By using contemporary sources this book not only looks at the armies of Sir Ralph Hopton from 1642 to 1646, but also the raising and equipping his men and the campaigns they served in. Nothing sums up the tragedy of the English Civil War more than the friendship between Sir Ralph Hopton and the parliamentarian general Sir William Waller as this war without an enemy. Hopton was one of the first commanders to support the king and helped secure Cornwall for the Royalist Cause. In fact Sir Ralph Hopton commanded three armies during the Civil War; the first was made up of the famous Cornish infantry, which would become the backbone of the Royalist war effort in the West. This army was absorbed into Prince Maurice’s army after the fall of Bristol to the Royalists in July 1643. His second army was raised during the autumn of 1643 and was disbanded to reinforce the King’s Oxford Army after the battle of Cheriton. Finally Hopton commanded the remnants of the royalist army in the West during the death throes of the Royalist cause in 1646. By using contemporary sources this book describes the life, and death, of a soldier during the Civil War. Chapters include recruitment, clothing, equipping and training of Hopton’s armies as well as his campaigns, including those of Prince Maurice, Sir Richard Grenville and George Lord Goring. It also looks at the divisions within the royalist high command which ultimately lost King Charles the war. It also looks at what happened to these soldiers once the fighting was over. AUTHOR: Laurence Spring studied at the Universities of London and Aberystwyth. He is also a qualified archivist, and has worked for many years at the Surrey History Centre. He has researched the early seventeenth century for many years and has written on various aspects of the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War, including the armies of Sir William Waller and the Earl of Manchester. He has also written books on the Russian Army during the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars and articles for Surrey in the Great War website.##His other books for the ‘Century of the Soldier’ series, The First British Army, the army of the Duke of Buckingham, 1624-1628 (2016) The Bavarian Army, the Backbone of the Catholic League (2017) The Battle of the White Mountain and the Bohemian Revolt (2018) In the Emperor’s Service, Wallenstein’s Army, 1625-1634 (2019) and The Campaigns of Sir William Waller (2019). He also contributed the chapter, ‘For God Sake Come Home, Soldiers’ wives, 1620-1660’ to the Helion’s Home and Away, The British Experience of War, 1618-1721. The proceedings of the 2017 Helion’s Century of the Soldier Conference.
