At the time of the Civil War, Birmingham was an important industrial manufacturing centre. Throughout the conflict, its population remained largely pro-parliamentarian and became bitterly regarded by the royalists.

This increased after an incident in October 1642, in which some of Birmingham’s townspeople attacked the King’s baggage train as it was passing through. Furthermore, they had been supplying arms for the parliamentarian cause. This was troublesome for the royalists as they required the use of an arsenal base, having previously failed to capture those at Hull and Portsmouth.

An opportunity for a punitive expedition against Birmingham arose in the spring of 1643, when Queen Henrietta Maria was transporting a convoy of munitions from Bridlington to Oxford. Prince Rupert was ordered to head north and clear a route for the convoy through the Midlands, which was dominated by several parliamentarian garrisons. One of Rupert’s main objectives during the campaign was to establish a royalist garrison at Lichfield, north of Birmingham.

Rupert left Oxford on 29 March with a force of about 1200 horse and 500 foot. He reached Henley-in-Arden on 1 April, where he stayed until setting out for Birmingham on the morning of 3 April. As the unfortified town was not made a garrison by Parliament, the townspeople had set up small earthworks and barricades to bar the approaches into Birmingham.

Commanding the town’s defenders was Captain Richard Greaves, aided by 140 musketeers from Lichfield’s garrison. At 3pm, after the townspeople had refused Rupert’s request for lodging in the town, the royalists launched their attack on the defences.

Despite the royalists’ numerical superiority, the parliamentarian defenders, which included a handful of untrained civilians, put up a surprisingly fierce resistance before they were eventually overcome.

The town’s capture did not yield any major strategic advantage, and the victory was made bittersweet by the loss of William, first Earl of Denbigh, who died on 8 April from the mortal wounds he had sustained during the battle.

The royalists subsequently plundered the town, and as they departed the next day, set many houses on fire. These actions were quickly exploited for propaganda purposes in parliamentarian newsbooks. Weeks after the battle, Rupert recaptured Lichfield on the 21 April following a difficult siege.

Today very little remains of the battlefield due to urban development. Camp Hill (then known as Kempe Hill), along which the royalists advanced towards Birmingham, is now a roadway. By the Camp Hill Circus roundabout, one can find a monument on the spot of the former Old Ship Inn, which local tradition claims was Prince Rupert’s headquarters during the battle. In Deritend, where the parliamentarian defenders made their stand, the only extant building from 1643 is the Old Crown Inn.