The battle occurred when Royalist troops arrived from Worcester to break the Earl of Denbigh's siege of the castle.

In June 1644, the First English Civil War had been running for 22 months, since King Charles I had raised his banner in Nottingham and declared the Earl of Essex, and by extension Parliament, traitors.

[2] In early June, a Parliamentarian force comprising 1,000 infantry and 750 cavalry, under the command of the Earl of Denbigh, besieged Dudley Castle, a Royalist garrison.

Rather than abandon the guns, Denbigh stubbornly continued to extract them, saying "I had rather lose ten lives than one piece of my artillery.

[3] Disengaged, both sides were reluctant to continue the fight, and both withdrew; Wilmot returning to the King in Worcester and Denbigh to Walsall.