supposition of over confidence. Essex was certainly at a great disadvantage, his best troops and artillery being a day's THE LAST BATTLE IN WARWICKSHIRE. march in the rear. He placed a detachment of horse and musketeers on the right, on the part of the field known as Dr. Thursfield, of the Parade, on Monday night lectured Battleton and Thistleton; the centre of infantry was placed on the above subject, in connection with the Leamington in front of Thistleton farm supported by a reserve of horse; and his left wing, composed of cavalry, infantry, and guns, Institute, at the Music-hall, Bath-street. Professor Massie was placed in the open fields, close to the Banbury-road. At presided. The attendance was not large. twelve o’clock a Council of War was hastily summoned, and Dr. Thursfield prefaced his lecture with the explanation the result was the battle was determined on. The King's forces were superior in number, high-spirited, impatient of that it was prepared hurriedly some time ago, in the brief delay, and their position gave them an enormous advantage, leisure of a busy professional life, and he had never had the whilst the plain of Kington afforded a grand arena for opportunity of making the intended revision of what he had impetuous charge of cavalry, in which the King's forces originally written. He had also expected that, as the Edge- excelled. At three o’clock the battle commenced, and Prince hill fight was the first great battle of the civil war, there Rupert’s cavalry charged with such vigour that they carried everything before them, and penetrated into the village of would be ample information respecting it, easily accessible, Kineton, where they commenced pillaging the baggage of and more easily condensed into a fairly interesting lecture. the Parliamentarians. The scattered Parliamentary infantry, He found, however, that perhaps in the whole of the civil however, re-formed, and then it was that Lord Lindsay, the war there was no event more obscure than this fight, and the King, and his two sons, were in the greatest danger. This hard struggle took place near Bullet-hill. The return of contemporary accounts of it were so imperfect and contra­ Prince Rupert from Kineton averted the defeat of the King's dictory that it was very difficult to gather from them any troops, and both armies bivouacked on the field of battle, the accurate account of what took place. As he had not had Cavaliers on the crown and sides of the hills, and the Parliamentarians in the plain below. The King rode amongst time to search the British Museum, the Bodleian the front ranks, encouraging his men, but no valour Library, the Denbigh collection, the State papers office, or could resist the odds against which they were fighting. Earl other places where records of this event lie buried, he Lindsay, badly wounded, was carried off the field by the must be content to give his own picture of the fight. enemy; but the King, almost surrounded, would not retire, though he ordered his sons, Charles and James, boys of nine Before proceeding to do so, however, in order to and eight, to retire to a place of safety. They were in charge make the battle of Edgehill —or the Kineton fight as it of his physician, the great Harvey, the discoverer of the cir­ was called — more intelligible, he went on to sketch the culation of the blood. Harvey related that he took a book origin of the civil war, the armies which fought, how they out of his pocket and sat down under a hedge to read, quite were armed, and how they manœuvred; the leaders of both regardless of the turmoil or bloodshed going on, until a bullet from one of the great guns grazed the ground near him, and forces, and how it was that they came to meet at Kineton. warned him that he must remove his charges to a place of He observed that at present the people of England are still greater safety. (Laughter.) Prince Rupert then returned, roughly divided into Cavaliers and Parliamentarians, and and riding up, said, “I can give a good account of the having frankly avowed himself to be a Parliamentarian, he enemy's horse;” to which a cavalier rejoined, with an oath, “Aye, and of his carts too, I dare say.” (Laughter.) Then said that in his opinion the great struggle of the civil war followed an account of the close of the battle, when each was really between liberty and despotism; between a system army drew off and encamped on the battle field, and whilst which, if carried out, would have resulted in absolute there had been serious desertions from both sides during the monarchy, with all its temptations to tyranny, being night, next morning each showed great unwillingness to established in this country, instead of the system of govern­ renew the fight. The King advanced upon Oxford, and ment which it had been the privilege of Englishmen to Essex retired upon Warwick. Although the Parliamentarians enjoy for centuries —the right to govern themselves by means claimed the victory, yet on the whole the lecturer considered of a freely-elected Parliament under a limited monarchy. It the advantage was really gained by the King. Banbury, was impossible to say that all the right was on one side and Abingdon, and Henley submitted to the Royalists; andon all the wrong on the other; for in really great questions this reports arriving that the Cavaliers were plundering the was never the case. No doubt faults were committed on the country in the neighbourhood of London, there was great popular side as well as by those opposed to it. But what terror amongst the line-servers. Lord Brooke, an ancestor really led to the outbreak of the civil war was the of the present Lord Brooke, addressing an assembly in the momentous issue: is England to be an absolute monarchy, to London Guildhall, after rebuking their timorousness, said, be governed at the will of the king and a small privileged “We are fighting for our religion; for our God; for our class, or by a parliament, not noting independently of, but in all! Gentlemen, methinks I see your courage in your faces, concert with the king? Englishmen of the present day and I spy you ready to do anything.” (Laughter and applause.) might thank God, at this interval of time, that the question The result of the battle, though drawn, he repeated, was decided as it was; for assuredly to the constancy of their was in favour of the King; but, on the other hand, the forefathers in those terrible times they owed a large measure moral success was with the Parliamentarians, as it had been of the liberty now enjoyed. (Applause.) Having explained shown that courage and constancy were not, as had been that at the outbreak of the civil war there was no standing thought, the exclusive appanage of high birth. The Lecturer army, and that the only military forces consisted of the militia next gave a description of the gallant recovery of the royal in counties and the train-bands of London, the Lecturer standard by Captain Smith, of Silts, near King's Norton, pointed out that the introduction of firearms had rendered who was the next morning knighted on the hill by the king the use of iron armour of earlier days to be restricted to a for his bravery. It was a brave deed, and worthy of recapitu­ back and breast plate, tasses for the thighs, and an iron hat, lation as an example to Warwickshire men. (Applause.) commonly called a “pot.” He next described the pike, a Having described how, by beacon fires, the news of the battle wooden lance sixteen feet long, with an iron point; and the was conveyed the same night to London, Dr. Thursfield next rude musket, or carabine, which was fired by means of a mentioned that, when the fight began, the villagers of Tysoe burning rope, which had to be kept alight for that purpose and Oxhill were at church. The clerk at Tysoe, hearing the during the whole of an action. A loading and firing were firing, exclaimed, “They are at it," rushed out of church, long operations; only one rank fired at a time, and then retired followed by the whole congregation—(laughter),—evidently to the rear to reload; the musket was not a very great advance in the art of destruction. The artillery was clumsy and was more eager to see the fighting than to pray for peace. of very little use, except at sieges; and it was when pike and (Renewed laughter.) At Oxhill a tailor went off to see the sword were used that there was the most destruction. As fighting, and returned home to die, having been wounded in there was no regular army there was no regular uniform, the fight. He next quoted Lord Nugent’s description of each company wearing the colour of its commander, the Prince Rupert’s charge, and mentioned that the ground on chief means of distinguishing friend from foe being by means which he subsequently rallied his men, in a field about a mile of some bit of ribbon, or the pass-word for the day. The to the north-east of Kineton, was still known as Prince Rupert’s headland, and was so described in the conveyance of Lecturer then described the usual order of battle, and next the property. It might have been supposed that the king proceeded to enumerate the principal leaders of the opposing would never have wished to re-visit Edgehills, but he did so forces.