(1) Eyewitness account of the footsoldiers that fought in the royalist army at the Battle of Edgehill on 23 October, 1642.

Arms were the great deficiency, and the men stood up in the same garments in which they left their native fields; and with scythes, pitchforks, and even sickles in their hands, they cheerfully took the field, and literally like reapers descended to the harvest of death.

 

(2) Edmund Verney, royalist officer, letter to his son before the Battle of Edgehill (October, 1642)

Our men are very raw, our victuals scarce and provisions for horses worse. I daresay there was never so raw, so unskilful and so unwilling an army brought to fight.

 

(3) A pamphlet An Exact and True Relation of a Dangerous and Bloody Fight near Kineton, was published soon after the Battle of Edgehill (October, 1642)

The field was covered with the dead, yet no one could tell to what party they belonged... Some on both sides did extremely well, and others did ill and deserved to be hanged.

 

(4) Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion (1667)

At Edgehill... the foot soldiers stood their ground with great courage; and though many of the King's soldiers were unarmed and had only cudgels, they kept their ranks, and took up the arms which their slaughtered neighbours left to them.