In London the news was received with terror. Little reliance could
be placed on the courage, less on the fidelity of the trained bands; and
peremptory orders were despatched to Essex, to hasten with his whole force
to the protection of the capital and the parliament. That general had seen
his error; he was following the king with expedition; and his vanguard
entered the village of Keynton on the same evening on which the royalists
halted on Edgehill, only a few miles in advance. At midnight[a] Charles
held a council of war, in which it was resolved to turn upon the pursuers,
and to offer them battle. Early in the morning the royal army was seen in
position[b] on the summit of a range of hills, which gave them a decided
superiority in case of attack; but Essex, whose artillery, with one-fourth
of his men, was several miles in the rear, satisfied with having arrested
the march of the enemy, quietly posted the different corps, as they
arrived, on a rising ground in the Vale of the Red Horse, about half a mile
in front of the village. About noon the Cavaliers grew weary of inaction;
their importunity at last prevailed; and about two the king discharged a
cannon with his own hand as the signal of battle. The royalists descended
in good order to the foot of the hill, where their hopes were raised by the
treachery of Sir Faithful Fortescue, a parliamentary officer, who, firing
his pistol into the ground, ranged himself with two troops of horse under
the royal banner.
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