The key river crossing at Burton was desired by Queen Henrietta Maria, who was proceeding southwards from Yorkshire with a convoy of supplies destined for King Charles I at Oxford.

The Royalists, led by Colonel Thomas Tyldesley, launched a cavalry charge across the bridge which succeeded in defeating the Parliamentarians and capturing most of their officers, including Sanders and Houghton.

James I's Privy Council was forced to write to the county's Justices of the Peace for their failure to raise a single penny to support the King's campaign to reclaim the Palatinate in Germany for his son-in-law Frederick V in the 1620s.

[3] In February, Gell placed a garrison across the county border at Burton, consisting of an infantry company under Dutch Major Johannes Molanus, but withdrew it less than a month later to assist in an attack on Newark.

[3] Parliament's forces in Staffordshire and Warwickshire were initially under the command of Lord Brooke, but after his death during the successful siege of Lichfield Cathedral in March 1643, Gell was appointed as his replacement.

[8] Shortly thereafter, Gell, whose forces amounted to around 1,000 infantry, a few horse and 300 partially armed Staffordshire moorlanders, met with Sir William Brereton, Commander-in-Chief of Cheshire, to organise an attack upon Stafford.

[3] Whatever the case, Sanders decided to remove himself from Gell's command and place himself and his men under the direction of Colonel Richard Houghton, of the Staffordshire county committee and military governor of Burton.

[15] He was also able to secure supplies of 20 barrels of powder, 300 muskets, 60 carbines and 60 cases of pistols and an additional troop of horses, allowing him to arm his regiment fully for the first time.

[16] Gell withdrew with his prisoners to Derby, allowing Lord Loughborough to retake the town and bridge, which he intended to hold as a means of communication between his "flying army" at Ashby and the Royalist garrisons in Tutbury and Derbyshire.

[16] A Parliamentarian raid again attacked and plundered the town in April 1644, afterwards ceding control to the Royalists once more, before Sanders' newly raised regiment of 400 horse retook it, narrowly failing to capture Loughborough himself.

[3] King Charles I briefly made Burton his headquarters in May of that year, before the town was retaken for the final time by Parliament in early 1646, becoming a centre of supply of coin and beer to the forces besieging Tutbury and Lichfield.

[3] After the war and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Burton remained a place of dissent and nonconformism, with large Presbyterian and Baptist congregations, raising doubts within the Church of England over the town's loyalty.

[17] A local legend states that Oliver Cromwell was present in the area during the battle and tied his horse to a nail at Tatenhill's St Michael's and All Angels Church, just 3 miles (4.8 km) from the bridge.