"The battles of Preston and Winwick was the last battles of the Second English Civil War, " - were the last battles?

Changed

"On 3 February the dominant army faction, under Lieutenant General George Monck, called new parliamentary elections." - of which year? 1659?

Whoops. No, 1660. Added.

"Once Parliamentarian infantry arrived they attempted to storm the Scottish positions but were held up. Fierce fighting continued for several hours, with repeated Parliamentarian charges and prolonged close quarter fighting between the opposing pike formations" - this is sourced to Hannay 1911, which is a bigraphical entry of Thomas Pride and doesn't seem to contain this detail at all?

Sorry HF, I assume that when I was boiling the Winwick text down to a summary I mangled my sourcing.I still have the sources from when I wrote the Winwick article so I'll dig out what it should be sourced to. And check the rest of the "Battle of Winwick" section sourcing.

The next pair of cites covers this. It looks like the Hannay citation was dropped in by accident. Apologies again.

This is in a category for massacres, but the rest of the article never uses that term. Do the high-quality RS about this battle term it a massacre?

Is it? I literally never look at categories. No they don't. Selling your prisoners into slavery was considered a bit rough, but there was no massacre. Removed.

File:Marmaduke Langdale2.png will need a US public domain tag before this goes to FAC, although I'm not sure what that tag would be given that this image is older than the United States; this isn't a GA problem.

I thought I had done that, I must be getting old. Sorted.

I think this is all from me; let me know when this goes to FAC and I'll support. Hog Farm _Talk 05:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent stull Hog Farm. Just what I wanted, thanks. All of your comments are addressed above. One by a query. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:48, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.