After the city was briefly seized by Parliamentarian troops under William Waller in 1643, a prominent local man Barnabas Scudamore was appointed as Governor replacing Fitzwilliam Coningsby.

Meanwhile, Scottish Covenanter forces under Leven captured Carlisle on 28 June and were then ordered by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to proceed via Alcester to attack Hereford and disrupt Royalist attempts to assemble a fresh army.

[4] Leven's advance into Herefordshire brought him into conflict with the fortified manor house at Canon Frome near Ledbury, commanded by Colonel Sir John Barnard.

Leven abandoned the siege between 1–2 September and began to withdraw northwards intending to march to Scotland to aid his government against the Royalist threat.

Within less than two weeks the Covenanters had won a striking victory over Montrose at the Battle of Philiphaugh in the Scottish Borders ending any chance that he could intervene in the English war.

After the fall of the city Scudamore was accused of having accepted a bribe to turn Hereford over to the king's enemies and was imprisoned for several months without trial in Worcester.

[12] Hereford remained in Parliament's hands for the remainder of the First English Civil War, and also in the two subsequent conflicts in which the Scottish Covenanters invaded England in opposition to their former Parliamentarian allies.