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By Root 1354 0

through personal testimony. The fledgling news industry, permitted to publish foreign news during the 1620s and ”30s, reported military affairs on the continent. This, and the oral networks with which it intersected, spread awareness of war and its costs to many English people. Maimed soldiers, and swaggering veterans, were familiar stereotypes during the 1630s. The escalating conflict and changing military tactics spawned an impressive technical literature and this too was current in England. This was of significance not just to armchair generals, but to aspiring combatants too: Edward Harley, evidently anticipating the onset of war in March 1642, paid a bookseller’s bill in which at least one third of his thirty purchases were directly concerned with military matters. This no doubt informed his transformation from scholar at Lincoln’s Inn to colonel in the parliamentary armies. Obviously, such technical advice was available to many others.6

Although the crown had complained about the Trained Bands for much of the three generations prior to 1640, they did nonetheless provide a basis for military mobilization. Some, particularly those in London, were significant forces, well-armed and regularly drilled. Despite local apathy, or hostility, energetic lieutenants had in some places managed to foster a degree of military training. In Great Yarmouth in 1638, and in London the following year, there had been military exercises which gave a taste of what was to come. Of course, the Trained Bands were less than perfectly armed and drilled, had no experience of actual combat and had been the object of governmental concern for years, even generations. Nonetheless, in 1642 they provided a useful stock of arms, and some useful military skills. The King, on his progress from York to Shrewsbury, had tried to muster the bands, or take their arms, and the London Trained Bands provided the core of Essex’s army.7

Warfare did not come to Englishmen from a clear blue sky, therefore. There was a limited but still significant pool of direct experience, evident in the command of both sides, and a wider pool of second-hand, drilled or theoretical knowledge. This extended to the rank and file, in the form of experience in the Trained Bands. It was some time before these rudiments were transformed into armies to impress the major European powers, but the thousands of men gathered between Kineton and Edgehill in October 1642 were not completely unprepared for what was about to happen. However, although there was enough expertise available to hold a proper battle, the experience that followed was undoubtedly shocking for many participants and observers.

Edgehill presents a steep scarp face to the plain below, reaching 1:4 in places, and it was below this commanding promontory that Charles’s army took up position to confront the parliamentary army.8 Essex was apparently surprised by the news that battle was about to be joined – he was on his way to church at 8 a.m. on the morning of 23 October when intelligence was brought to him of Charles’s movements. The standard battle formation in the seventeenth century was for infantry to line up in the centre, flanked on either side by cavalry regiments, and this the royalists did at the foot of the hill. But this precipitated the first of many quarrels in the royalist command. The King’s general, Lindsey, favoured ranging his infantry according to Dutch practice, a preference which reflected his own experience of service under Maurice of Nassau. Prince Rupert, although only a cavalry commander, had been granted a commission which meant that he took orders directly from the King, not the general. He favoured the more complex Swedish infantry formation, which had been very successful under the command of Gustavus Adolphus. Others present had experience of these questions – Ruthven, who had served with Gustavus, and Astley, who had served with Maurice. If this exchange reveals a relatively informed expertise among the command it also reveals the problems of command structure which bedevilled both war efforts,