The Battle of Naseby was the key battle of the first English Civil War. On 14 June 1645, the main army of King Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.

At the beginning of 1645, most of King Charles's advisers urged him to attack the New Model Army while it was still forming. However, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who had recently been appointed General of the Army and therefore the King's chief military adviser, proposed instead to march north to recover the North of England and join forces with the Royalists in Scotland under Montrose. This course was adopted, even though the King's army had to be weakened by leaving a detachment (including 3,000 cavalry) under Lord Goring, the Lieutenant General of Horse, to hold the West Country and maintain the Siege of Taunton, in Somerset.

At the same time, after the New Model Army had abandoned an attempt to relieve Taunton, Parliament's Committee of Both Kingdoms had directed Fairfax, its commander, to besiege Oxford, the King's wartime capital. Initially, Charles welcomed this move, as Fairfax would be unable to interfere with his move north. Then at the end of May he was told that Oxford was short of provisions and could not hold out long. To distract Fairfax, the Royalists stormed the Parliamentarian garrison at Leicester on 31 May. Having done so, Prince Rupert and the King's council reversed their former decision and marched south to relieve Oxford. They sent messages ordering Goring to rejoin them, but Goring refused to leave the West Country.

Coordinates: 52°23′49″N 0°59′18″W / 52.39692°N 0.98847°W / 52.39692; -0.98847

Naseby is a small village in the District of Daventry in Northamptonshire, England.

The village is 14 mi (22.5 km) north of Northampton, 13.3 mi (21.4 km) northeast of Daventry, and 7 mi (11 km) south of Market Harborough. It is 2.4 mi (3.9 km) from Junction 2 of the A14 road, giving it access to the national road system. For rail travel, the Midland Main line can be accessed at the railway station in Market Harborough. There is a bus service between Market Harborough and Northampton that stops in Naseby, but it is very infrequent.

The village sits in a commanding position on one of the highest parts of the Northamptonshire Uplands, close to the county border with Leicestershire.

The original settlement probably owes its existence to its geography; the village lay in what was known as a 'string defensive' position. In the 6th century an Saxon named Hnaef established the settlement with the name of Hnaefes-Burh ("fortified place of Hnaef"). Evidence for these origins came in the form of a 19th-century discovery of an Anglo-Saxon trefoil-headed brooch which is now in the collection of the British Museum.