At this hour of the day, although the Parliamentary left was crumpled up and forced back, the right wing held its own, as did also the centre; and when Rupert returned from his impetuous pursuit, it was too late to retrieve his error of judgment. The enemy’s centre had not only stood firm but had advanced, forcing the Royalists to retreat. The arrival of John Hampden, with a body of troops who promptly opened fire upon the Prince’s horsemen, causing them to flee in great confusion, completed the disaster, Rupert himself having to throw away his hat and plumes lest they should offer a mark to the enemy’s musketeers. The Royal army was now indeed, for some considerable time, in imminent danger of a disastrous and crushing defeat, owing to the severe pressure on its left front. Both armies suffered severely, almost equally so, states a contemporary account, but inasmuch as the Parliamentarians had held their ground and the Royalists had been compelled to retire from the assault, the advantage was with some justness claimed by the former. The number of killed was very large, but contemporary estimates are so contradictory that it is almost impossible to obtain figures of any exactness. Probably Sir William Dugdale, who, present during the engagement, afterwards went over the field and estimated the number of those actually slain to have been rather more than 1100, is approximately correct. Although the enclosures have altered the general appearance of the field of battle from that which it bore on that disastrous Sunday of October 23, 1642, the main lines can even nowadays be traced with considerable clearness and accuracy. And the “Sun Rising,” a fine, old stone house, has survived the course of the years, as has also the old Beacon Tower, at Burton Dassett, on the summit of which the first signal fire was kindled in the cresset by the Parliamentarians to send the news of the battle London–wards to the next station at Ivinghoe, some forty miles distant, and thence to Harrow–on–the–Hill. The months immediately succeeding the first struggle at Edge Hill saw some great happenings. Warwick had held out when called upon by Sir William Dugdale to surrender in the King’s name, though Banbury yielded. But at Coventry the anti–Royalist faction was all powerful, the “rebels,” “sectaries,” and “schismatics” gathered thick within its walls, where they deemed immunity from molestation more certain than in unprotected towns. Kenilworth at the commencement of the war had been garrisoned for the King, but the defenders were soon stealthily withdrawn as the rebels in the district increased in numbers; a fight between them and a body of Parliamentarian troops from Coventry taking place at Curdworth near Coleshill, just prior to the battle of Edge Hill.