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30 January The Battle of Edgehill BY the use of a number of new manuscript authorities and of some printed sources not noticed either by the late Mr. S. R. Gardiner or by Colonel W. G. Ross in the list which he con- tributed to an early volume of this Review, 1 it is possible to construct a fuller and more satisfactory account of the battle of Edgehill than either of those given by these two writers. The first point to be considered is the strength of the opposing armies at Edgehill. Colonel Ross, whose conclusions were accepted by S. R. Gardiner, showed that the parliamentarians had twelve regiments present, forty-two troops of horse, and 700 to 1,000 dragoons. He reckoned the foot at 11,000 and the horse at 2,000 to 2,300. 2 The nominal strength of twelve regiments would be 14,400 and of forty-two troops 2,520. 3 This estimate, therefore, 1 Neglecting newspapers and unimportant pamphlets it is now possible to add six additional sources, two of great value, to the thirty-two, of varying quality, enumerated by Colonel Ross {ante, ii. 533-43). On the parliamentary side there is The Vindication and Clearing of Sir James Ramsay, which contains the decision of a council of war at St. Albans on 5 November 1642 on his conduct at Edgehill. The five new royalist sources are : 1. A letter from * M.S. ' to his mother (no. iii below). 2. Britannicae Virtutis Imago, a life of Sir John Smith written by Edward Walsingham and published at Oxford in 1644. (This, alone among the six authorities here men- tioned, was used by Gardiner in his Great Civil War.) 3. A Brief e Relation of the Life and Memoires of John, lord Belasyse. This was written and collected by his secretary, Joshua Moone, and printed in 1903 in Ormonde MSS., N.S., ii. 376-99. The part dealing with the first civil war was written in 1650, ibid. pp. xv. 376. This is very valuable because it is the only detailed account of a royalist who fought on foot. 4. Letter of memorial to King Charles II from Sir John Hinton, physician in ordinary to his majesty's person, a.d. 1679 (Ellis, Original Letters, 3rd series, iv. 297-311). 5. Life of James II, ed. J. S. Clarke, 1816. The description of the battle is wholly drawn from the original memoirs of James, and is extremely useful. James must have had ample oppor- tunity of comparing his own boyish recollections with those of other royalists who survived, and, as a soldier himself, would appreciate the value of the information he received. It is remarkable that Gardiner altogether ignored this work when writing his Great Civil War. In addition there is a warrant of Charles I dated 16 November 1642 (no. iv below) for the payment of nineteen regiments, called after their colonels. It is a considerable benefit to have an official list of the regiments in existence three weeks after Edgehill, since the army of Charles was constantly changing, an inevitable result when a force is raised by local influence alone. The list of authorities given by E. A. Walford, Edgehill : the Battle and Battlefield, 2nd ed., 1904, is inexact and uncritical. 2 That is, 3,000 minus either 1,000 or 700 dragoons. For my calculation I have assumed that the dragoons numbered 700. 3 ' Every regiment consists of 1,200 besides officers ' {The list of the Army raised