Bolton Massacre The Bolton Massacre , sometimes recorded as the Storming of Bolton , was an episode in the English Civil War , on 28 May 1644 . The strongly Parliamentarian town was stormed and captured by Royalist forces under Prince Rupert . It was alleged that up to 1 , 600 of Bolton ' s defenders and inhabitants were slaughtered during and after the fighting . The " massacre at Bolton " became a staple of Parliamentarian propaganda . Background . In Lancashire , before the start of the Civil War , there was social and economic tension between towns which generally supported Parliament , and the landowning gentry and aristocracy who controlled the rural areas and mostly supported the king as Royalists . There was a religious divide with some towns supporting dissenting Nonconformist movements . Bolton was known as the " Geneva of the North " , a reference to the city in Switzerland which was a centre of Calvinism . The major Royalist figure in Lancashire was James Stanley , 7th Earl of Derby . He was slow to take measures to secure the county at the start of the civil war in 1642 , and after setbacks the following year , including two failed attempts to capture Bolton , he temporarily abandoned the contest in Lancashire to secure the other area in which he held major interests , the Isle of Man . The only threat to Parliamentarian control of Lancashire came from Cheshire , where a Royalist army under John Byron , 1st Baron Byron was formed in late 1643 . On 26 January 1644 , Byron was defeated at the Battle of Nantwich by Parliamentarians under Sir William Brereton and Sir Thomas Fairfax , leaving the Parliamentarians in control of the area . Sir Thomas Fairfax ' s army and some Lancashire Parliamentarians under Colonel Alexander Rigby began the Siege of Lathom House , seat of the Earl of Derby , which was defended by his wife , the Countess of Derby . However , Fairfax crossed the Pennines in late March to rejoin his father , Lord Fairfax , in Yorkshire . Campaign . The Royalists had intended to send the king ' s nephew and foremost field commander , Prince Rupert , to the northwest to retrieve the situation early in 1644 . Rupert set up headquarters in Shrewsbury , from where he led a force to the Relief of Newark . It became even more important to regain the northwest when the Fairfaxes and a Scottish Covenanter army began the Siege of York on 22 April . As Rupert lacked the strength to proceed immediately to relieve York , it was agreed at a council of war in Oxford , the King ' s wartime capital , that he would first move into Lancashire to restore Royalist fortunes , use the Earl of Derby ' s influence to gather fresh recruits , and secure the port of Liverpool to allow communications with Royalist forces in Ireland . Rupert , accompanied by the Earl of Derby , marched north from Shrewsbury on 16 May . He added Byron ' s army from Cheshire and North Wales to his own small force , giving him a total of 2 , 000 cavalry and 6 , 000 infantry . To cross the Mersey he had to secure a crossing at either Warrington or Stockport . He chose the latter , and stormed it on 25 May . The town was not fortified , and after a brief contest outside the town in the late evening the defenders fled to Manchester . On hearing of the loss of Stockport , Colonel Rigby ' s forces abandoned the Siege of Lathom House and retired to Bolton , where the garrison was commanded by Colonel Shuttleworth . The storming . Late on 28 May , as Prince Rupert approached Bolton , he sent Colonel Henry Tillier , his quartermaster - general , with a regiment of cavalry and another of infantry to secure the town . They found the Parliamentarians retiring from Lathom House arriving in confusion . On hearing this , Prince Rupert hastened his march and attacked immediately , in pouring rain . Nevertheless the Parliamentarians manned a defensive line around the town , with 4 , 000 men . Rupert ' s first assault , by the Regiments of Foot commanded by Colonels Ellis , Tyldesley , Warren and an unknown officer , and his own Regiment of Foot commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Russell , was repulsed with 300 casualties . Russell was wounded and his Major was taken prisoner . Prince Rupert then ordered the regiment of Colonel Broughton to renew the attack . Led by the Earl of Derby . They were successful , and fighting continued in the streets until the Parliamentarian forces were overcome or had fled . The Royalists claimed that there were 1 , 000 Parliamentarian casualties and that in addition to 50 officers and 600 other prisoners , the Royalists captured 20 standards , 20 barrels of powder and many weapons . The Parliamentarian commander , Colonel Alexander Rigby , escaped in the confusion , having learned the Royalist password . He made his way to the Parliamentarian and Scottish Covenanter armies besieging York , where he claimed that 1 , 500 of his total force were badly armed clubmen . He also claimed that he lost only 200 men , the rest of his forces having fled , but the commanders of the armies around York noted that " vulgar reports " were that they had been slaughtered . Causes . The storming was a particularly brutal episode in the Civil War and several factors may have contributed to the nature of the action . Unlike a formal siege , usually preceded by parley s and often ended at some point by a negotiated surrender , Rupert attacked suddenly to catch the Parliamentarians in temporary disarray . Without any possibility of negotiation , there was little protection from the " laws " or contemporary conventions of warfare for any of the garrison who did not surrender or flee immediately . As fighting took place in the streets of the town , the citizens would have been caught up in the fighting and because the battle took place at night and in heavy rain , it would have been difficult to distinguish between citizens and armed combatants . The Royalist soldiers were allowed to plunder the town after the fighting as reward , and citizens may have died during the ensuing rapine . At least two of the attacking Royalist regiments ( Warren ' s and Broughton ' s ) had been raised in England in 1640 to serve in the Bishops ' Wars but were sent to Ireland after the Irish Rebellion of 1641 . They returned to serve in the Royalist armies in England in 1644 after King Charles negotiated a ceasefire with Confederate Ireland . The Parliamentarians nevertheless believed that they consisted of Irish Catholics . The Royalists claimed that at some point during the fighting , the Parliamentarians hanged a captured Irishman as a " Papist " , enraging the attackers . Tyldesley ' s regiment had been raised in Lancashire and included many Roman Catholics . Effects and subsequent events . After storming Bolton , Rupert ' s army rested at Bury , where it was reinforced . He then advanced on Liverpool and opened a siege and bombardment on 6 June . At midday on 10 June , having made breaches in the earth walls with cannon fire , the Royalists launched an assault which was beaten back . During the following night , the Parliamentarians abandoned the town and left aboard ships in the harbour , leaving their colours on the remains of the walls as a ruse . When Colonel Henry Tillier ' s regiment ( another unit recently returned from Ireland ) advanced into the town the next morning , they found 400 remaining defenders " of the meaner sorte " , many of whom were killed , only some being given quarter . The only remaining major Parliamentarian foothold in Lancashire was Manchester , which was heavily defended and could not have been captured without a prolonged siege . Rupert was instructed by King Charles to hasten to the relief of York which he relieved on 1 July . The next day , he offered battle to the besieging armies and was decisively defeated at the Battle of Marston Moor . He withdrew to Lancashire , and subsequently went south to rejoin the king . Lord Byron was left to hold the north - west . On 19 August , his cavalry was defeated at the Battle of Ormskirk , and the Royalists abandoned Lancashire . Bolton was recaptured , without any noteworthy fighting , in September . On 18 September , Byron ' s army was destroyed while attempting to prevent a Relief of Montgomery Castle . Parliamentarians commanded by Sir John Meldrum recaptured Liverpool on 1 November . Meldrum spared the garrison , including soldiers returned from or recruited in Ireland , despite a Parliamentarian Ordinance of no quarter to the Irish . Lathom House was besieged again from July 1644 , but held out until 2 December 1645 . Death of the Earl of Derby . At the end of the Third English Civil War the Earl of Derby travelled north but was captured near Nantwich and given quarter . However , he was tried by court - martial at Chester on 29 September , his quarter disallowed and he was condemned to death . His appeal for pardon was rejected and he escaped , but was recaptured by Captain Hector Schofield and on 15 October 1651 taken to Bolton where he reputedly spent his last hours at Ye Olde Man & Scythe public house , but more likely in a house on Churchgate before being beheaded near the Market Cross on Churchgate .