14,000 strong Parliamentarian New Model Army took on the Royalist army of King Charles I comprising less than 9,000 men, in what would to be the final key battle of the war.
During a cavalry charge on the western flank Prince Rupert's Royalist forces swept aside the Parliamentarian horsemen, chasing them from the battlefield and on to attack the baggage train.
The main Royalist military force had been decimated; the king had lost his best officers, seasoned troops and artillery. All that now remained was for the Parliamentarian armies to wipe out the last pockets of Royalist resistance, which it did within the year.