Edgehill Battlefield

The Battle of Edgehill took place on October 23, 1642, between the villages of Radway and Kineton in Warwickshire. The Parliamentarians were attempting to stop the Royalist army of Charles I from reaching London, a major hub of Parliamentarian support. The battle, fought largely between untrained and untested soldiers, lasted several hours and was notable for the relatively high numbers of casualties on both sides. The Parliamentarians withdrew at dusk, but the Royalists were unable to continue their march on London and the 'civil war' would rumble on and off for the next nine years. With the armies withdrawing from the field, local people were left with the dead littering the field of battle, and whilst some of the casualties were buried swiftly, many were left where they fell. To a God-fearing and highly religious population, the thought of the slain remaining without a Christian burial was seen as especially disturbing. The paranormal history of Edgehill battlefield begins just two months after the actual fighting, and gave rise to perhaps the most famous 'ghostly battle' story in England. The often-repeated story starts with some shepherds, some passing travellers and a couple of other local people near the battlefield on Christmas Eve 1642, when - just after midnight - they heard the distant sound of drums, and the growing sound of groaning, wounded men. As the witnesses prepared to flee, they were then confronted by the spectacle of the battle being re-enacted in the skies above the battlefield, accompanied by the sounds of men and horses, the clash of steel and the roar of gunfire. The experience was said to have lasted three hours, before one of the spectral armies appeared to flee the field, with the other army then vanishing from sight. The frightened spectators fled to the nearby village of Kineton, where they reportedly awoke the local Justice of the Peace, William Wood, and his neighbour, local church minister Samuel Marshall. The witnesses swore on oath what they had just seen. The following night (Christmas night) Wood, Marshall and 'all the substantial inhabitants' of the local parishes accompanied the witnesses back to the battlefield where, after waiting some thirty minutes, the ghostly re-enactment started again. The gathered witnesses fled back to their homes in terror, calling on God to protect them from 'those hellish and prodigious enemies'. The ghostly armies failed to appear the next night, nor indeed for the rest of that week, but we are told that on the following Saturday night, the battle lasting four hours and with 'far greater tumult' than on previous occasions; the same thing happened on the following night, causing William Wood and several other local people to flee Kineton to 'more secure dwellings'. However, Samuel Marshall and some bolder residents remained, and were again disturbed by the ghostly battle on the following weekend. Rumours of the re-fought Battle of Edgehill reached King Charles at Oxford, and he dispatched three of his officers - Colonel Lewis Kirke, Captain Dudley and Captain Wainman, along a further three 'gentlemen of credit' - to look into the matter. At Kineton, they spoke to Samuel Marshall and other local people, before going to the battlefield and experiencing the ghostly manifestation for themselves, both on the Saturday and the Sunday nights. The King's officers were able to identify some of the ghosts as those who had fallen in the fighting, including Sir Edmund Verney, the King's standard-bearer. Verney had refused to surrender the standard when captured, and it was said that his hand was later found, still clutching the flag-pole. The officers returned to King Charles, where they swore on oath what they had seen. The original source for this well-known account of the Edgehill haunting is actually a political pamphlet, published in January 1643 (although it was considered to be 1642 according to the old calendar still in use at the time). The pamphlet, entitled 'A Great Wonder in Heaven...' lays out the story above. A second pamphlet, 'The New Yeares Wonder' was published a few days later, and relays a similar (but not identical) story. These pamphlets do not stand up to historical scrutiny - there are no independent sources that corroborate their claims, and at least some of the people mentioned - such as Samuel Marshall and Colonel Lewis Kirke - do not appear to have any historical connection to the area. Paranormal writers Peter MCue and Alan Gauld came to the conclusion that the events as described may have been fictitious. This makes more sense when the context of 17th century pamphlets is considered - they were a cheap, easy way of spreading political propaganda, what we might call 'fake news' today. Both Royalists and Parliamentarians would produce such pamphlets, accusing their opponents of various outrageous acts and blasphemies, not to mention independent writers who had an axe to grind against the morals or behaviour of the time. The pamphlet ends by stating that the apparitions were a sign of God's wrath that civil war had broken out - effectively using ghosts as a plea for peace. It has also been suggested that the pamphlets were aimed at shaming the locals at Edgehill into giving those unburied bodies still on the field a Christian funeral, which - at least according to local tradition - had the desired effect. Spectral battles were a well-established literary device by the 17th century, and Edgehill lent itself very well to such a tale. A lingering myth arising from a misreading of these pamphlets is that the King ordered a Royal Commission to look into the haunting, documentary evidence of which is held today by the National Archives at Kew and is therefore the only 'officially recognized' ghost sighting in England. There was no Royal Commission, and no such document exists in the archives. Like the phantom battle, it was simply a myth created by the lurid descriptions in the political pamphlets. Even though the original manifestation may be nothing more than fiction, the battlefield has long retained its reputation for being haunted. In some versions of the story, the ghostly battle ceases to appear once the bodies left on the field are finally buried; in other versions, the battle can still be seen re-enacted on the anniversary (October 23) or - perhaps more appropriately - a week later, at Halloween. Other ghostly tales - independent of the 'Great Wonder' account - have been reported from the area over the years. A large, ghostly white horse has been reportedly sighted on numerous occasions, including by a local policeman in the 1940s. Soldiers stationed nearby had also claimed to see the phantom horse, which, it was speculated, had once belonged to the Royalist cavalry commander Prince Rupert. The horse was also thought to have been the loyal steed of Henry Kingsmill, a Royalist killed in the battle and commemorated at the local church in Radway. The ghost of Sir Edmund Verney is said to return to the battlefield at the spot where he was killed, supposedly searching for the hand he lost when he refused to let go of the royal standard, and local rumour also suggests Prince Rupert can be seen on occasion, galloping around the old battlefield. A further ghostly horseman has supposedly been seen riding silently through hedges and streams, leaving no physical trace as he passes. An old barn where wounded Royalists are said to have sought shelter is said to run with blood on the anniversary of the battle, whilst a local bridle-way known as 'Red Road' not only runs with blood but is haunted by the echo of wounded soldiers fleeing the field. Local tradition holds that cattle would refuse to cross an old wooden bridge on the battlefield at Thistle Farm, near Kineton, after dusk. Even today, the ghostly sounds of battle - the clash of arms, the screams of the wounded and the pounding of hooves - are said to be heard on occasion, which poses the question: was there a little more to the original tales of the ghosts at Edgehill than simply a political point?