Edge Hill: The Battle and Battlefield; With Notes on Banbury & Thereabout

The right wing moved towards the Sun Rising. It was composed of four brigades of horse, under Sir John Meldrum, Col. Stapleton, and Sir William Balfore (the divisional general), with Col. Fielding’s brigade and some guns in the rear. Capt. Fiennes’ regiment was with this wing, which was covered on the right by some musketeers. Captain Oliver Cromwell fought there also. Infantry, including the Oxfordshire Militia under Sir William Constable and Lord Roberts, took up the intervening space between the centre and the right wing. The cavalry of the left wing, covering the Kineton road, was made up of twenty-four troops, under Sir James Ramsay: the infantry in five regiments, officered by Cols. Essex and Chomley and Lords Wharton and Mandeville, with Sir Wm. Fairfax in reserve, occupied the ground between the cavalry and the main body. A few guns were placed in the rear of the horse.

Imposing indeed must the sight have been in bright sunlight of that early Sunday afternoon as the Royalist troops, began to descend the hill side! The slopes do not appear to have been so thickly wooded as they are now, and the unenclosed country, without the many obstacles of fence and hedgerow,[B388] offered all that a cavalry officer could desire for the exercise of his art and arm. Before this[PF] the King had summoned the officers to the royal tent, and in his brief speech had said: “My Lords and Gentlemen here present,—If this day shine prosperously for us, we shall be happy in a glorious victory. Your King is both your cause, your quarrel, and your captain. The foe is in sight. Now show yourselves no malignant parties, but with your swords declare what courage and fidelity is within you. * * * Come life or death, your King will bear you company, and ever keep this field, this place, and this day’s service in his grateful remembrance.” The King,[a286] wearing a black velvet mantle over his armour, and steel cap covered with velvet on his head, rode along the lines of his troops and spoke to them: “Matters are now to be declared with swords, not by words.”[PF] Perhaps, however, the most beautiful of these records is that of the truly soldier-like prayer of Lord Lindsay,[a286] “O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget Thee do not Thou forget me.”

IBATTLE OF EDGE HILL(Commencement of Battle)

The King’s centre, under General Ruthven, moved forward as far as the village of Radway. The six columns of infantry of which it was composed were under the divisional command of Sir Edmund Verney and Sir Jacob Astley; Earl Lindsay and Lord Willoughby led their Lincolnshire regiment. Between these and the right wing were eight other regiments of infantry. The cavalry of the right wing, under Prince Rupert, commenced slowly the steep descent of the road through Arlescot wood and the Kineton road, the base of which is known as the Bullet Hill, and drew up there in a meadow at the bottom of the hill.[PB] Fiennes states that the better opportunity for the Parliamentarian attack would have been before the artillery and rear came down the hill, which they were a long time in doing. The left wing rested upon the Sun Rising, Col. Ennis and Col. Lisle’s dragoons covering the flank; near by were the Welsh soldiers and Carnarvon’s regiments of pikemen. In advance Wilmot’s two regiments of horse were working across the Vale of the Red Horse, Digby’s reserve covering the crest of the hill.

Lord Essex’s artillery were the first to break the peace of the day, a challenge immediately replied to by the Royalist guns near Radway. Wilmot, of Adderbury, made the first aggressive movement in a charge upon the Parliamentarian right, and though some success seems to have attended it, yet it can scarcely have been of so much importance as Clarendon the Royalist historian[B] makes out, for he writes: “The left wing, commanded by Wilmot, had a great success, though they had to charge in worse ground, amongst hedges and through gaps and ditches which were lined with musketeers. Sir A. Aston, with great courage and dexterity, beat off these musketeers with his dragoons; and then the right wing of their horse ‘was easily dispersed, and fled the chase fearlessly.’ The reserve, seeing none of the enemy’s horse left, thought there was nothing more to be done but to pursue those that fled, and could not be contained by their commanders, but with spurs and loose reins followed the chase which the left wing had led them. Thus while victory was unquestionable, the King was left in danger from the reserve of the Parliament, which, pretending to be friends, broke in upon the foot, and did great execution.” Certainly in charge and counter charge at this stage of the attack, the Parliamentarians show to no advantage, and the dispersal of the dragoons, musketeers, and part of Fielding’s horse, seems to have taken place, but the subsequent successful charge of Balfour’s and Stapleton’s brigades makes it clear that they were not involved in any disaster.

On the right wing, soon after the time of Wilmot’s charge near the Sun Rising, Rupert’s troops moved down the foot of the hill in the direction of the Kineton road and towards Ramsay’s horse, which advanced to meet them. The Parliamentary general had lined the hedgerows on his flank with musketeers, and had placed ranks of musketeers between his horse. But as the cavaliers3 swept down the slope a defect was visible in the Parliamentarian ranks, and Sir Faithful Fortescue’s Irish troop threw off their orange scarves and deserted bodily, not quite soon enough, it seems, to save themselves, for a score or so of saddles were emptied in the onrush of Rupert’s cavaliers. The roundhead ranks were disordered, for the troops had fired their long pieces wildly, and scarcely waiting the meeting, they fled, leaving the musketeers to be cut up. The troops of cavaliers swept through them scattering and destroying all in their way; then deflecting a little to the left they pressed back the mass of fugitives upon the foot regiments of Essex, Mandeville and Chomley which in turn were overthrown, and the artillery captured. Even Wharton’s regiment and Fairfax’s reserve were hurled back. Ramsay, the cavalry general, was carried for two miles in the melee, and with some of his troopers found a way through the hostile lines to Banbury.[a] Rupert continued in unsparing pursuit even into the streets of Kineton and as far as Chadshunt. Thus was the left wing of Lord Essex’s army dispersed, though to reform for a later phase of the fight. After so much success the baggage proved to be too attractive to the victors, and had the time wasted in plundering been spent in an attack upon the rear of the Parliamentarian army, then the reign of Charles Stuart might have had a less tragic ending. But with all this, it must be borne in mind that the incident of the rolling up of a wing was repeated in other battles of the war which were more disastrous to the King’s cause. Sir James Ramsay at a Court Martial at St. Albans[Vn] in November of the same year made a vindication of his conduct.

An amusing letter from Captain Kightley tells of this phase of the fight. He admits that in part his own regiment ran away, and it seems to be probable that Captain John Fiennes was in no better way, though in the subsequent rally and attack upon Prince Rupert both did very good service.

The right wing of the Puritan forces had in the meantime become aggressive. It was the beginning of the great turning movement which was repeated in each of the great battles of the war by the Parliamentarians, in fact, so evident at Naseby and Marston Moor, as to compel belief in studied uniformity of plan. The abandonment or weakening of one wing, then the use of all the weight of the other wing with the foot as a centre pivot, to out-flank, attack, and crush in succession the opposing wing and centre of the Royalist army. Balfore, Meldrum, and Stapleton’s brigades charged Wilmot’s cavalry with such vigour that these were thrust back upon the three regiments of pikemen, under Lord Carnarvon, and chased up the hill side. Cannon balls and other remains of the fight found on the hill slopes at Lower Westcote near the Sun Rising are evidence of this attack. The infantry under Roberts and Constable having moved forward to aid in the attack upon Carnarvon, now wheeled upon the King’s centre, which soon became the focus of a fierce and bloody fight, for the elated Roundhead horse, after crushing in the Royalist left wing, hurled themselves also upon the flanks of the nearest troops of the King’s centre, and the blue-coated Broughton horsemen had a busy time of it amongst the royalist gunners as they rode through the battery. Earl Lindsay’s Lincolnshire regiment, which he had led pike in hand, received the brunt of the attack; it was overpowered, and the unfortunate general left for dead with a musket ball in his thigh. The Red Regiment moved up in support, only in turn to be cut up and almost annihilated, and Lord Willoughby was made prisoner also in the attempt to rescue his father the Earl. Then followed a brilliant personal fight for the royal standard, but the Puritan horseman Copley cut down Sir Edmund Verney, knight marshal of the King’s horse, and standard bearer, and secured the prize. The success of this attack was largely brought about by the ruse alluded to, where, “pretending to be friends,” they broke in upon the King’s regiments. If it is true that they got so near as to shake hands, the business must have been very simple. Verney had presentiment of his death, and the severed hand clasping the standard shaft is said to be yet sadly searched for by the ghost of Claydon House. On the finger of the hand was a ring, a king’s gift. Nugent says about the standard’s recapture: “The Royal standard was taken by Mr. Young, one of Sir William Constable’s ensigns, and delivered by Lord Essex to his own Secretary, Chambers, who rode by his side. Elated by the prize, the Secretary rode about, more proudly than wisely, waving it round his head. Whereupon in the confusion, one of the King’s officers, Captain Smith, of the Lord John Stewart’s troop, seeing the standard captured, threw round him the orange scarf of a fallen Parliamentarian, and riding in among the lines of his enemies, told the Secretary that ‘it were a shame that so honourable a trophy of war should be borne by a penman.’ To which suggestions the credulous guardian of this honourable trophy consenting, surrendered it to the disguised cavalier, who galloped back with it amain, and before evening received knighthood4 under its shadow.”

Brooke’s, Hollis’, and Ballard’s infantry, moved across part of the ground abandoned by Ramsay’s horse to attack the right flank of the King’s centre, an attack which soon becomes as disastrous to the Royalists as that on the other flank where Lindsay has fallen. In fact, the regiments of foot from the Parliamentary rear with Constable’s infantry and Stapleton’s horse, made a combined assault upon the King’s centre, which they commenced breaking up. In vain were the royalist reserves hurried forward. The Blue Regiment was cut off by Sir Arthur Haselrigge. Stapleton made a dash, and the King, who had been watching the fickle fortunes of his soldiers from a mound (now the King’s Clump) near Radway, narrowly escaped being made a prisoner. The timely interference of a body of royalist horse—an interference not of sufficient weight to stop the tide of the Puritan attack, but only to stay it for a few moments—enabled the King to gain the shelter of the hill, whither also the fragments of some of his regiments are compelled to follow.

IIBATTLE OF EDGE HILLAdvance of Hampden_Retreat of Rupert & King

Meanwhile Rupert had been lost to sight in Kineton streets. When he learned that the fortunes of the day were, in other parts of the field, in full flow against his cause, he and his cavaliers re-formed for the retreat. The place is still known as Prince Rupert’s Headland. There was, however, another factor to be taken into consideration. Some of Hampden’s green-coated soldiers, stimulated no doubt by the sounds of the fight, had in the meantime come up from Stratford-on-Avon, and were prepared to dispute Rupert’s return. They also succeeded in re-forming many of the fugitives, in which duty Captains Cromwell,5 Nathaniel Fiennes and Kightley, took part.[q] The guns and infantry opened fire upon the retreating cavaliers, who had a hard fight to regain the hill butt, for Stapleton’s horse, after fighting along the whole of the Royalist line, chased them home. Nevertheless, two of the royal regiments refused to be beaten; falling back upon their guns, they made a stand, probably along the line from Radway to Bullet Hill, and there, reinforced by Rupert’s returning troops, they held their ground, repulsing the Parliamentarian attacks, and so says Fiennes,[PB] “horse and foot stood together against horse and foot until night, when the Royalists retired up hill.” It is probably from this stage of the fight that Bullet Hill got its name. The braided lovelock of many a cavalier who rode so exultingly down the hill in the afternoon sunlight had a stain of a far deeper colour ’ere sunset, and with the phase of the fight following the straggling return of Rupert’s Horse, the events of the day seem to have ended. The King would have tried a final charge with some unbroken regiments to test once more the fortunes of the day, but was with difficulty persuaded from so perilous an enterprise.

Each side claims that only the night prevented a completely victorious issue for its cause, but when we consider that the right wing and centre of the King’s army were disorganised, and in part driven up the hill, and that the Parliamentarians were in possession of the battle ground, the Royalists retaining possession only of the low ground from Radway to Bullet Hill, it seems that the advantage rested on the Puritan side. One[a] remained master of the field of battle, the other kept the London road.

Amongst the several estimates of the slain, it is hard to say which is nearest the truth. Clarendon gives the number as 5,000, two parts of whom were Parliamentarian, and one part the King’s, but the probability is that it was nearer, a half of that number. Fiennes[PB] puts down the losses acknowledged by the Royalists themselves as 2,000. Certainly the records show that they were exceptionally heavy in officers, one writer adducing as a reason that “the rebel officers had fleeter horses, so not so many of them were slain.” During the cold frosty night after the battle the wounded must of necessity have been left exposed, inasmuch as the fight stretched over many miles of country, and was continued until night; nor do the Royalists appear to have been debarred from searching for their wounded, as we learn by the succour of old Sir Gervase Scroop by his son. The King’s troops says Clarenden “had not the shelter of tree or hedge, and after a very cold night spent on the field, without any refreshment of victual or provision for the soldiers (for the country was so disaffected that it not only sent no provisions, but many soldiers who straggled into the villages for relief were knocked on the head by the common people), the King found his troops very thin.” The Parliamentarians, whose baggage had been cut up by Rupert, could not have been in much better plight; some of them, however, fired the Dassett Beacon, and the news of the conflict was thus flashed across country to London. Though so much is recorded of Mr. Wilmot’s (afterwards Lord Rochester, of Adderbury,) position and work during the day, nothing other than the mere statement is made of a far greater leader, Spencer Compton, Earl of Northampton, than that he was at Edge Hill, with some of the best disciplined men.[MW] It would seem that the extended movement of the Royalist forces along the hill ridge in the early part of the day was to give support to Compton Wynyate, or get aid therefrom. It was but three miles distant. Whether any deflection of Hampden’s force moving from Stratford-on-Avon was made to mask or retard Compton’s men is mere surmise: the main part of Hampden’s rear did not reach the field until the Sunday midnight, when Essex got reinforced by a regiment of horse and two of foot.

The story of successive campaigns, as in this the first fight, resolves itself into the superiority of the heavy armament of the Parliamentarian horse. The improved status of the men added greater force at a later date. With all the dash, and all the value of the light horse of the King for foray, when in the field the cavalier went down before the iron armed horse of the Parliament’s army.

On the following day, the two armies again drew up, the Parliamentarians having in the early morning retired from the hill side towards Kineton,[PB] but neither showed any disposition to renew the fight. Essex was pressed to do so by some of his more impetuous officers, but wanted the daring necessary for so bold a movement. Charles sent a messenger into the rebel lines with a pardon for Earl Essex, which “messenger returned with so great a sense of danger as not to have observed the number and disposition of the Parliamentary forces.” Later on, Essex retired to Warwick with his troops, and Prince Rupert is reported to have followed, but failed to overtake them, though it is stated that he destroyed many wagons and carriages with munitions, &c. The reconnaissance appears to have been otherwise fruitless, for the King at once marched southward, and received the surrender of Banbury Castle, and also subsequently of Broughton Castle. Lord Saye, Sir Wm. Cobb, of Adderbury, and John Doyley, Esq., were not only proclaimed traitors, but were specially exempted from the King’s pardon.

The position of the graves in which the slain were buried is about 200 yards south of Thistle Farm, the ground bearing still the name of the Grave Field, and a wych elm marks the site of one of the graves.

The part that Oliver Cromwell played in the struggle has not unnaturally been the cause of much comment. Carlyle[q101] characteristically cuts the Gordian knot with the statement, “Captain Cromwell was present, and did his duty, let angry Denzil say what he will.”6 Denzil Hollis’s[o226] charge that Cromwell purposely absented himself from the field may be fairly set aside on the ground of malice, his enmity being openly shown, and moreover it meets contradiction in Cromwell’s own statement: “At my first going out into this engagement, I saw our men were beaten at every hand. I did indeed.” Neither can Dugdale’s account of Cromwell’s hurried descent from a church steeple by means of the bell rope, when he saw the Parliamentarian disaster, be received in the face of the letter written by Captain Nathaniel Fiennes,[PB] which ends thus: “These persons underwritten were all of the Right wing and never stirred from their Troops, but they and their Troops fought till the last minute. The Lord Generall’s Regiment—Sir Philip Stapleton, Captain Draper, Serjeant Major Gunter, Lord Brookes, Captain Sheffield, Captain Temple, Captain Cromwell; Sir William Belfore’s Regiment—Sir William Belfore, Serjeant Major Hurrey, Lord Grey, Captain Nathaniell Fiennes, Sir Arthur Hasilrigge, Captain Longe.” It is equally curious that Captain Oliver Cromwell, of Troop Sixty-Seven,[q100] was at Edge Hill in the place he invariably occupied during the civil war, viz., with the victorious wing, and that the history of the fluctuations of the fight should be repeated in so many of the great battles, Naseby and Marston Moor to wit.

A most true and ExactRELATIONOFBOTH THE BATTELS FOUGHT BYHIS EXCELLENCYand his Forces against the bloudy CavelliersThe one on the 23 of October last near Keyntonbelow Edge-Hill in Warwickshire,the other at Worcester byColonell Brown, Captain Nathaniel, and John Fiennes, andColonell Sands and some others

Wherein the particulars of each Battel is punctually set down at large for the full satisfaction of all people, with the Names of the Commanders and Regiments that valiently stood it out.

Also the number and Names of the Chief Commanders that were slain on both sides: All which is here faithfully set down without favour or partiality to either Army.

Written by a worthy Captain Master Nathaniel Fiennes, And commanded to be Printed.

London, Printed for Joseph HunscottNovem. 9. 1642
Mr. Nathaniel Fiennes his Letter to his Father

My Lord,

I have sent to your Lordship a Relation of the last Battell fought in Keynton Field, which I shewed to the Generall and Lievtenant Generall of the Horse, and divers Colonels and Officers, and they conceive it to be right and according to the truth: For the ill writing of it, I desire that your Lordship would excuse me, for I had not time to write it over again; yet I suppose it may be read, and your Lordship may cause it to be written faire, if your Lordship thinke it worth so much. For that which your Lordship writeth concerning my brother John, is a most false and malicious slander which that fellow hath raised upon him, that he should be the first man that fled on the left wing, when as none of your Lordship’s sonnes were in the left wing, and my brother John was not at all in the field while the fight was; for by occasion that I intreated him on Saturday morning, when we marched towards Keynton (little dreaming of a Battell the next day) to go to Evesham (which was but three miles from the quarter where our Troops lay, before they marched with the Army to Keynton) for to take some Arms that were come thither the night before, for such of our men as wanted Arms, and so to come after to the Rendevous at Keynton. He could not come thither on Saturday with those men of both Troops which went backe with him to Evesham for their Arms, but the next day he came thither between three or foure of the clock; at which time our left wing being defeated, many of the Runaways met with him as he was coming to the Army; and happily among the rest, this fellow that raised this report; for that Vivers which your Lordship mentioneth, was not Captain Vivers (for he was in Banbury) but a brother of his that was in one of Colonell Goodwin’s Troops, and as I heard my brother say, he saw him there; and I heard my Lord Generall say, that Vivers was one of the first that ran away: Now it seemes that those men that ran away so timely, seeing my brother before them, reported as if he had fled from the Army, which is so contrary to the truth, that he tooke a great deale of pains to make his own men and Captain Vivers’ men which were with him to stand, and to stop the Runaways that came from the Army, and this he did, and made two or three stands, and at length gathered a pretty body upon a hill together, and with them (there being Captain Keightlye’s, and Captain Cromwell’s Troope, at length came to them also) he marched towards the Town; and hearing the enemy was there (as indeed they were with the greatest part of their horse they made a stand, and sending forth their Scouts to give them intelligence where the enemy and where our Forces were, at length they came to knowledge of Colonell Hampden’s Brigado that was coming another way to the Town, and so joyning themselves unto them, they came to the Army together. My Lord Generall is very sensible of the wrong that this fellow hath done my brother, and will inquire after him to have him punished, as he hath written to my Lord Wharton concerning him, to let you know so much. Master Bond whom he citeth for one of his authors, denies that ere he spake to my brother at all, or that he saw any such thing of flying, as that base fellow reporteth, and this your Lordship shall have under his hand. It had been a strange thing if my brother that shewed so much courage at Worcester, should have been so faint-hearted on this occasion; But I strange that men will give credit to every idle fellow; if they will, they may heare that my Lord Generall and all the Officers, every one of them ran away. But my Lord, as your Lordship hath great cause to be thankfull, together with us, to God, that in all these late actions of danger, hath preserved the persons and lives of all your three Sons, so also for preserving their honors, and the honor of Religion; that in this cause they have never flinsht, but have all of them in their severall places and conditions been as forward to hazard their persons into the midst of their’s and God’s enemies as any whosever. And of the truth of this (though we do not vapour so much as some do) there are enough, and those very honorable witnesses that can and will affirm it as well as