Cromwell at Marston Moor

A civil war battle took place at Marston Moor on 2 July 1644. Oliver Cromwell commanded the left wing of the allied army and, in the course of the battle, received a flesh wound in his neck for which he required treatment. However, he recovered in time to make the final, victorious charge which is the moment depicted here by Cooper.

At the composition's centre, a wounded Cromwell, with his arm in a sling, is shown mounted on his white charger brandishing a sword. Behind him, a man raises a white flag in surrender as the fighting continues around them. A skirmish between six cavalrymen, one of whom is climbing from a fallen horse as his assailant spears it to the ground, is depicted in the foreground. Another altercation, on the right, takes place between a Roundhead and a Royalist. Lying on the ground in the right foreground is a banner inscribed 'Dei Gratia', which can be translated as 'by the grace of God'.