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]

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1

Subsequently the scene of a fight between Waller’s Puritans and the Royalists under the Earl of Cleveland.

2

The cottage at the foot of the hill near Radway, which tradition pointed out as the one in which the King breakfasted, has been pulled down.