Charles I's army stormed Leicester on 31 May 1645 after the Parliamentarian garrison refused to surrender. Soldiers plundered the town, and many combatants and civilians were killed or assaulted. The attack alarmed Parliament and helped draw the New Model Army into the campaign culminating at Naseby.

Parliamentarian accounts made Leicester another central example of Royalist cruelty and uncontrolled plunder. Descriptions of violated homes and townspeople helped justify harsher resistance and mobilise support for the New Model Army.