It’s easy to wonder what sort of men they must have been. Not many were local, some had marched many miles to fight for what they believed to be right. In this ‘war without an enemy’ some counties, indeed some families, found themselves split and therefore on opposing sides.

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Men took to arms for all manner of motives, passion weighed as heavily as logic and law. As the days passed, however, the religious motive rose to the fore. The country divided into Presbyterian or Catholic beliefs. The majority of professional soldiers fought for the Presbyterian cause and this superiority finally won the war for the Parliamentarians. It did not manifest itself at Edgehill, however.

As the two armies faced each other, the infantry brigades formed up into two lines, each six men deep. Pikemen stood in the centre of each brigade and some musketeers lined both flanks. The cavalry regiments waited to the right and left of the infantry men. Behind all this stood the artillery.

The scene must have been both fascinating and stomach-churning all in one. Surely some of these men must have sensed the same claustrophobic atmosphere I still noticed 350 years later. The feet of so many men must have churned the land into a sea of mud, the deep browns of the soil replacing the green pastures. In little encampments men would have tried to make life a little more comfortable.

Visitors walking the site today will find no evidence of all this human suffering. The scars in the land healed many years ago. It is unlikely that a single tree that bore witness to the events that started shortly after noon on that fateful day survives to shade modern pilgrims to this historic site.

The Royalist army started the day on slightly higher ground, moved forward on to the more level land in order to bring their large guns to bear upon the opposition. From the ridge top, King Charles could observe the proceedings in relative safety. The view from this woody ridge today, from a seat beside a local hostelry, is quite breath taking. To the north and west the battlefield remains as visible today as it was in 1642. Perhaps the fields have altered shape, and their hedgerows have become easier to define thanks to modern farm machinery, but the atmosphere almost oozes history.

In the imagination, the distant metallic tinkle of farm machines easily transforms into the sounds of battle. The occasional air-force jet flies overhead with the same earth-shattering effect that artillery pieces would have created. The army is still lodged in the area, but today it hides behind trees and earth banks, as if ashamed of its own existence.

The morning following the battle, two exhausted and hungry armies camped within sight of each other. Both claimed victory, but neither had the strength or spirit to take the battle into a second day.

Today’s walker detects little to indicate that this battlefield was the site of an important event in English history, and in the history of democratic government. Perhaps though, that is how it should be. Edgehill remains a quiet, peaceful and unobtrusive memorial to the 3,000 men who died in one historic day. For me, the pages of history come to life there.

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