hey commenced breaking up. In vain were the royalist reserves hurried
forward. The Blue Regiment was cut off by Sir Arthur Haselrigge. Stapleton
made a dash, and the King, who had been watching the fickle fortunes of
his soldiers from a mound (now the King's Clump) near Radway, narrowly
escaped being made a prisoner. The timely interference of a body of
royalist horse--an interference not of sufficient weight to _stop_ the
tide of the Puritan attack, but only to stay it for a few moments--enabled
the King to gain the shelter of the hill, whither also the fragments of
some of his regiments are compelled to follow.

[Illustration: II

BATTLE OF EDGE HILL.

Advance of Hampden_Retreat of Rupert & King]

Meanwhile Rupert had been lost to sight in Kineton streets. When he
learned that the fortunes of the day were, in other parts of the field, in
full flow against his cause, he and his cavaliers re-formed for the
retreat. The place is still known as Prince Rupert's Headland. There was,
however, another factor to be taken into consideration. Some of Hampden's
green-coated soldiers, stimulated no doubt by the sounds of the fight, had
in the meantime come up from Stratford-on-Avon, and were prepared to
dispute Rupert's return. They also succeeded in re-forming many of the
fugitives, in which duty Captains Cromwell,[5] Nathaniel Fiennes and
Kightley, took part.[q] The guns and infantry opened fire upon the
retreating cavaliers, who had a hard fight to regain the hill butt, for
Stapleton's horse, after fighting along the whole of the Royalist line,
chased them home. Nevertheless, two of the royal regiments refused to be
beaten; falling back upon their guns, they made a stand, probably along
the line from Radway to Bullet Hill, and there, reinforced by Rupert's
returning troops, they held their ground, repulsing the Parliamentarian
attacks, and so says Fiennes,[PB] "horse and foot stood together against
horse and foot until night, when the Royalists retired up hill." It is
probably from this stage of the fight that Bullet Hill got its name. The
braided lovelock of many a cavalier who rode so exultingly down the hill
in the afternoon sunlight had a stain of a far deeper colour 'ere sunset,
and with the phase of the fight following the straggling return of
Rupert's Horse, the events of the day seem to have ended. The King would
have tried a final charge with some unbroken regiments to test once more
the fortunes of the day, but