As Sir Thomas Fairfax was instructed to capture Tadcaster, he fell back into the West Riding after failing to destroy the bridge over the Wharfe at Tadcaster. He was intercepted and pursued by Royalist horse under Lord George Goring, the Lieutenant-General of Horse to Sir William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, over the moors of Whinmoor and Bramham.