Europe Had No Better Soldiers: The Army of the Eastern Association and the York Campaign 1644

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Parliamentarian victory at the siege of York and consequent battle of Marston Moor were pivotal moments in the history of the British Civil Wars. Both were close run affairs, and but for the spectacular intervention of the army of the Eastern Association, the outcome could have been very different.

In this work, the author traces the progress of the army of the Eastern Association in the North between April and August 1644; based on the series of seven remarkable newsbooks written during the campaign by the earl of Manchester's personal chaplains, Simeon Ashe and William Goode. Taken as a whole, the seven tracts or 'Intelligences', here transcribed fully for the first time, are a unique and historically significant contemporary account of the Eastern Association army's northern campaign of 1644. The 'Intelligences' are of considerable historical and journalistic importance, for they not only represent the first example of an extended campaign history written by the emergent British serial press; but present an accurate and detailed description of what it was like to fight a Civil War campaign.

The transcriptions are set within a broader historical and political setting with extensive notes and background information. In particular the author has re-examined the 'greatest fight of all' at Marston Moor using all known contemporary primary sources, to present a whole new interpretation of the battle, which challenges many previously held myths and preconceptions