Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester

[3] Reward for these exploits was lavishly given in April 1643 when he was appointed lieutenant-general of horse in the king's army directly under the command of Prince Rupert of the Rhine and on 29 June when he was created Baron Wilmot of Adderbury, Oxfordshire; these honours may well have been assisted by the restored influence of his old patroness, the queen.

On 29 June at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge he participated in defeating Waller for the second time, but not before he had had to lead a charge, in which he was wounded and briefly taken prisoner.

[3] All recognised that Wilmot was popular with the soldiers he commanded, due to a "mixture of courage, enterprise, and boozy affability"[3] Clarendon famously, if waspishly, noted "He was a man proud and ambitious, and incapable of being contented; an orderly officer in marches and governing his troops.

In June Wilmot felt in a strong enough position to canvas support in the army to ask the king to dismiss his two principal civilian advisers, Lord Digby and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Culpeper, and to adopt the strategy of a march on London.

[3] With the failure of his first scheme, Wilmot made an unauthorized contact with the Earl of Essex who was the Parliamentarian commander-in-chief, to see if a peace could be arranged.

His popularity within the army led many of its officers to petition on his behalf and eventually to placate them, all charges against Wilmot were dropped on the understanding that he would retire overseas.

In the interests of Charles, he visited the emperor Ferdinand III, Nicholas II, Duke of Lorraine, and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.

In March 1655, he was in England, where he led an unsuccessful attempt at a rising on Marston Moor, near York as part of the Sealed Knot Penruddock uprising.

[6] In April 1656 along with the Duke of Ormonde he signed the Treaty of Brussels, which secured an alliance between the exiled Royalists and the Spanish King.

[8] In 1656, Wilmot obtained command of an English foot regiment in the royalist army in Bruges, thus becoming the first colonel of the Grenadier Guards.