Battle of Kings Norton

The battle of Kings Norton was fought on 17 October 1642. The Parliamentarians won the skirmish, which developed out of a chance encounter between Royalists under the command of Prince Rupert and Parliamentarians under the command of Lord Willoughby of Parham. Both forces had been on their way to join their respective armies which were destined to meet at Edgehill in the first pitched battle of the English Civil War, and after the skirmish both proceeded to join their respective armies.

Prelude
On Monday 17 October 1642 King Charles I was marching south through Birmingham. While passing through the town some of the Royal carriages were pillaged and the contents sent to Warwick Castle a parliamentary stronghold.

Rupert, whose soldiers had been cantoned in Stourbridge after Rupert's victory at the Battle of Powick Bridge during his successful expedition to Worcester in September, left the town on 17 October to join Charles with 9 troops of horse and about 300 foot.

If any reliance is to be placed on one surviving tract of the encounter, Rupert's march crossed the path of a Parliamentary party under the command of Lord Willoughby of Parham on his way to Join the Earl of Essex's parliamentary army.

Battle
Lord Willoughby who was in command of about 800 horse and foot met Prince Rupert somewhere between Stourbridge and Birmingham probably in the Kings Norton area.

The resulting battle was "very fierce and cruel". It was the Royalists who disengaged having lost between 50 and 80 killed with twenty taken prisoner. The Roundheads kept possession of the battlefield and lost between seventeen and twenty men.

Aftermath
Both parties continued on to their destinations: Rupert joined King Charles, while Lord Willoughby joined Essex. The historian J. W. Willis-Bund speculated that it may have been Willoughby who provided the information on Rupert's (and the King's) movements, which lead Essex to move his army towards Worcester on 19 October.