Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

THE BATTLE OF CHALGROVE , 1643

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Goring. 3 The point that needs be made, however, is that the account published by Laurence Hyde and all subsequent editions based upon it do not reflect Clarendon’s original narrative. Yet, despite the need for circumspection, the published version of Clarendon’s work is often still held as a fundamental source for the history of the Civil War and the supreme authority. An example of the regard in which his text is held is his account of the action at Chalgrove fought on 18th June 1643 and best known for the mortal wounding of John Hampden. The UK Battlefields Register of Historic England, for example, still cites Clarendon as an authority along with two Thomason Tracts and an additional pamphlet in the Bodleian Library. These latter contemporary accounts are ‘His Highnesse Prince Ruperts Late Beating up the Rebels Quarters At Post-comb & Chinner in Oxfordshire And his Victory in Chalgrove Feild [sic], on Sunday morning June 18 1643’ (hereafter Late Beating Up ); ‘A True Relation of a Gret Fight Between the Kings Forces and the Parliaments, at Chinner neer Tame on Saturday last’ (hereafter A True Relation ); and ‘Two Letters from his Excellencie Robert Earl of Essex’ (hereafter Letters ). 4 To be fair, Historic England also lists the only two modern analyses of Chalgrove by Carter and Stevenson (1973), and the revisionist study by this author (2015), the latter accepted by the relevant volume of the Oxfordshire Victoria County History in 2016. 5 Historic England has accepted the argument for redefining the area on which the fighting took place as a consequence of the revisionist version which, apart from analysis of the surviving accounts, including Clarendon’s original description, was based on a range of estate maps that showed how little the landscape had changed since 1643 and included information gleaned from field walking of the site. English Heritage in the preliminary report on the battle only alluded to the 1881 Ordnance Survey map as a source for the location of the site. This placed the battle south of the Watlington to Oxford road and was based on the location of the monument erected in 1843. The actual Register report was amended to include some reference to earlier maps of 1679 and 1822 but without really grasping the significance of these sources for redefining the precise location of the action. It is known that the protagonists faced each other over a hedge that was 3 Ronald Hutton, ‘Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion’ , English Historical Review 97 (1982), pp. 70-88. 4 Bodleian Library, Wood 376 (14), ‘His Highnesse Prince Ruperts Late Beating up the Rebels Quarters At Post-comb & Chinner in Oxfordshire And his Victory in Chalgrove Feild [sic], on Sunday morning June 18 1643’; British Library (hereafter BL), Thomason Tract E.55 (11), ‘A True Relation of a Gret Fight Between the Kings Forces and the Parliaments, at Chinner neer Tame on Saturday last’; Thomason Tract E.55 (19), ‘Two Letters from his Excellencie Robert Earl of Essex’ (23 June 1643). 5 John Stevenson & Andrew Carter, ‘The Raid on Chinnor and the Fight at Chalgrove Field, June 17th and 18th, 1643’, Oxoniensia 38 (1973), pp. 346-356; Derek & Gill Lester, ‘The Military and Political Importance of the Battle of Chalgrove (1643)’, Oxoniensia 80, (2015), pp. 27-39; The Victoria History of the County of Oxfordshire: Volume XVIII (2016), pp. 425-26.