- 6/30/2024
For educational purposes
After months of rising tension, The English Civil War finally exploded into life on the slopes of Edgehill on October 23rd 1642.
It was to be a confused and bitter business, marked by the foolishness of Prince Rupert and the Royalist cavalry, who left the field at a crucial stage of the battle.
As darkness fell, nearly 3000 men lay dead and the die was cast; the English Civil War would be no short and decisive affair.
After months of rising tension, The English Civil War finally exploded into life on the slopes of Edgehill on October 23rd 1642.
It was to be a confused and bitter business, marked by the foolishness of Prince Rupert and the Royalist cavalry, who left the field at a crucial stage of the battle.
As darkness fell, nearly 3000 men lay dead and the die was cast; the English Civil War would be no short and decisive affair.
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LearningTranscript
00:00This is Edge Hill, the imposing ridge that rises abruptly from the flat plain of the
00:11county of Warwickshire in England.
00:19It was from these slopes in October 1642 that the forces of King Charles I descended to
00:26fight the parliamentarian army of the Earl of Essex, bringing a shattering end to more
00:32than 130 years of peace.
00:43Neither side was able to claim outright victory at the end of the bloody battle that followed,
00:48but for the royalist side, the battle represented a lost opportunity to inflict a crushing early
00:53defeat on their foe.
01:02Foreshadowing events to come, the ill-disciplined royalist cavalry absented itself from the
01:07field of Edge Hill at a crucial stage of the battle, and, by the time they returned, they
01:13were too late to influence its outcome.
01:19The king lived not only to regret the cavalry's mistake, but to see it repeated later in the
01:55King Charles had argued with his parliaments almost from the first day of his reign.
02:21As year followed year, and the position of both sides became more and more entrenched,
02:26the prospect of a peaceful solution to the nation's problems became increasingly remote.
02:36By early 1642, Charles was faced with the outright hostility of the commons and the
02:42people of London, and was forced to flee to York in the north of England.
02:50This means that London is conceded, the king gives up London to parliament.
02:55It means that the forces of order in London, the trained bands, become the nucleus of a
03:01separate parliamentary army.
03:07History records that King Charles was a man of great principle and firm convictions, but
03:11he was a man totally opposed to the kind of change that large sections of his people
03:16demanded.
03:27Charles was only the second king to sit on the combined throne of Scotland and England,
03:32which, although they shared a monarch, were still separate countries in every legal and
03:36economic sense.
03:40Although he was born in Scotland and spoke with a trace of the Scots accent that he'd
03:44inherited from his father, Charles largely turned his back on that country.
03:54His slight speech impediment meant that he lacked a certain presence, but this was compensated
03:59by his earnest religious faith and the serious manner in which he accepted the burden of
04:04kingship.
04:11The king was studious, dedicated, and absolutely resolute in any cause in which he firmly believed.
04:19He was particularly staunch in his desire to uphold the ancient laws and structures
04:23of England, but as he interpreted them.
04:30King Charles once famously outlined his own inflexible views on the role of the monarch.
04:40I alone must answer to God for our exercise of the authority he has vested in me.
04:47It is for me to decide how our nation is to be governed, how my subjects are to be
04:52ruled, and, above all, how the church shall be established under the rule of law.
05:00These are the divine rights of kings and are ordained by the Almighty.
05:05It is not the place of the subject to question the royal prerogative.
05:11I shall endeavour to uphold the liberties of the country, but my authority is absolute
05:16and may not be questioned.
05:23On St George's Day, 1642, the king tried to seize arms and ammunition stored at nearby
05:29Hull, but was denied entry to the town by Sir John Hotham.
05:37Although he was desperately short of weapons, Charles spent the next four months gathering
05:42the beginnings of an army until, in August 1642, he felt in a strong enough position
05:48to raise his standard at Nottingham.
05:54At last the genteel pretenses were cast aside.
05:57The English Civil War had begun in earnest.
06:19The king was raising his forces in the border areas around Shrewsbury, which was his initial
06:25base.
06:26He would walk through the Midland shires, gaining men as he moved, but the majority,
06:32particularly of his infantry, was recruited from the border areas.
06:36He moved from Shrewsbury, once he had an army in play, moving towards London.
06:41He wanted to bring on an engagement.
06:42In a sense, both sides wanted to bring on an engagement because there was a hope that
06:47that would determine the entire war.
06:49That would be it.
06:53London was the critical target.
06:55If Charles could capture London before the war really developed momentum and the enemy
06:59were able to mobilise their forces properly, then the war would be over.
07:10For the parliamentary side, it was vital that the king's forces should be prevented from
07:14reaching London.
07:18The man entrusted with this task was 51-year-old Robert Devereux, the third Earl of Essex.
07:28The Earl of Essex was undoubtedly an extremely brave man.
07:31I mean, it's notorious that he took his coffin along in this campaign.
07:36As much as to say, lads, it's death or glory.
07:40And he was something that is very common in English military history, or rather British
07:46military history.
07:47He's a very good regimental commander.
07:50But above that, he begins to lose it very quickly.
07:54Formations under his command quickly lose their coherence.
07:58It is notorious that he was very bad on the big picture.
08:04The solidity that made him admirable in many respects affects his generalship.
08:09At Edge Hill, he refuses to make an attacking move because, I think, he believed that he
08:13wanted to show that it was the king who was the aggressor.
08:16And that kind of reluctance to make major moves, or only to move in force with the fullness
08:23of all his resources, means that his army lumbers from area to area.
08:30In an attempt to cut off the king's route to London, Essex marched his men from Worcester
08:35to Warwick, and by October 22nd it lay near Kyneton, a village to the south of the town.
08:43The Royalists had marched down from Shrewsbury via Wolverhampton and, true to form, where
08:49Essex was concerned, they had managed to get themselves between the parliamentarians and
08:55the capital.
08:58Edge Hill, Kyneton, that part of the world, lies at a crossroads between the great south-east
09:07to north-west road and the great south-west to north-east road in England at the time.
09:16And those two big roads cross just near Stratford-upon-Avon, they cross near Warwick, they cross right
09:26in the East Midlands.
09:27And as a result, the East Midlands are the crossroads of the English Civil War.
09:33The First English Civil War hinges on the East Midlands.
09:41In the last week of October, the beginning of the last week of October, 1642, we have
09:45a very unusual situation.
09:48We have the Royalist Army sitting on the lines of communication of the Parliamentary Army.
09:53The Parliamentary Army, finding that its route back to London was blocked by the Royalist
09:58Army.
09:59Now, at about three o'clock in the morning of Sunday, the 23rd of October, the Royalist
10:05Army received information that the Parliamentary Army was preparing to advance south-east back
10:12towards London.
10:14The King had to find a good blocking position, and there was an obvious one to the north-west
10:20of Banbury.
10:21And this is the ridge at Edge Hill, it's a 300-foot escarpment.
10:26If he could get there before the Parliamentary Army, then he could prevent their return to
10:31London.
10:49The Royalist Army formed up on the steep slope of Edge Hill, facing away from the village
10:54of Radway, and overlooking the Parliamentary forces on the plain below.
11:05The first major battle of the English Civil War, a battle that many on both sides believed
11:10would decide the outcome of the war itself, was just hours away.
11:23In 1642, when the First Civil War starts, nobody knows that this is year one of the
11:31four-year First English Civil War.
11:35So nobody in England is prepared economically, politically, militarily, to fight a long civil
11:43war.
11:48The two sides at Edge Hill were roughly equivalent.
11:51Both sides deployed about 14,000 men.
11:54Of these, the majority were infantry, about a total of 20,000, all together with about
11:582,500 cavalry on each side.
12:01But these were very raw troops.
12:04Although some of the officers, and indeed some of the personnel, had experience of war
12:09either against the Scots relatively recently, or on the continent in the previous couple
12:13of decades, there were very few people at Edge Hill who consider themselves expert soldiers.
12:20The standards of training, given that this was so early in the war and the troops were
12:24rawly raised, were very low.
12:27The quality of the weapons on both sides was not particularly sophisticated, and indeed
12:31some of the royalist forces even took the field armed with nothing more than pitchforks,
12:36agricultural implements of various kinds, or even cudgels.
12:45Infantry regiments of the period were made up of two quite different types of soldier.
12:51These were musketeers and pikemen.
12:56In action, the pikemen were grouped together in the centre of each battalion, forming a
13:00forest of pike shafts, with a wing of musketeers on each side.
13:06Firearms were still evolving, and the musketeers were mainly armed with matchlock muskets.
13:20An experienced soldier could load and fire within 30 seconds, but there were few of these
13:26when the war began.
13:37The pikemen had once been the most important element of an infantry regiment, and formed
13:41two-thirds of a regiment during Elizabeth I's reign.
13:45But by the time of the Civil War, they were in decline, eclipsed by the more versatile
13:50and deadly musketeers.
13:56Fewer and fewer of them now wore the armour shown in the elegantly illustrated drill books
14:01of the period.
14:02But they still had an important role to play, especially in using their long pikes to fend
14:08off enemy cavalrymen.
14:15They could also deliver a decisive blow by moving forward with their pikes levelled at
14:20the charge.
14:25For usually, the threat of coming to grips with the pike was enough to cause one side
14:29or the other to break and run.
14:38If regiments retained their formations, the result could be a kind of a rugby scrum, in
14:46which not too many people would get hurt.
14:49There are incidents in the battle where royalist and parliamentary regiments come to push of
14:54pike, neither gives way, nothing happens, and so they both retreat four or five paces
15:01and just fire their muskets at one another.
15:03The musket is a devastating weapon in terms of individual injuries in this period.
15:07If a regiment broke, then it becomes formidable.
15:11Then you begin to see the butcher's bill of dead and wounded.
15:25Cavalry were of two kinds, the heavy cuirassiers, clad in armour from head to toe like medieval
15:31knights, and light cavalrymen called haquebusiers, who wore only a breastplate or a heavy buff
15:38leather coat.
15:44The cuirassiers were intended to charge home, while the haquebusiers were skirmishers, trained
15:50to fight with firearms rather than up close with swords.
15:57With some notable exceptions, the standard of unit cohesion and discipline of English
16:02Civil War cavalry was pretty low.
16:06It's worth bearing in mind that until 1642 there were almost no trained bodies of cavalry
16:11anywhere within the British Isles, so really these formations had to be formed from scratch.
16:18On the parliamentary side, the cavalry is a weakness at this period, and this was diagnosed
16:24by one of the great cavalry commanders of the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell.
16:28Cromwell, who was not present at Edge Hill, his troops were not sufficiently near to be
16:32brought into the battle, read Edge Hill as a frightful comment on the parliamentary cavalry.
16:37He described them as decayed tapsters and serving men.
16:41They lacked the spirit of the royalist gentry.
16:47I think it's true to say that the royalist cavalry on balance also had something of a
16:50predisposition towards indiscipline.
16:52It's worth bearing in mind that the social elevation of many of its members, squires,
16:59nobility even, and certainly gentlemen, made it difficult for them psychologically to adjust
17:04to the idea of being given orders, certainly by their social inferiors.
17:09So the royalist cavalry throughout the English Civil War showed something of a tendency to
17:14charge at full speed ahead against the enemy, but then proved very difficult to rally and
17:19to use really at any other point during the battle.
17:24Fire!
17:30Artillery, though invaluable in sieges, seldom played a decisive role in pitched battles,
17:36since cannon were generally too heavy to move easily and too slow to reload.
17:44The cannon of the period fired cannonballs, smooth projectiles designed not to explode
17:50but to cause horrific injury by the violence of their passage.
18:01Those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the path of a cannonball often had arms
18:06or legs torn off as the deadly missile passed through massed ranks of men.
18:13Fire!
18:19Although artillery was, without doubt, cumbersome and inefficient, no field army of the period
18:25was considered complete without at least a few guards.
18:31The king, by leaving London, had abandoned the Tower of London, and that was traditionally
18:38where most of the artillery in England was kept.
18:42That meant that the king had to scrape together artillery in order to equip his army to move
18:49on London, and he was able to scrape together about 20 guns, not a lot of guns.
18:56Parliament held the Tower of London in 1642, therefore they had more guns, and at least
19:0230 at Edge Hill, maybe more, some people suggest he had almost 40 guns at Edge Hill.
19:10Unable to tempt the parliamentarians to attack their favourable positions on the hill,
19:15the king's men moved down onto the forward slope towards Kyneton.
19:20The king, seeming to sense the apprehension of men about to go into battle for the first
19:33time, rode to each regiment and brigade of horses in his army, encouraging them to their duty.
19:40These stirring words from this supposedly less than charismatic Charles certainly had
19:49the desired effect. Enormous cheers began to ring around the royalist army.
20:00It was probably these cheers that goaded the parliamentary artillery into firing the first
20:05shots of the battle.
20:10Cheers.
20:17Curiously enough, the name of the very first casualty of the Battle of Edge Hill is recorded.
20:23The unfortunate man was Lieutenant Francis Bowles of Fielding's regiment, who was struck
20:29down as he stood near the centre of the royalist line.
20:33On the face of it, one would have assumed that the royalist gunners would have had the
20:38advantage. They, after all, were on ground which is slightly higher than the parliamentary
20:42ground. But what tended to happen is that their balls, their cannonballs, actually ploughed
20:46into furrowed fields. When the parliamentary guns fired, their cannonballs actually ricocheted
20:52and they carried on up the hill. And in some cases they penetrated right through the royalist
20:58lines and almost reached the royalist gun line.
21:07It was now time for the royalist cavalry to make its first move.
21:17The cavalry was under the command of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the king's dashing and
21:22energetic nephew.
21:29As the king was defined to his cost, the young prince was also more than a little impetuous.
21:47He doesn't take orders easily. He likes to be in charge of his own cavalry and at Edge
21:52Hill there is a conflict over the organisation of the royalist army, in which Rupert plays
21:57a role. Rather than taking orders from his general, he supports an alternative formation
22:03for the royalist army initially, and the Earl of Lindsay, the royalist commander-in-chief,
22:07sulks in consequence of that. But this is not untypical of Rupert. He likes to have
22:12his own way of doing things. He doesn't take orders. He is a prince of the blood, after
22:17all. In terms, of course, of his cavalry, he never, I think, sufficiently disciplines
22:21them.
22:23In effect, what it meant was that the cavalry were not part of the battle plan. It meant
22:29that the cavalry operated independently of the infantry and the artillery, and there
22:34was none of the synergy that might have been gained if they had been used differently.
22:44The royalist horses, three deep, began to move forward towards Sir James Ramsey's
22:50parliamentary cavalry on the left wing, expecting to meet it in a huge hand-to-hand battle.
22:56That fight, however, never happened, for as the charging royalists drew close, the parliamentarians
23:03lost their nerve and fled the field without ever coming to grips with their enemy.
23:19The initial charge of the royalist cavalry puts to flight the parliamentary cavalry.
23:25Parliamentary cavalry had been expecting a kind of a carousel that the royalists would
23:30actually ride up to within pistol shot and then open fire and then withdraw to reload
23:35their pistols. They weren't expecting this massive cavalry riding knee to knee to come
23:41launching at them. This was Rupert's contribution to the cavalry. And, of course, when they
23:45see this coming, they turn and they run.
23:50Their task was not made any easier when Sir Faithful Fortescue and his men changed sides
23:57and began to attack their erstwhile comrades, although it's doubtful whether even this made
24:02much difference.
24:12The die was cast and the panic-stricken mob was pursued off the field for seven miles
24:18towards Kyneton. The jubilant royalist cavalry believed they had already won the day.
24:30Only the regiment of foot of Denzel Hollis was able to offer any kind of resistance to
24:34the rampant royalist cavalry on the parliamentary left wing. Despite the exhortations of Prince
24:41Rupert, the royalist horses swept on towards Kyneton, where they found the carts and wagons
24:46of Essex's army. Here, there was a host of prizes to plunder, among them the coach of
24:53Essex himself.
25:03Meanwhile, on the battlefield, there were more troubles for the parliamentary side,
25:08as Lord Wilmot on the royalist left wing easily swept Lord Fielding's cavalry from the field.
25:17The foot regiment of Sir William Fairfax also broke and ran, none faster or with more purpose
25:25than Lieutenant Thomas Whitney, who found a horse and didn't stop riding until he reached
25:30London. Here too, though, the triumphant royalists lost their discipline and made their way off
25:37the field, away from the main fighting, towards Kyneton.
25:42When the royalist cavalry on both wings of the Edge Hill battlefield essentially disappeared
25:49from the battlefield, heading off in the direction of Kyneton to wipe out the fleeing parliamentarian
25:55foot and cavalry, really the chances of the royalists winning a decisive victory began
26:00to evaporate. Although something like 10,000 royalist foot remained on the battlefield,
26:07they were still up against 6,000 or 7,000 parliamentarian foot, many of whom were reasonably
26:11well motivated and determined to fight, but more importantly, they were also up against
26:16a small but capable parliamentarian cavalry reserve. And as the battle developed and that
26:21parliamentarian reserve was committed into the battle, the royalists had nothing equivalent
26:25that they could throw at the parliamentarians.
26:31If the royalist cavalry, if even one wing of the royalist cavalry, Rupert on the right
26:36or the left wing of the cavalry, had behaved as Cromwell's cavalry behaved at Marston,
26:41Moor, or Naseby, there would have been a total victory for the royalists. The parliamentary
26:46infantry would have found themselves engaged in the front by royalist infantry, approximately
26:51equal in number to them, and then as the royalists found themselves attacked from the flank and
26:57the rear by cavalry, they would almost certainly have broken under that kind of pressure.
27:07The hour had now come for the royalist foot to make its move and to follow up the successes
27:13of the cavalry. Sir Jacob Astley, at the head of the royalist troops, knelt and made one
27:19of English history's most famous prayers.
27:24Oh Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou forget me.
27:36With that, Astley rose to his feet and crying, March on boys, he led forward the royalist foot.
27:48They marched forward resolutely at a slow but steady pace. Many among the royalist ranks
28:06would have seen and been greatly encouraged by the successes won by the cavalry and their
28:11confidence was surely reinforced when the parliamentarian brigade of Charles Essex simply
28:17crumbled away without ever striking a blow.
28:24At this point the royalists should have begun the annihilation of a parliamentary army.
28:29Things seemed to be falling to pieces very rapidly indeed. But the parliamentary infantry,
28:34most of it, did not lose its head. The reserve regiment marches up, it filters into the line
28:41and replays the soldiers who fled, Essex's soldiers. And the royalist pikes meet a solid
28:48wall of parliamentary pikes. And they actually come to push a pike and the battle sways backwards
28:55and forwards for some minutes.
28:57The royalist Clarendon, in the thick of the fighting, later described the dreadful melee
29:13in the centre of the royalist line.
29:17The foot of both sides stood their ground with great courage. They kept their ranks.
29:23The execution was great on both sides, but much greater on the Earl of Essex's party.
29:38The pikemen on both sides are both armed with similar weapons. Neither side is going to
29:45expose themselves to death and mutilation to get the other side with their own pike
29:51points. So by nature when two groups of pike came together, they did not aggressively massacre
30:00each other. They conservatively attempted to push each other around.
30:06Meanwhile, the muskets could fire at the pikemen. They could actually kill pikemen. So what
30:23you want to do in close combat is you want to take your pikes, use them to protect your
30:28own muskets while your muskets do the killing and while your artillery does the killing.
30:36In this environment, it's very difficult to know what's actually going on at any distance
30:47from yourself. All you see around yourself is your comrades or perhaps if you're standing
30:52in the first couple of ranks, your enemies. You really are standing chest to chest and
30:56shoulder to shoulder with your friends and with your opponents. So this would have been
31:00close quarter bludgeoning, jabbing, slashing, extremely unpleasant.
31:08Of course, the musketeers, of which there were roughly equivalent numbers to the pikemen
31:12at Edge Hill, on some occasions would be able to reload their weapons and fire them at very
31:17close range. And the wounds that these large caliber weapons would have caused would have
31:20been extremely unpleasant and in many cases, of course, fatal.
31:31Perhaps the best commentaries on what close quarters combat was like come from the various
31:36chaplains on the Royalist and the Parliamentary side and they are appalled by what they see,
31:41by the bestiality of men clubbing one another and shooting gigantic holes with these vast
31:46musket bullets into one another.
31:49The seven remaining Parliamentary regiments were now engaged in mortal combat with 10,000
31:56Royalist foot soldiers.
32:01Despite the early signs, however, the Royalist advance was gradually faltering as the hedgehogs
32:07of pikemen, flanked by supporting musketeers, struggled to push the Parliamentarians back
32:14or to break through their lines.
32:24The gaps in the Parliamentary ranks created by the defeat of Charles Essex's brigade were
32:29filled by the brigade of Thomas Ballard and the Parliamentarians were now definitely turning
32:35the tide of battle.
32:44It was now the turn of the few Parliamentarian cavalrymen who had not fled the field to play
32:50a crucial role in the day's fighting.
32:57In that infantry battle, things are pretty much of a much and it's almost a standoff.
33:01But Balfour has held back some of his cavalry regiments and these cavalry regiments then
33:06assail the Royalist infantry regiments on the left flank.
33:10The Royalist infantry regiments on the left flank and those Royalist infantry regiments,
33:15two of the Royalist infantry regiments, fighting hand to hand in front, suddenly find themselves
33:20assailed on the flank.
33:25The credit for the decisive action goes to Lieutenant General Sir William Balfour.
33:30Balfour, along with Sir Philip Stapleton, gathered up the few available horsemen and
33:36launched a furious assault upon the Royalist foot brigades led by Colonel Richard Fielding
33:42and Sir Nicholas Byram.
34:00Balfour routed Fielding's brigade who, in the face of the onslaught, threw down their
34:04weapons and ran away.
34:07From his position, King Charles could now see the Royalist centre in full retreat, streaming
34:13back towards the hill with the parliamentarians hot on their heels, mercilessly cutting down
34:19the fleeing fugitives.
34:34Meanwhile, the King's lifeguard was locked in combat with Constable's regiment and it
34:44was here that one of the battle's most dramatic episodes occurred.
34:56Sir Edmund Verney, the Knight Marshal who bore the King's banner royal, was cut down
35:01as he defended the standard in the swirling melee.
35:05A reluctant soldier, Verney had rallied to the King's cause not in support of strongly
35:10held beliefs, but out of a sense of gratitude for the honours bestowed upon him by his monarch.
35:16Now he was dead, killed by Ensign Arthur Young, who snatched the royal standard from his lifeless hand.
35:23The parliamentarian triumph was short-lived, however.
35:33The Royalist, Captain Smith, galloped up to retrieve the flag, crying,
35:38Traitor! Deliver the standard!
35:40as he scattered the parliamentarian troops.
35:43Although he was badly wounded in the process, the heroic Smith returned the standard to
35:48the King's side.
35:50It had remained in parliamentarian hands for just six minutes.
36:03Fortunately for the King, the Royalist centre was strong enough to prevent a complete collapse.
36:10The Royalist infantry regiments themselves showed their morale and discipline.
36:14Supported by cannon, the remainder of the Royalist infantry managed to hold out despite
36:19the presence of cavalry. They're aware by now that cavalry is going to come against
36:24them and they prepare themselves for that. And finally, the battle becomes more a standoff
36:30and then the Royalist cavalry return from their chase.
36:36What their feelings were as they watched the Royalist cavalry return to the field after
36:41its trip to Kyneton can only be guessed.
36:50The King's cavalry had been absent from the field for virtually the entire battle.
36:56Thinking they had played their part and won the day, they had busied themselves plundering
37:01the parliamentarian baggage train while their comrades in the foot regiment were fighting
37:06a life or death struggle.
37:11Although it's very easy and perhaps tempting to blame Prince Rupert for the failure of
37:16the Royalist cavalry at Edge Hill to play a more decisive role in the battle, this might
37:20perhaps be a little bit unfair. Certainly it's true to say that Prince Rupert, as overall
37:24commander of the Royalist cavalry, had a clear responsibility to make sure that their actions
37:29were carefully coordinated and fulfilled the commander's higher intent.
37:33Having said this, it also seems to be the case that some of Prince Rupert's subordinates
37:38failed to behave themselves properly, if you like. Certainly the second line Royalist cavalry
37:44failed, I think, to really do what they should have done at Edge Hill.
37:48When the first waves or the first line of the Royalist cavalry dashed forward and routed
37:52their opponents on both wings, it would have been far more effective had the second line
37:57of Royalist cavalry waited and then they would have been available to attack the parliamentarian
38:02infantry in the centre. Instead, on both wings, really it would seem on the volition of their
38:07commanders, certainly on the right, under Digby, the Royalist cavalry simply dashed
38:12forward to pursue the already routed opponents from the field.
38:25They eventually returned to the field of battle mainly because they'd encountered fresh parliamentarian
38:30regiments at Kyneton, but their belated return was of no help to the Royalist foot.
38:37Where were they when Balfour's cavalry had made its charge and saved the day for parliament?
38:48The return of the Royalist cavalry allowed the Royalist right flank to be stabilised
38:53because this was the area that looked as though it was going to be knocked in by parliamentary attacks.
38:59By the time that the Royalists were able to dribble some of their cavalry back into the
39:04main scene of action at Edge Hill, really the moment of decision had passed.
39:09The horses that were returning were exhausted, the units that were returning had no cohesion
39:14whatsoever, we're talking about small numbers or even individuals, rather than proper formed
39:19units returning to the field of battle.
39:28The battle is already becoming something of a stalemate and the return of the Royalist
39:33cavalry gives the parliamentarians every reason not to continue their attack.
39:38Perhaps again a more aggressive general than Essex, better in command of the whole range
39:43of his troops, might have seen that in fact the Royalist cavalry didn't represent a serious
39:47threat, but they look pretty threatening and in consequence the two sides slowly disengage.
39:58MUSIC
40:08Darkness fell early on this late autumn day and the failing light came as a relief to
40:13the two exhausted, bleeding armies.
40:20When the fighting ended, they settled down to endure a freezing night, which added to
40:25the miseries of the men and served to further confuse an already muddled situation.
40:35The fact was that for all the ferocious fighting, neither side had won the day.
40:43There had been terrible loss of life, some estimates put the dead at 1,500 on either side.
40:56MUSIC
40:59A jail was an unusual battle in that the ratio of dead to wounded after the battle was almost
41:04equal. There was about 3,000 dead on the battlefield and about 3,000 wounded.
41:08And the reason that so many of the wounded had actually survived was that during the
41:13night there had been a cold snap, there had been some degrees of frost on the ground.
41:17And this of course had stormed the flow of blood, the blood had congealed and so men
41:22who under normal circumstances would have died during the night were still alive the
41:26following morning.
41:31The principal reason that the Royalists had not won victory was the performance of Prince
41:35Rupert's cavalry. Had they kept their discipline and returned to the field, the Royalists would
41:41almost certainly have won the day. As it was, their shambolic pursuit of the parliamentarians
41:47and pointless raid upon the baggage train cost their side dear. With no cavalry to influence
41:54the fighting, the dogged parliamentarians managed to hold the Royalists to a draw, albeit
42:00at a fearful price.
42:04Like many of the battles of the English Civil War, Edge Hill was a confused and relatively
42:09unsophisticated affair. Certainly with troops of the kind that both sides had at Edge Hill
42:15and with the weapons that they had, this was hardly surprising. The leadership was not good,
42:19the troops were untrained and undrilled for the most part, and anything other than confusion
42:23would have been exceptional, certainly extremely surprising.
42:27Indeed it's also true to say that both sides had real opportunities to gain decisive victory,
42:32but again with the lack of sophistication and the rather dubious quality of many of the
42:37commanders, and indeed the tensions within the command headquarters, if you like, on
42:42both sides, the fact that none of these opportunities were actually effectively exploited shouldn't
42:48come as any real surprise.
42:56In a sense there are, you know, three battles at Edge Hill. The initial total victory of
43:00the Royalist cavalry, the parliamentary infantry supported by cavalry, winning what must have
43:06looked like themselves an easy victory, and then the standoff.
43:13The battle that some believed would finish the war had proved to be merely the beginning
43:18of a conflict that, for the next four years, would tear the country apart.
43:24The Battle of Edge Hill lasted just four hours, and it was the first major clash of the English
43:44Civil War, and up until that time it had been a political crisis. After Edge Hill it's going
43:50to be no holds barred. The king actually offers Essex a pardon, and his parliamentary
43:56army a pardon after the battle. Essex refuses and says, no, we really won Edge Hill.
44:05Both sides were caught up in the classical idea of victory. You look out at the battlefield
44:10and you see that one person has won and the other one has lost. So is Edge Hill a decisive
44:15battle? It is not. It is an indecisive battle. It is a battle that does not win the war for
44:20either side. Does that mean it's not important? No. Because what's important about the Battle
44:24of Edge Hill is that it is the first sign that comes to either side that says this war
44:31will not be short. This is not going to be won in one battle. Edge Hill is the first
44:39intimation to both sides that this is not some war out of a book. This is modern war.
44:47This is the beginning of modern war, and they are in the middle of it, and it's going to
44:51go on for a good long time.
45:02What Edge Hill proved was that there were sufficient numbers of people, both commanders
45:06and indeed ordinary men, ordinary soldiers, who were willing to kill their fellow citizens
45:12in order to change or maintain the political system within England. And this was really
45:19very important as a statement of intent. Edge Hill's significance was indeed great.
45:27After the bitterly cold night had passed, Essex abandoned the battlefield to the King
45:32and withdrew northwards to the safety of Warwick Castle, leaving the way clear for the King
45:38to march on London.
45:43The impetuous Rupert was all for making a dash with his cavalry to occupy the city before
45:48Essex could march there with the battered remains of his army. Not for the last time,
45:53the King prevaricated in the hope that a peaceful settlement could be reached and the greatest
45:59opportunity of the war to capture the parliamentary stronghold was lost.
46:06Some historians have suggested that the advantage lay with Charles if he had been prepared to
46:10take it, if he had not been worried that we should be negotiating at this juncture. I
46:16think the truth of this matter is that Charles was in no position to press on to London.
46:20His troops had been badly mauled at Edge Hill. He needed time to recuperate. A cavalry raid
46:26on London, which is what Rupert was proposing, would have been pretty useless. The problem
46:30for the King, in a sense, is always the strength of London.
46:36The parliamentarians who mustered at Turnham Green to defend London were too strong for
46:41the exhausted Royalist army to meet in battle and the King, reluctantly, withdrew to Oxford
46:48for the winter, there to establish his court.
46:57For the next four years, the university city would be the Royalist capital.
47:13King Charles was never to reach London except as a prisoner of his enemies and to await his execution.
47:56To be continued...
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