The Royalist army of the Earl of Newcastle defeated Parliamentarian forces at Adwalton Moor near Bradford on 30 June 1643. The victory gave Royalists control over most of Yorkshire apart from Hull. Parliamentarian leaders and sympathisers were forced into retreat or exile from the county.

The defeat shaped the poetry and memoirs of Yorkshire Parliamentarians, including the writings associated with the Fairfax family. Regional displacement strengthened literary themes of violated home, constancy and providential trial.