The English Civil war between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians began in 1642 during the reign of King Charles I and resulted in the monarch being executed in 1649 by the order of Oliver Cromwell.  England was then declared a Commonwealth and was without a monarch for 11 years - the only time in its history.

At the end of 1642, Sir Ralph Hopton's Royalist army fell back from Devon across the River Tamar into Cornwall. The Earl of Stamford mustered all available Parliamentarian forces and prepared to march against Hopton. He sent the bulk of his cavalry under Sir George Chudleigh on a diversionary raid on Bodmin whilst he marched into Cornwall with a force of 5,400 foot and 200 horse and took up a strong defensive position on a hill now known as Stamford Hill on 15^th May 1643.

Hopton could only muster 2,400 foot and 500 horse to counter Stamford's invasion of Cornwall but despite being outnumbered two-to-one by a better equipped army he was determined to attack Stamford's encampment while most of the Parliamentarian cavalry was absent.

The assault began at dawn on 16^th May 1643. Hopton divided his infantry into four columns of about 600 men each to attack the hill from different directions in a great arc. Hopton and Lord Mohun led the first column from the south, Major-General Basset attacked from the north, Sir Bevil Grenville and Sir Nicholas Slanning led their columns from the west. The Parliamentarians were forced to defend the hill with their backs to the impregnable eastern slope. By the afternoon the Royalists had all but expended their ammunition, however, with a final courageous and silent assault, victory was clinched by Grenville whose wing scaled the summit. The Parliamentarian lines collapsed and they fled.

The battle lasted 10 hours, secured Cornwall for the King and was the first decisive battle of the English Civil War.  The victory, gained by a force that was desperately short of food and ammunition, was a remarkable achievement and the gateway to Devon was now open to the Royalists.

Info from http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/

To log this cache please post a photo of yourself / your GPS at the monument with your log. You will also need to do some research on the internet to find the following, which is the password for logging this cache.

• What is the christian name of the person who was taken prisoner by the Royalists and defected to them? This is ABCDE
• What is the number of letters in the surname of the person who Stamford blamed for the defeat? This is F
• How many Parliamentarian cannons did the Royalists capture? This is GH
• Add together the number of Parliamentarians killed and the number taken prisoner. This is IJKL

The password is ABCDEFGHIJKL. Letters are in lower case, no spaces.

There is public access to a field (battlefield notice on the gate) from Stamford Hill and a permissive path gives access from here to the battle monument and plaque.