Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
FIG
171.
Radway Village and the gently undulating flatlands of the battlefield below the
Edge Hill scarp (covered with trees at the right of the photograph) (Fig. 168,
c3
). (Copy-
right Dae Sasitorn & Adrian Warren/www.lastrefuge.co.uk)
We allow ourselves to be diverted here to outline the way the Battle of Edge Hill
was influenced by this feature of the landscape. The battle, the first large engagement
of the English Civil Wars, took place on 23 October 1642. King Charles I was the
commander of the Royalist army and the Parliamentarians were commanded by Robert
Devereux, Earl of Essex. The troops and the field commanders on both sides were gen-
erally inexperienced and unsure, and there was no clear winner in the battle. The king
decided that the strategic advantage offered by the Edge Hill scarp was such that he
chose to position his army of some 15,000 infantry and cavalry there. Because of the
steepness of the upper slopes, the Royalists moved some of their cavalry to the toe of
the escarpment before making their charge down onto the similar-sized Parliamentari-
an army, which had been drawn up on the ground below (now occupied by a large Min-
istry of Defence munitions depot!). In spite of this move, the charge by the Royalist
cavalry was so vigorous that it not only scattered the Parliamentarian cavalry, but over-
ran the infantry lines in its pursuit and became disorganised. Some 3,000 men, includ-
ing some influential figures of the time, were killed or wounded in the chaos that fol-
lowed, but the armies then disengaged and regrouped. Over the next days and weeks,
the Royalists established themselves in Oxford, while the Parliamentarians consolid-
ated their hold on the London area.
