EDGEHILL 1642

Edgehill

1642

By the summer of 1642 an armed confrontation between King and Parliament became inevitable, both sides had mustered forces from all over the country and both had many foreigners come to fight for their cause (more so with the Royalists than the Parliamentarians). The Kings Army gathered around Nottingham and set out to gather more forces from the Welsh Border, particularly at Chester and Shrewsbury. The forces belonging to Parliament had gathered together and were tasked with protecting London by blocking the Royalists route south, these men were placed under the command of Robert Devereux, Third Earl of Essex. The Royalists however were determined to meet this force, beat them and move on London, thus winning the war in one large battle, and ending the conflict, yet how many wars in history have promised to ‘be over by Christmas’?

As the Royalists moved west towards Wales so the Parliamentarians shadowed them from their bases around Northampton, first moving to Coventry and then Warwick, whilst here a large Cavalry detachment was sent out to intercept a convoy of money and silver-plate which was heading north-west from Oxford under the command of Sir John Byron. This convoy was intended to be given to the King to pay for more arms and also more troops, it was vital this convoy didn’t reach its intended destination, the Parliamentarian force Commanded by Colonel John Brown (a mix of 1000 Dragoons and regular Cavalry) instead bumped into a similar sized force of Royalist Cavalry under the command of the Kings nephew, Prince Rupert.

These two fought one another in the hedgerows, fields and lanes of Powick field & Bridge close to Worcester on the 23rd September 1642. The small battle turned to be a complete rout for the Parliamentarians, Ruperts own Cavalry formation drove the enemy from the field and the route which Parliamentarian horsemen fled gave the name to the battle, Powick Bridge. The main reason for the Royalist victory was their use of the close contact tactic (see Cavalry section) and the indiscipline of their Parliamentarian counterparts who first fled to Pershore where they met friendly troops (actually the Earl of Essex’s own Lifeguard Regiment) instead of being emboldened by these men they instead claimed that Royalist horse were chasing them in their thousands, and so these fresh troops also fled. Rupert’s men however had been quite surprised to see the Parliamentarian forces that day and had only won the fight by the skin of his teeth, the Parliamentarians had actually covered their withdrawal very well by holding the bridge of Powick and driving off the Royalists who contented themselves with plundering the dead in Wick Field, including Colonel Sandys who had led the only Parliamentarian Cavalry Regiment across the bridge that morning, under orders from the forces commander, Colonel John Brown. This victory was a massive propaganda boost to the King, and had a demoralising effect on the Parliamentarian Cavalry, stories abounded of the untouchable Prince’s Cavalrymen and their ferocity in battle. This situation was not addressed until Oliver Cromwell used religion to instil confidence and fanaticism in a Parliamentarian unit, his own ‘Ironsides’.

Both sides were now on a collision course for a cataclysmic confrontation between the King and his supporters and those who had rebelled against him. Essex believed the Royalists would come down the Severn Valley and so placed himself around Worcester, with garrisons at Kidderminster and Bewdley. Essex’s moves however were a bad tactical decision, it moved him away from his bases around Warwick (the roads between Warwick and Worcester were poor) whilst his troops, now in Royalist territory committed many crimes and plundered local houses. The King however didn’t wish to fight Essex near Warwick as the country was not suited for Cavalry manoeuvres, and so instead the King moved almost directly towards London from Shrewsbury, gathering together at Meriden Heath on the 18th October it again set out in force, the Parliamentarians found this out and so moved back east over the poor roads, making slow progress. The Royalists by-passed Coventry and Warwick now with the Rebels to their west, the King could have kept going but would then have been caught between a Parliamentarian Army coming out of London, and the earl of Essex’s force behind him. The time had come to fight and so both sides met close to the villages of Radway and Kineton, on a ridge of high ground named Edgehill.

The King took up a very strong defensive position on the ridge-line, before his men were open fields, to the left and right were systems of hedgerows whilst the plain in the centre was largely clear, save for a small area of ploughed land in the middle. As was the tactic of the day both sides set up with Cavalry on either flank and with Infantry in the centre. The Royalist battle line was laid out as follows;

Royalist Left Wing (5 Cavalry Regiments split into two lines with Dragoons to the fore)

1st Line commanded by Lord Wilmot

Lord Wilmot's Regiment

Lord Grandison's Regiment

Earl of Carnarvon's Regiment

2nd Line commanded by Lord Digby

Lord Digby's Regiment

Sir Thomas Ashton's Regiment

Dragoons in hedges on left wing

Colonel Edward Grey's Dragoons & Colonel Edmund Duncombe's Dragoons

Royalist Centre (5 Brigades of foot individually commanded)

Charles Gerrard's Brigade of Foot (Charles Gerrards Regiment, Sir Lewis Dyve's Regiment & Sir Ralph Duttons Regiment)

John Belasyse's Brigade of Foot (John Belasayse's Regiment, Thomas Blagge's Regiment & Sir William Pennyman's Regiment)

Richard Fielding's Brigade of Foot (Richard Fielding's Regiment, Sir Thomas Lunsfords Regiment, Richard Bolle's Regiment, Sir Edward Fitton's Regiment & Sir Edward Stradling's Regiment)

Sir Nicholas Byrons Brigade of Foot (Kings Lifeguard of Foot, Lord Generals Regiment & Sir John Beaumont's Regiment)

Henry Wentworths Brigade of Foot (Sir Gilbert Gerard's Regiment, Sir Thomas Salusbery's Regiment & Lord Molyneux's Regiment)

Royalist Right Wing (5 Cavalry Regiments split into two lines with Dragoons to the fore)

1st Line commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine

Kings Lifeguard of Horse

Prince of Wales' Regiment

Prince Rupert's Regiment

Prince Maurice's Regiment

2nd Line commanded by Sir John Byron

Sir John Byrons Regiment

Dragoons in hedges on right wing

Colonel James Usher's Dragoons

As for the Parliamentarians:

Parliamentarian Left Wing (3 Cavalry Regiments with Dragoons to the fore)

Commanded by The Earl of Bedford, though effective command went to Sir William Balfour

The Lord General's Regiment of Horse

Sir William Balfours Regiment

Lord Fielding's Regiment (behind above two as reserve/ 2nd Line)

Dragoons in hedges to the fore and flank

Colonel John Browns Dragoons & Colonel James Wardlawes Dragoons

Parliamentarian Centre (3 Brigades of Foot drawn up in two lines)

Vanguard of Foot, Sir John Meldrum's Brigade

Sir John Meldrum Lord Seye & Sale's Regiment (1st Line)

Lord Robartes' Regiment (1st Line)

Sir William Constables Regiment (1st Line)

Sir William Fairfax's Regiment (2nd Line)

Battel of Foot, Charle's Essex's Brigade

Charles Essex's Regiment (1st Line)

Sir Henry Cholmley's Regiment (1st Line)

Lord Mandeville's Regiment (1st Line)

Lord Wharton's Regiment (1st Line)

Reereguard of Foot, Thomas Ballards Brigade

First Division, Lord General's Regiment of Foot (2nd Line)

Second Division, Lord General's Regiment of Foot (2nd Line

Lord Brooke's Regiment (2nd Line)

Thomas Ballards Regiment (2nd Line)

Denzil Holle's Regiment (2nd Line)

Parliamentarian Right Wing (24 troops of Horse with independent commands, plus 700 Musketeers in hedgerows)

Commanded by Sir James Ramsey

Independent commanders for each troop of horse, 400 Musketeers mixed with horse

300 Musketeers to fore and flank of this wing

There were also two independent Cavalry units; these were drawn up in between the two Infantry lines, to the right.

Sir Philip Stapleton's troop of Cuirassiers (Lord General's Lifeguard), Captain Nathaniel Draper's troop of Harquebusier's

Sir William Balfours troop of Cuirassiers, The Earl of Bedford's troop of Cuirassiers

The King was in such a good position that the Parliamentarians would not oblige him with battle, they too had drawn up in line of battle, but they stood their ground, perhaps neither wanted to fire the first shot on the day, perhaps both still believed they could talk their way out of such a situation, time passed and the King grew impatient, he had to beat the enemy before him somehow, so he ordered his men to march down the hill and across the open ground, as they did so the Parliamentarians too moved towards the Kings army, battle was to be joined, and a world was to be turned upside down.

With the sound of trumpets in their ears the Royalist Cavalry on both wings moved towards their counterparts. Popular Hollywood myth would see a cavalry charge as a mass of men and horses running as fast as they could towards the enemy then smashing into them pell-mell with no thought to cohesion or tactics, of course this may look good on the screen but it is not accurate, especially in the 17th Century. The Royalist Cavalry, well trained by Rupert and his advisors, moved from a trot to a canter, keeping themselves in tight lines, often with no room to manoeuvre their horse, when close to the enemy they gained speed and so hit the enemy formations (ranked up in static lines) as one cohesive force, the Royalists were well trained in this style of close contact warfare, their Parliamentarian adversaries were not and so broke and ran with most men not having fired a shot, some fled all the way to London to spread panic amongst the streets declaring that the war was lost. With the enemy routed on either flank what were the Royalist horse to do now?

It has often been said by many a notable historian that the Royalist Cavalry was unruly and could not be relied upon to attack the Parliamentarian Infantry from behind, in fact there were two factors as to why they did not, the first is that they would have been badly mauled by the rebel infantry, pike-blocks could not be attacked by cavalry, a horse naturally shies away from a rank of men armed with 18-foot pikes, thus a depleted and disordered Royalist Cavalry force could then have been wiped out by any Rebel horse which had re-gathered its own cohesion, and so the Royalists had to keep on the pressure and chase the Parliamentarians for as far as they could, the second factor being that it simply wasn’t their job, their code of honour dictated that they should be fighting men of their own social stature, the gentry classes of the Parliamentarian horse were the closest thing which came to that.

Thus at one fell swoop the Battle of Edgehill was to become a fight between the Infantry of both sides. Sir Jacob Astley, a Royalist Infantry commander heard the signal to advance, raised his hands to heaven and shouted “Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day, if I should forget thee, do not thou, forget me… Come on Boys!” and so the Royalist infantry advanced. Again movies and TV dramas of the period show battles as groups of men running at one another to fight man-to-man in single combats in a swirling mass of bodies, the truth is just as with the cavalry charge, it didn’t happen this way. Infantry advanced in blocks of Pikemen with Musketeers to either side of these blocks, these men would be firing at their counterparts, though most shots would miss as the weapons of the period were very inaccurate, the men were tightly packed together and moved as a solid mass, only gaining any momentum in the last few steps as they come to push of pike, which would be a truly horrendous experience to those unlucky enough to have been in one, the dead and dying could not even fall to the ground because of the press of bodies, if you were alive, stumbled and fell you’d be trampled to death by your own comrades, if you’d cut your pike short to make it easier to carry (which did happen) then your opponent might have a longer pike and so skewer you before your pike got anywhere near him, both sides would withdraw a few paces to re-organise then come crashing at each other again, these were called battle pulses, just as a heart beats so did the clash of armour as it rang out across the blood stained countryside, whilst the pikemen formed these scrums of men the Musketeers continued to fire into their counterparts or more than likely they drew swords or long daggers and joined in the fight with these, many re-enactment companies and experts believe they turned their muskets around and used them as clubs, on an open battlefield, as opposed to a street battle or inside a house the truth was their muskets were too cumbersome to be used in this way, there are only a couple of records showing they used Muskets as Clubs, and that was in a siege situation, not open battle, plus the barrel would be extremely hot and who would want to be swinging a heavy lump of wood and metal that burned your hands when you have a sword tucked into your belt (all Musketeers and Pikemen were armed with swords too), there is little evidence to support the use of muskets as clubs on a battlefield, in siege actions and street fighting perhaps, but little on a battlefield.

As well as causing the Parliamentarian cavalry to flee the victory gained by Rupert and Wilmot’s horsemen also caused a number of the Parliamentarian foot to run away too, so when the Royalist’s five Brigades advanced they were met by little more than two Brigades of Parliamentarian infantry, the battle at this stage should have been a walk over for the King, however the Parliamentarians remaining on the field now fought bitterly against their foes, for example Meldrum’s single Regiment held up an entire Royalist Brigade (Wentworth’s) which consisted of three Regiments. The two independent Cavalry units in the Parliamentarian ranks (see order of battle above) had stayed on the field, they now took up a position to harass and potentially charge two of the Royalist central Brigades (Byron’s and Fieldings), the sight of horsemen would have come as a shock to the Royalist Infantry and with only a few shots fired these two Brigades now turned and fled back up the hill, meanwhile the other Royalist Infantry ploughed on into their opposition who stood defiantly and made a fight of it.

At the end of the 23rd of October the field belonged to no-one but the dead, the King had lost most of his Infantry whilst his Cavalry was off scouring the countryside of any enemy horsemen they could find, the Parliamentarian army was in tatters with little of it left to take to the field again the next day. Technically it had been a draw, neither side had beaten the other enough to win outright, both sides of course claimed a victory and in truth the aftermath of the battle was better for the King than for the Rebels as the way to London was now open, one more battle and the King could rule completely.

The dead from both sides were buried in great pits, it is claimed that the nobles and commoner alike were buried together, never equals in the social structure in life, they were, in death, on the same level. One of the dead, stripped of clothing and jewels was Sir Edmund Verney, born in 1590 he was 52 when he died. In his life he had held many notable posts within the upper circles of the nobility, when war broke out it ripped his world, and his family apart, for although he, his older brother and his eldest son joined the cause of the King, his two younger sons joined the Rebellion. His sons were shocked to find out he had chosen to fight for the King, as for many years Edmund had been opposed to the rule of King Charles and his many legislations and laws, though when pushed for a reason he is said to have replied “I have eaten his bread and served him near thirty years, and will not do so base a thing as to desert him now”. Edmund however knew he could never fight against his own son’s whom he loved very much, and yet he was made the Kings Standard Bearer, the most honourable position to be given in the Army, he was at the fore-front of the action, instilling confidence in the men around him and inspiring them to keep going under gunfire and threat of being over-run by the few cavalry still remaining on the field. As the rebels came near to the unit he was with they shouted for him to surrender the Kings Colours, of course his honour dictated his response “My life is my own, yet my Standard belongs to the King, and I shall not deliver it so long as I live”. He didn’t live of course, the Parliamentarians, both Cavalry and Infantry now fell upon his unit and hacked them to pieces, though the 52 year old Sir Edmund took two of the enemy with him “he himself killed two with his own hands… and brocke the poynt of his standard at push of pike”. Soon the action was over and the Royalists were fleeing, the flag was presented to the Earl of Essex, who entrusted it to a servant to take it to the rear, however it was intercepted by a small group of Royalists from Grandison’s Regiment, under the command of a Captain John Smith, at first they thought the servant (with a group of armed horsemen with him) was carrying another flag and so tried to avoid them, legend has it that a young boy told Smith that it was the Kings own Colour that the enemy were carrying and so the Royalists attacked them and took the flag back for the King. It was said that when they returned back to the King with his flag that Charles himself noticed that a hand still gripped the flag, hacked away from its owner it was the hand of Sir Edmund Verney, recognisable because of a signet ring it bore, a gift from non-other than Charles himself.

The hand was the only part of Sir Edmunds body which was found and given a proper burial. This happened in Middle Claydon Church in Buckinghamshire, his home town where his own manor house was. It is said his ghost haunts Claydon House (though it may not be the same house which bears that name today), it is said to only ever be seen before a national crisis and so has not been seen very much lately, though it has been seen at other times on a set of ‘Red Stairs’. A re-enactment of his death has supposedly been seen on the lawns outside the house, though this may be confused with the actual re-enactment of the entire battle seen at Edgehill.

This phenomena was first reported over the Christmas period immediately after the battle, farmers tending their fields claimed to hear the sounds of battle and so rushed home to tell everyone that another engagement was raging close by, however no one could pin-point where the sound was coming from, then suddenly the skies above the battlefield were said to light up and the fighting began once more in all its deathly vigour, not amongst the field and hedges, but above the ground as if in the heavens. Word reached the King of this and so he decided to investigate, for not only had the local commoners seen this, but doctors and even judges laid claim to having witnessed it, the same sights occurred each night over the Christmas and New Year period of 1642-1643. When Charles sent a delegation to find the facts they astonishingly reported back to him that not only did they see it, but they recognised men who had fought and died, including Sir Edmund Verney. Edgehill today is mostly peaceful land; the vast majority of it is under the control of the Ministry of Defence, but every now and then the echoes of that bloody day long ago are reported, spectral soldiers seen marching off to battle, clashes of armour and rolling gunfire of cannon, the crackle of muskets and the screams of the dying, all heard from time to time.

After Edgehill the forces under Essex re-grouped back at Warwick, leaving the way open for the King to march on London, however the King now squandered this opportunity, he believed he had suffered grievous casualties and that his troops needed training properly, too many had fled the field and so he took his time moving south-west. This time gave the Parliamentarians an opportunity to mount a stronger resistance; the King’s men did however quickly take Banbury, a Parliamentarian garrison, which has given rise to the next tale of spooky goings on.

The Castle Inn near Banbury dates back to 1740 (almost a century after the battle was fought) and was originally a folly built by Architect Sanderson Miller who took his inspiration from Guy’s Tower at Warwick Castle. Today it is of course as its name suggests, an Inn, yet it is its grounds which of course are haunted by the remnants of the battle which raged in the area all those years ago, inside too there are tales of soldiers spirits walking the floor boards, perhaps drawn to nothing more than the Militaria that is on display inside the bar, or perhaps they are forever fighting for their own causes, now lost in time.

Charles and his army moved to the city and vicinity of Oxford, this was to become his royal capital and a stronghold for the Royalist cause, though to begin with many of its students opted to rebel against their King. The King moved out for London at the beginning of November, eager to get it over and done with for Christmas perhaps his men left Oxford in high spirits, Essex in the meantime had moved south-west too, on the 12th of November Prince Rupert, leading the advance guard of the Royalist Army captured the Parliamentarian garrison at Brentford, now the way to London was wide open, all that stood in King Charles’ way was a massive army of London’s own militia, known as the London Trained Bands under the command of Philip Skippon plus some units the Earl of Essex had brought with him. The Royalists were not however in a position to fight another major battle and the King, despite coming so far, decided to retire to Oxford instead of fighting the deciding battle of 1642. Thus as the winter snow settled on England’s green and pleasant lands and its people said goodbye to 1642 the country was still at war with itself and 1643 would dawn bright with more blood and devastation set upon its horizon.