Following hard upon the raising of the Royal standard at Nottingham, Lord Essex at the head of the Parliamentarian forces seized Worcester. About the middle of September the King and the army which had flocked to his standard marched to Shrewsbury, from which town on the 12th of the following month they set out for London. On the 18th of October Charles was quartered at Packington Old Hall, the home of Sir Robert Fisher, about ten miles to the north–west of Coventry. On the 19th and 20th the Royal forces were at Kenilworth, next day at Southam, and on Saturday, 22nd, Charles was the guest of Mr. Toby Chauncy at Edgecote House, near Cropredy, just over the border in Oxfordshire; whilst Prince Rupert and a body of troops were encamped a few miles to the north at Wormleighton House, the main body of the Royalist army being gathered at Edgecote and Cropredy. Essex, who had left Worcester upon hearing of the Royalist move towards the capital, reached Kineton on the eve of the 22nd of October with a portion of his army, numbering about 13,000 foot and regular horse, with some 700 dragoons. He was thus numerically inferior to the Royalists, whose forces numbered about two thousand more foot. The intention of the Parliamentary leader was to rest his men on the following day (Sunday), so as to allow the remainder of his troops to come up with him. These consisted of two regiments of foot, eleven troops of horse, and seven pieces of ordnance. The approach of Essex, the number of his forces and his intentions became known to Prince Rupert, through the pickets which he had judiciously stationed on the high ground at Burton Dassett. A hasty council of war was held at Cropredy, at which it was decided to attempt to check the Parliamentary advance, and to give Essex battle. Throughout the night of Saturday October 22, the whole district was astir with the movements of troops, the little town of Kineton, the Tysoe villages, Butler’s Marston, Burton Dassett, Warmington, Cropredy, and Wormleighton being terror–struck with the massing of the rival forces and passage of swiftly–travelling messengers. Almost before it was light the main body of the Royal army struck camp, and marched by way of Mollington and Warmington to a position on the Edge Hills extending from Edge Hill House on the south to Knowle End on the north, the King’s standard being placed and displayed on the site now occupied by the Round Tower. The Royal Line was well protected both on its flanks and in the rear; whilst a complete view of the Parliamentarian army, then disposed in three lines of battle on the plain below in front of the little town of Kineton, was obtainable, the ground in front of the Parliamentarians being even more “open” than it is at the present time.