This new historical token commemorates the 1645 Siege of Carlisle during the English Civil War. The medal features intricate detailing, including the depiction of soldiers and the fortified city. It is a nice addition to any collection of militaria or coins.

The medal is a representation of an important moment in British history and would be a great addition to any collection.

Historical new souvenir token 13.6 g 31 mm

The siege of Carlisle occurred during the First English Civil War when the allied forces of the Scottish Covenanters and the English Parliamentarians besieged Carlisle Castle which was held at the time by the English Royalist forces loyal to King Charles I. The siege took place in Carlisle, Cumbria from October 1644 to 25 June 1645.

After the surrender of Newcastle on 27 October 1644, Leslie took 4,000 of his Covenanters, composed of both infantry and cavalry, to Carlisle and began the siege of the walled city and fortress. He quartered his force in the villages surrounding Carlisle and erected siege works on the four major roads leading to the city. The siege works blocking the road from the north was placed in the churchyard at the village of Stanwix and included three small cannons. All the other siege works seemed to simply be fortifications designed to hold 60 to 100 cavalry riders. Together the four siege works blocked access to the city and castle from all four directions of the compass.

This initial encirclement of Carlisle was not particularly confining to the Royalists as it left a substantial amount of grazing ground for cattle and horses outside the walls of the city. Leslie, however, didn't seem to be in a hurry to take the garrison. For approximately six months, Leslie seemed content to sit and wait. All that while, the Covenanters never attacked the city. During that time the primary action between the two opposing forces were skirmishes that took place when the Royalist would sally outside the city walls to procure cattle and provisions.

In the spring, the Covenanter forces were joined by Parliamentarian forces.[3] About that time, at the end of April, Leslie began to move his siege works closer to the city and to erect additional fortifications. The contraction of the siege perimeter slowly reduced the number of successful sallies the Royalists were able to conduct diminishing their food supplies.[9] Starvation set in on the garrison causing the besieged Royalist to eat whatever they could including horses, dogs and rats.[3] Finally in the summer of 1645, King Charles and his Royalist army lost another major battle at Naseby. Out of provisions with a diminished hope of relief, the Royalist garrison at Carlisle Castle surrendered on 25 June 1645.

Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the British Isles. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially as a senior commander in the Parliamentarian army and latterly as a politician. A leading advocate of the execution of Charles I in January 1649, which led to the establishment of The Protectorate, he ruled as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death in September 1658. Cromwell remains a controversial figure due to his use of the army to acquire political power, and the brutality of his 1649 campaign in Ireland.

Educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Cromwell was elected MP for Huntingdon in 1628. The first 40 years of his life were undistinguished and at one point he contemplated emigration to New England. He became a religious Independent in the 1630s and thereafter believed his successes were the result of divine providence. While he generally supported tolerance for the various Protestant sects of the time, he later opposed those he considered heretical, such as Quakers and Fifth Monarchists.[3] In 1640, Cromwell was returned as MP for Cambridge in the Short and Long Parliaments, and joined the Parliamentarian army when the First English Civil War began in August 1642. He quickly demonstrated his military abilities and in 1645 was appointed commander of the New Model Army cavalry under Sir Thomas Fairfax, playing a key role in defeating the Royalists in the First and Second English Civil Wars.

Following the execution of Charles I and the exile of his son, military victories in Ireland and against the Scots from 1649 to 1651 firmly established the Commonwealth and Cromwell's dominance of the new republican regime. In December 1653, he was named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth,[a] a position he retained until his death in September 1658, when he was succeeded by his son Richard, whose weakness led to a power vacuum. This culminated in the 1660 Stuart Restoration, when Charles II returned to the throne, after which Cromwell's body was removed from its resting place in Westminster Abbey and displayed at Tyburn. Cromwell's head was placed on a spike outside the Tower of London, where it remained for 30 years. It was ultimately reburied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960.

Cromwell has been variously described as a military dictator by Winston Churchill,[4] and as a hero of liberty by John Milton, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Rawson Gardiner. The debate over his historical reputation continues. First proposed in 1856, his statue outside the Houses of Parliament was not erected until 1895, most of the funds being privately supplied by Prime Minister Lord Rosebery.[5]

Early life and education

Cromwell was born in Huntingdon on 25 April 1599[6] to Robert Cromwell and his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Steward.[7] The family's estate derived from Oliver's great-great-grandfather Morgan ap William, a brewer from Glamorgan who settled at Putney and married Katherine Cromwell (born 1482), the sister of Thomas Cromwell, who would become the famous chief minister to Henry VIII. The Cromwells acquired great wealth as occasional beneficiaries of Thomas's administration of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[8] Morgan ap William was a son of William ap Yevan of Wales. The family line continued through Richard Williams (alias Cromwell), (c. 1500–1544), Henry Williams (alias Cromwell), (c. 1524 – 6 January 1604),[b] then to Oliver's father Robert Williams, alias Cromwell (c. 1560–1617), who married Elizabeth Steward (c. 1564–1654), probably in 1591. They had ten children, but Oliver, the fifth child, was the only boy to survive infancy.[9]

Cromwell's paternal grandfather, Sir Henry Williams, was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire. Cromwell's father was of modest means but still a member of the landed gentry. As a younger son with many siblings, Robert inherited only a house at Huntingdon and a small amount of land. This land would have generated an income of up to £300 a year, near the bottom of the range of gentry incomes.[10] In 1654, Cromwell said, "I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity."

Oliver Cromwell was baptised on 29 April 1599 at St John's Church,[12] and attended Huntingdon Grammar School. He went on to study at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, then a recently founded college with a strong Puritan ethos. He left in June 1617 without taking a degree, immediately after his father's death.[13] Early biographers claim that he then attended Lincoln's Inn, but the Inn's archives retain no record of him.[14] Antonia Fraser concludes that it is likely that he did train at one of the London Inns of Court during this time.[15] His grandfather, his father, and two of his uncles had attended Lincoln's Inn, and Cromwell sent his son Richard there in 1647.[15]

Cromwell probably returned home to Huntingdon after his father's death. As his mother was widowed, and his seven sisters unmarried, he would have been needed at home to help his family.[16]