Geograph - photograph every grid square

Written by Brian Robert Marshall
In 1643 during the English Civil War a famous battle took place between Royalist forces on the one hand and Parliamentary forces on the other. The battle was engendered by the siege of Devizes where Royalists were contained by a Parliamentary army. In response, the King sent a cavalry unit accompanied by two artillery pieces. As that unit came over Morgan's Hill Link and advanced south-west it met the Parliamentary forces. It seems that the battle was somewhat one-sided, perhaps because the tactics adopted by the Parliamentarians were inappropriate for the circumstances. In any event, the Royalists prevailed and drove many of the enemy in disarray towards Beacon Hill Link where they literally fell off the battlefield down the steep western face of the hill Link Thereafter the area below Beacon Hill became known as Bloody Ditch. The Parliamentarians took months to recover from the defeat. Eventually though the Parliamentarians prevailed in England and, after beheading King Charles I in 1649 abolished the monarchy and established a republic called the Commonwealth of England or the Cromwellian Interregnum. It didn’t last long and the monarchy was restored in 1660 when Charles I’s son, Charles II regained the throne.