Battle of Wigan Lane

53°33′17.5″N 2°37′40.3″W / 53.554861°N 2.627861°W / 53.554861; -2.627861

Battle of Wigan Lane
Part of Third English Civil War

Monument to Sir Thomas Tyldesley
at the site of the battle
Date25 August 1651
Location
Result Parliamentarian victory
Belligerents
Commonwealth of England Parliamentarians Royalists
Commanders and leaders
Commonwealth of England Colonel Robert Lilburne
Commonwealth of EnglandColonel Thomas Birch
Earl of Derby
Lord Widdrington 
Sir William Throgmorton 
Sir Thomas Tyldesley 
Colonel Boynton 
Strength
603
(Colonel Robert Lilburne Regiment of Horse)[1]
30 horse
(from Liverpool as well as volunteers with shotguns mounted as Dragoons)
200
(2 companies of Cheshire Trained Band of Foot)
100
(1 company of foot from Manchester)
100
(one company of John Birch's Regiment of Foot)
2,100
(Cromwell's 2 Regiments of Foot and detached company of horse)
Total:
3,000[2]
1,000
(Earl of Derby’s Regiment of Foot)
600
(Earl of Derby’s Regiment of Horse)[3]
Total:
600-1,500[2]
Casualties and losses
1 killed
10 wounded
(claim by Lilburne)
700 killed
(Royalist claim)[2]
64 killed
400 captured[4]
  • The Earl of Derby's memoir gives alternate strengths of 1800 Dragoons in Lilburnes initial force and just 600 gentlemen in his own neglecting all mention of his own foot though these accounts of the war are exaggerated.

The Battle of Wigan Lane was fought on 25 August 1651 during the Third English Civil War, between a Royalist army led by the Earl of Derby and forces loyal to the Commonwealth of England under Colonel Robert Lilburne. The Royalists were defeated, losing nearly half their officers and men.