force became strong enough to take the field.
With his usual boldness Charles resolved to march at once on the capital
and force the Parliament to submit by dint of arms. But the news of his
march roused Essex from his inactivity. He had advanced to Worcester to
watch the king's proceedings; and he now hastened to protect London. On
the twenty-third of October 1642 the two armies fell in with one
another on the field of Edgehill, near Banbury. The encounter was a
surprise, and the battle which followed was little more than a confused
combat of horse. At its outset the desertion of Sir Faithful Fortescue
with a whole regiment threw the Parliamentary forces into disorder,
while the Royalist horse on either wing drove their opponents from the
field; but the reserve of Lord Essex broke the foot, which formed the
centre of the king's line, and though his nephew, Prince Rupert, brought
back his squadrons in time to save Charles from capture or flight, the
night fell on a drawn battle.

[Sidenote: Charles at Oxford.]

The moral advantage however rested with the king. Essex had learned that
his troopers were no match for the Cavaliers, and his withdrawal to
Warwick left open the road to the capital. Rupert pressed for an instant
march on London, where the approach of the king's forces had roused
utter panic. But the proposal found stubborn opponents among the
moderate Royalists, who dreaded the complete triumph of Charles as much
as his defeat; and their pressure forced the king to pause for a time at
Oxford, where he was received with uproarious welcome. When the
cowardice of its garrison delivered Reading to Rupert's horse, and his
daring capture of Brentford in November drew the royal army in his
support almost to the walls of the capital, the panic of the Londoners
was already over, and the junction of their train-bands with the army
of Essex forced Charles to fall back again on his old quarters. But
though the Parliament rallied quickly from the blow of Edgehill, the
war, as its area widened through the winter, went steadily for the king.
The fortification of Oxford gave him a firm hold on the midland
counties; while the balance of the two parties in the North was
overthrown by the march of the Earl of Newcastle, with a force he had
raised in Northumberland, upon York. Lord Fairfax, the Parliamentary
leader in that county, was thrown back by Newcastle's attack on the
manufacturing towns of the West Riding, where Puritani