One may say that Oxford and London were the two objective points of the opposing forces from the close of 1642 to the spring of 1644.  The King’s Government at Oxford, the Parliament in London, were the civil bases, at least, upon which the opposing forces pivoted, and the two intermediate points were Abingdon and Reading.  To read the contemporary, and even the modern, history of the time, one would imagine from the terms used that these places were the theatre of considerable military operations.  We hear, with every technicality which the Continental struggle had rendered familiar to Englishmen, of sieges, assaults, headquarters, and even hornworks.  But when one looks at dates and figures it is not easy to treat the matter seriously.  Here, for instance, is Abingdon, within a short walk of Oxford, and the Royalists easily allow it to be occupied by Essex in the spring of ’44.  Even so Abingdon is not used as a base for doing anything more serious than “molesting” the university town.  And it was so held that Rupert tried to recapture it, of all things in the world, with cavalry!  He was “overwhelmed” by the vastly superior forces of the enemy, and his attempt failed.  When one has thoroughly grasped this considerable military event one next learns that the overwhelming forces were a trifle over a thousand in number!

Next an individual gentleman with a few followers conceives the elementary idea of blocking the western road at Culham Bridge, and isolating Abingdon upon this side.  He begins building a “fort.”  A certain proportion of the handful in Abingdon go out and kill him and the fort is not proceeded with:  and so forth.  A military temper of this sort very easily explains the cold-blooded massacre of prisoners which the Parliament permitted, and which has given to the phrase “Abingdon Law” the unpleasant flavour which it still retains.

The story of Reading in the earlier part of the struggle is much the same.  Reading was held as a royal garrison and fortified in ’43.  According to the garrison the fortification was contemptible, according to the procedures it was of the most formidable kind.  Indeed they doubted whether it could be captured by an assault of less than 5000 men, a number which appeared at this stage of the campaign so appalling that it is mentioned as a sort of standard of comparison with the impossible.  The garrison surrendered just as relief was approaching it, and after a strain which it had endured for no less than ten days; but the capture of Reading was not effected entirely without bloodshed; certainly fifty men were killed (counting both sides), possibly a few more; and the whole episode is a grotesque little foot-note to the comic opera upon which rose the curtain of the Civil Wars.  It was not till the appearance of Cromwell, with his highly paid and disciplined force, that the tragedy began.

Even after Cromwell had come forward as the chief leader, in fact if not in name, the apparent losses are largely increased by the random massacres to which his soldiers were unfortunately addicted.  Thus after Naseby a hundred women were killed for no particular reason except that killing was in the air, and similarly after Philiphaugh the conscience of the Puritans forbade them to keep their word to the prisoners they had taken, who were put to the sword in cold blood:  the women, however, on this occasion, were drowned.