When Rupert returned from his reckless chase, it looked more
like a defeat than a victory. Both armies had suffered severely, and
when Mr. Fisher, the Vicar of Kineton, was commissioned by Lord Essex to
number those killed on the side of the Parliament, he estimated them at
a little over 1,300 men, all of whom were buried in two large pits on
land belonging to what was afterwards known as Battle Farm, the
burial-places being known as the Grave Fields. As these were about
half-way between Radway and Kineton, we were quite near them when we
were lighting the fires on the sides of the road the night before, and
this may have accounted for the dreary loneliness of the road, as no one
would be likely to live on or near the fields of the dead if he could
find any more desirable place. It was at the village of Radway where
tradition stated the king and his sons breakfasted at a cottage in which
for many years afterwards the old table was shown to visitors on which
their breakfast stood, and it was on the hill near there where the
boy-princes, Charles and James, narrowly escaped being captured as they
were watching the battle that was being fought on the fields below.
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