I20 Four-in-Hand in Britain. 



battle — but which eventually led to so much. Charles's 

 army lay at Banbury, whence we had just come, that of 

 the Parliament at Kineton yonder, and spread out before 

 us was the plain where they met. The ground is now 

 occupied by two farms called the Battle Farms, distin- 

 guished as Battleton and Thistlcton. Between the farm- 

 houses, on the latter place, are the places where the 

 slain were buried, appropriately called the Grave Fields. 

 A copse of fir trees in one place is said to mark the site 

 of a pit into which five hundred were thrown. 



Some of the royalist writers have tried to prove that 

 Cromwell was not present at Edgehill, and one has even 

 countenanced an idle tale that he witnessed the battle 

 from a steeple on one of the neighboring hills, and that 

 he incontinently took to his heels, or rather to his horses' 

 legs, when he thought the meeting had resulted disas- 

 trously to the forces of the Parliament. But Carlyle 

 characterizes this story as it deserves, for Lord Nugent 

 expressly mentions Cromwell's troop of dragoons as 

 among those that charged at the close of the battle. 

 No, no, stern old Oliver was not the man to stand aloof 

 when he once had scent of a battle ; and we may be sure, 

 although he was then but a captain of horse, that he did 

 good service at Edgehill. 



There were good men on both sides that day, and not 

 the least among them was brave Sir Jacob Astley, who 

 commanded Charles's foot. He was withal a man of 

 piety, for the Parliamentarians did not have a monopoly 



