The Battle of Edgehill: The History and Legacy of the Opening Battle of the English Civil War

17th century Europe, particularly its latter years, is often hailed as the beginning of the Enlightenment as nations across the continent experienced a surge in innovation and scientific progress, a period also commonly referred to as the Age of Reason. There was English natural philosopher, Francis Bacon, whose book Novum Organum challenged Aristotelian philosophy and stressed the significance of inductive reasoning. Bacon's ideas, which emphasized observation and the implementation of various premises to form conclusions, was later referenced by famed French mathematician René Descartes.

These radical ideas were bordering on blasphemous, but it was, perhaps, in a sense, necessary. The Enlightenment had been awakened by the European Age of Discovery, a transformative era that succeeded the Medieval Years of Yore, but the continent was also a seedbed of insurrection, holy wars, and volatility. People were growing weary of the unpredictable system of monarchy, a post that was inherited only by members of an exclusive bloodline or connection, one that often muted the voices of the people.

Time and time again, grossly incompetent and seemingly diabolic rulers had come to power through the rigged regal system. For starters, there was John, King of England, the real-life inspiration of the evil and infantile lion in the beloved Disney animation Robin Hood, a retelling of the tale with anthropomorphic animals. King John was said to have been power-hungry but politically feckless, and a sadistic soul who delighted in cruel and inhumane torture. The king did away with nearly everyone that had slighted him, including his own nephew, his political rival. This was a man whose reputation was so horrid, chroniclers and academics have summed him up as an “absolute rotter.”

The outcome of the English Civil War was no doubt unthinkable to many across Europe before it actually happened, and the Battle of Edgehill represented the first sign that things might not go according to the typical plan. The tiny hamlet of Edgehill sits atop an escarpment in the parish of Ratley and Upton in Warwickshire, England, an unremarkable location in and of itself, like many others in Warwickshire. It attracts a few tourists, some of whom are on the lookout for ghosts. Some claim to hear cries of pain and terror, the clash of swords, cannon fire, and the lament of lost souls. The first report of such phenomena was made shortly before Christmas 1642 when a number of Edgehill inhabitants claimed to have seen two ghostly armies fighting in the sky. So strong and widespread did these claims become that King Charles I sent a commission to investigate. The commissioners supposedly witnessed the apparitions and were able to identify some of the combatants as participants in the Battle of Edgehill, which occurred three months earlier on October 23, 1642. This included Sir Edmund Verney, who lost a hand in the battle and was observed missing an appendage. The apparitions supposedly ended when villagers buried the corpses of soldiers who still lay on the battlefield, but people still claim to hear signs of the celestial battle 370 years later.

The enormous upheaval in English society in 1642 may very well have engendered such tales. For the simple villagers, it seemed as if heaven and earth had been rent asunder. After all, the whole concept of divinely ordained kings was that God had created the system and placed a king over England, making the monarch, Charles I of the House of Stuart, God’s viceregent. But that year, the unthinkable happened when the king and Parliament broke with each other, raising their standards of war. The divinely appointed order was broken, and the result was bloodshed, terror, and chaos. Most notably, Edgehill would make clear that things might not simply go the king’s way.