ABSTRACT
The balance of military assets available to both sides at the start of the Civil War had been heavily weighted in favour of Charles I’s opponents. Volunteers to fill the ranks of Parliament’s army flocked in from London and its environs. There were sufficient weapons with which to arm them and there was no shortage of officers, both professionals and eager members of the gentry and aristocracy. Other military supplies were readily to hand, left over from the war against the Scots two years earlier or collected together more recently to put down the rebellion in Ireland. In July, August and early September the Parliamentary leadership made very good use of infantry and mounted units as they were formed. Kent and East Anglia were secured; the Marquis of Hertford frustrated in his attempt to secure central-southern England; and the king’s commanders driven from the Thames valley and from Midlands towns such as Banbury, Warwick, Leicester and Coventry.
