THE night of the 22nd of October, 1642, was an exciting one for the little town of Keinton, as it was then spelt, or Kineton as it now is, on the borders of the counties of Warwick and Northampton, and was prelude to a still more exciting day. For the vanguard of the Parliament's army passed through Keinton that night and pitched in the Vale of the Red Horse; while from the opposing brow of Edge Hill Rupert saw their watch-fires gleaming and sent off instant word to the King to bring up the main body of the Royalists.

       The dawn of the day — a Sunday — of the first fight in the great Civil War saw the King strongly posted on the heights, while regiment after regiment of Essex's force was pouring through Keinton and forming up in front of it; though a large part of his artillery was still toiling on under Hampden, nearly a day's march in the rear; and of this body only Hampden's own picked men with five guns got up in time to take any part in the day's business.

       It was while the two armies stood facing each other that, according to a story preserved by Horace Walpole, a troop of country squires, with their hounds in full cry, passed between them, caring neither for King nor Parliament, nor for the great issues which might hang on the event of that day: nor yet for the church bells which one must suppose rang for service that morning as on other Sundays. A little after noon the battle began, and it consisted for the most part in confused charges of horse. Rupert's horse now, as so often afterwards, carried all before it; and now, as so often afterwards, his hopeless lack of generalship more than counter-balanced his dash as leader of a cavalry charge.

       The Keinton villagers who stood to view saw the Parliament horse break before that furious onset and come flying in wild confusion across the open fields towards the town, in spite of all the gallant efforts of their leaders to stay the rout.

       In the town, however, the pursuit was stayed; for there, in the street, the Parliament's baggage-waggons lay, and the temptation they presented was too strong for Rupert's men to resist, who spent the most critical hour of the day in shameful pillaging. It was of no avail that Rupert, when at last he got back to find the King's whole force in confusion and himself in danger, could assure Charles that he could give a good account of the enemy's horse — "Ay, and of their carts too," as one of his cavaliers added.

       The day if not lost was at least past winning. Either side at one moment or another had thought itself defeated, and both sides claimed the victory. The King withdrew from the field and camped for the night — a night of biting frost — on the Wormleighton Hills. Essex also withdrew his main body to quarters in Keinton, but left a detachment on the field; and this gave him a technical claim at all events to be accounted the victor.

       Incidents of some human and still living interest stand out amongst the confused accounts of the battle. Lord Lindsey's prayer at least at the moment of the advance is worth remembering: — "Oh Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee do not Thou forget me. March on, boys." One contrasts this prayer with that impious-sounding one of the French Captain la Hire on a similar occasion during the French and English wars just two centuries earlier.

       Memorable too are Lindsey's words to his captors (for captured he was that day and died on his way to Warwick Castle): "You have done your work and may go to play now, unless you choose to fall out among yourselves."

       Then there is the adventure of a certain Captain Smith. Sir Edmund Verney the Standard-bearer had fallen; the royal standard was captured and committed by Lord Essex to the charge of his secretary. When Captain Smith saw this he tore the orange scarf from the body of a slain Parliamentarian, and binding it round himself rode boldly in amongst the ranks of the enemy, and coming up to the secretary — all unrecognised — persuaded him that such a trophy was too precious to be the charge of a mere penman, and so wrought upon the poor man that he delivered over the standard to the disguised cavalier, who promptly galloped back with it to the King, and reached him in safety, and under its shadow was knighted that very evening.

       Another man of peace besides the unhappy secretary was on the field that day; no less a man than Dr. Harvey, the philosopher and discoverer of the circulation of the blood. He was left in charge of the Royal Princes, Charles and James, but he became so absorbed in the study of a book he had with him that, like an earlier and greater Dominie Sampson, he was oblivious of his charge, of the battle, and all else, until a bullet grazed him, and this rude awakening warned him to seek a securer retreat for himself and the princes.

       So much for the battle, and now to our ghost-story.

       The weeks went by, and Keinton had begun to settle down again into the dull routine of country life: though the terrors of that day, as one may suppose, still furnished a fruitful topic of conversation to the gossips in the village ale-house: until Christmas Day came round, when the little town was roused to a pitch of excitement beside which the excitement of the battle itself must have seemed commonplace.

       It appears that certain shepherds had been watching their flocks in the fields not far from Keinton until after midnight, when a vision was vouchsafed to them, as to their fellows in the fields by Bethlehem, on that same night so many centuries before.

       But this was no vision of an angelic choir chanting its "Gloria in excelsis et in terra pax." Far otherwise; for first upon the astonished ears of them burst the blare of trumpets and the tramp of an advancing host. And then, or ever they could fly, they were overtaken by a phantom army, and before it in the night wind the royal standard waved. And then, wonder upon wonder, another army came forth from Keinton, and presently the two hosts joined in the shock of battle.

       The shepherds heard again the hideous din of that October day, the beating of the drums, the rattle of the musketry, the roar of the cannon, the neighing of the horses, the shouts of men, and the groans of the dying. Now one host seemed to have the advantage and now the other, and the battle swayed hither and thither — across the vale towards Keinton and then back upon Edge Hill — till at last the royal host seemed to be worsted; and, wailing, fled and vanished. And into thin air the conquerors melted too.

       More dead than alive with fear and fatigue, for they had watched this strange scene for three hours, the shepherds got them as best they could to Keinton and forthwith knocked up Mr. Wm. Wood, "Justice for the Peace in the county of Northampton," and Mr. Samuel Marshall, "preacher of God's Word in Keinton," to whom we may well suppose their words seemed as the idle tales of men drunk or mad. However, the men's story moved Mr. Wood and Mr. Marshall and divers others to go forth the next night, being Christmas night, to keep watch in the same place where the shepherds had had this strange vision.

       And sure enough that night again the phantom battle raged.

       "And so," says the contemporary account of this wonder, "departed the gentlemen and all the spectators much terrified with these visions of horror, and withdrew themselves to their houses, beseeching God to defend them from these hellish and prodigious armies."

       The next night's peace was undisturbed, and men began to hope that the armies of ghosts were laid. But on the following Saturday and Sunday nights there were repetitions of the prodigy: and so week after week on these nights the same thing happened. At last the fame of the marvel, bruited about through all the country side, reached the ears of the King who lay then at Oxford. Charles forthwith despatched Colonel Lewis Kirke, Captain Dudley, Captain Wainman, and "three other gentlemen of credit," to visit Keinton and to investigate and report on the matter.

       Nothing happened on the night of their arrival, nor until the next Saturday, when sure enough the King's commissioners saw the same sight that had terrified the country side. And not only so, but as the phantom armies swept by them they recognised the faces of many friends and foes who had fallen in the day of battle. There was Sir Edmund Verney, now the ghostly guardian of a ghostly standard, and there were the Lords Stewart and Aubigny of the King's party; and the Lord St. John, and brave young Charles Essex of the Parliament's, and many another: of all which things upon their return to the King they made testimony upon oath.

       The contemporary account which begins quaintly enough for laughter with a dissertation on the power of "the Divell to condense the ayre into any shape he pleaseth, as he is a subtill spirit, thin and open, and can rancke himself into any forme or likenesse, as all the famousest divines of the primitive church and none better than our late sovereigne King James of ever-living memory, in his treatise de Demonologia hath sufficiently proved," ends pathetically enough for tears with a prayer.

       "What this prodigy doth portend God only knoweth, and time perhaps will discover, but doubtlessly it is a signe of His wrath against this Land for these Civill Wars, which He in His good time finish, and send a sudden peace between his Majestie and Parliament."

       Such is the story; and for the solution of it one can only say — as Lord Nugent says who gives the story in his life of Hampden — that must be left to the ingenuity of the reader.

W. W. H.      

(THE END)