ABSTRACT
The options available to the Earl of Essex on the morning of 20th September 1643 were extremely limited. Retreat was out of the question. So also was pushing down the road from the villages of Enbourne and Hamstead Marshall, where his army had spent the night, towards the bridge at Newbury, as almost the entire Royalist army was drawn up on the Green, a piece of flat open ground to the west of the town through which the road passed. 1 The only alternative route to Reading and safety entailed a circuitous march around the south of Newbury, first through enclosed country and up a steep slope to the plateau of Wash Common, an area of open chalk downland stretching along both sides of the Newbury to Andover road, and then through enclosures again, and finally across the much larger Greenham Common before enclosed country was reached once more near Aldermaston, only six miles from Reading. Crossing the commons would be perilous given the king’s army’s strength in cavalry, but the London brigade in particular had shown coolness in repelling cavalry attacks on the way to Gloucester, while at Aldbourne Chase infantry and cavalry had combined successfully against Royalist horse in open country. Moreover, as the Royalists were massed in and around Newbury, the operation might be well under way before they properly understood the direction of the Parliamentary army’s line of march. The vanguard of the army therefore set out just as day was dawning. 2
