A history of England

by Charles Oman

But no general rule could be drawn. There were towns like Worcester, York, Oxford, Exeter, where for various local reasons the king's party was the stronger. Similarly, there were many peers—about a third of the House of Lords—who adhered to the Parliamentary interest, and where they dominated the countryside it stood by the cause of the Commons. We need only mention the local influence of the Earl of Warwick in his own district of the Midlands, of the Earl of Manchester in Huntingdonshire, of Lord Fairfax in Mid-Yorkshire, as examples of the fact that the Parliamentary cause could draw much assistance from the magnates of the land. Still more was this the case among the lesser landholders. In the east of England a very large proportion of the gentry and all the yeomanry were zealous Puritans; even in the west there was a sprinkling of "Roundheads" [41] among the Royalist majority.

Humane character of the war.

It was the saddest feature of the war, therefore, that every man had to draw the sword against his nearest neighbour, and that the opponents differed from each other, not so much on principle as on a point of judgment—the doubt whether the king or the Parliamentary majority could best be trusted to defend the old constitution. On each side there were many who armed with a doubting heart, not fully convinced that they had chosen their side wisely. This, at any rate, had one good effect—the war was, on the whole, mercifully waged; there were few executions, no massacres, very little plundering. If we compare it with the civil wars of France or Germany, we are astonished at the moderation and self-restraint of our ancestors.

The king's forces.

It was in August, 1642, as we have already mentioned, that King Charles bade his followers meet him at Nottingham. The Royalists of the Northern Midlands came to him in numbers far less than he had expected, wherefore he moved west to Shrewsbury, to rally his partisans from Lancashire, Cheshire, and Wales, where he knew that they were many and loyal. They came forward in great strength, and Charles was able to begin to organize his army into regiments and brigades. The cavalry was very numerous, if wholly untrained; the nobles and gentry turned out in vast throngs, and brought every tenant and servant that could sit a horse. The infantry were the weaker arm; the squires preferred to serve among the cavalry; the townsfolk and peasantry, who should have swelled the foot-levies, were often apathetic where they were not disloyal. It was only in certain limited districts—Wales, Cornwall, and the North were the most noted—that the king could raise a trustworthy foot-soldiery. In the army that mustered at Shrewsbury he had 6000 cavalry to 8000 infantry—far too large a proportion of the former. Nor was it easy to arm the foot; pikes and muskets were hard to procure, as compared with the trooper's sword. The king gave the command of the army to Lord Lindsey, but made his nephew, Rupert of the Palatinate, general of the horse.

The Parliamentary forces.

Among the troops which Essex was enrolling and drilling at Northampton, the exact reverse was the case. The infantry were numerous and willing; the artisans of London and the men of the Eastern Counties had volunteered in thousands. But the cavalry was weak; the admixture of gentry and yeomen in its ranks did not suffice to leaven the mass; many were city-bred men, unaccustomed to riding, many more were wastrels who had enlisted to get the better pay of the horse-soldier. Cromwell, who served in one of these regiments, denounced them to Hampden as "mostly old decayed tapsters and serving-men," and asked, "How shall such base and mean fellows be able to encounter gentlemen of honour and courage and resolution?"

Charles moves towards London.

In September the two raw armies were both moving westward, but when Charles had filled his ranks and got his men into some order, he determined to advance on London. Marching by Bridgenorth and Birmingham, he reached the slopes of Edgehill, on the borders of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, on October 23. He had slipped round the flank of Lord Essex, who was waiting for him at Worcester, and the Parliamentary army only overtook him by hard marching. When he saw the enemy approaching, Charles ranged his order of battle on the hillside, and charged down on Essex, who was getting into array on the plain below.