First Civil War

The first Civil War began on the 4th January 1642 after King Charles attempted to arrest five Members of Parliament. After his failure both parties (Royalists and Roundheads) began forming troops.

Although most large landowners in Wales supported the King, some influential figures backed the Roundhead cause including Philip Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, who owned vast tracts of land in Glamorgan and whose castle at Cardiff was an important Roundhead base.

The town of Pembroke declared itself for the Parliamentarian cause at the outbreak of hostilities in 1642 and Rowland Laugharne, the parliamentary commander at Pembroke played a key role in the early years of the war.

A story relates how in 1644 the nervous Royalists abandoned the castle at Haverfordwest, mistaking a herd of cows on a nearby hill for a Parliamentary army, thus allowing it to fall to Parliament without any resistance! The castle was later recaptured and held for the King.

However, it was not until 1645 that the fighting really impacted on the County itself.

In August of that year Edward Stradling's Royalist army in Pembrokeshire was defeated by a combined Parliamentarian army and naval force commanded by Laugharne and Vice-Admiral Batten at the Battle of Colby Moor near Wiston.

Following the battle Laugharne and his troops proceeded to Haverfordwest where they stormed the Royalist castle. Carmarthen too was captured and by 1646 West Wales was under Roundhead control.