‘Stout Skippon hath a wound’: the medical treatment of Parliament’s infantry commander following the battle of Naseby

Abstract

At the battle of Naseby, Sergeant-Major-General Philip Skippon, commander of the New Model Army infantry, was near-fatally wounded. His subsequent treatment is one of the best documented examples of civil-war medical care. This chapter will investigate Skippon’s treatment in detail and demonstrate how the medical care he received was neither barbaric nor backward but in fact representative of significant advances that had been made in military medicine as a result of the civil wars. Moreover, this chapter will also explore the propaganda campaign surrounding Skippon’s treatment. It will argue that political considerations, namely the need to overcome opposition to the formation of the New Model from within the parliamentarian alliance itself, played a vital role in Skippon's care and the consequent portray of his providential survival as divine vindication of the New Model experiment.