The New Model Army defeated Sir Jacob Astley's Royalist force near Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire on 21 March 1646. It was the final pitched battle of the First English Civil War. Astley's captured infantry could no longer reinforce the king at Oxford.

Astley's reported observation that Parliament might now quarrel among itself gave the battle lasting rhetorical significance. The remark anticipated the political and religious conflicts that continued after Royalist military defeat.