of the Solemn League and Covenant, bringing a powerful Scottish army down to assault the Royalists. "Thanks to the failure...to win a decisive victory there, the English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish subjects of all of King Charles' Three Kingdoms would henceforth play a bloody price in a steadily widening and deepening war". Sources and historiography Malcolm Wanklyn has described the First Battle of Newbury as being "both the longest battle of the English Civil War and the one that historians have found the greatest difficulty in describing", because there is no contemporary plan of the battlefield or record of the plans of each side while, conversely, there are diverse and contradictory accounts from both sides of the battle. An official Royalist account was written by Lord Digby on 22 September, which suffered from defects due to Digby's position away from the main fighting, and because it was designed "as a reflection on the battle's outcome, not a blow-by-blow description of what happened". Conversely, those written by officers who actively fought in the main arenas of the battle are very narrow in focus, for example, the accounts of Joshua Moone and John Gwyn, commoners who fought on Wash Common, and an anonymous tract from the perspective of a soldier who assaulted Round Hill. On the Parliamentarian side, an official source was published a month after the battle; due to the circumstances of its publication and the high Parliamentarian morale after Newbury, it made no attempt to gloss over errors and was designed to "explain to a lay readership what had happened on the battlefield". A more narrow view was taken by Sergeant Henry Foster, who fought with the London Trained Band in their attempt to prevent the Royalists splitting Essex's army. The diary of Walter Yonge of Colyton also contains two reports written for the House of Commons by Essex's generals, including Stapleton, although the originals have been lost. Citations References Further reading 1643 in England Battles of the English Civil Wars Newbury, Berkshire Military history of Berkshire West Berkshire District Conflicts in 1643 Registered historic battlefields in England 17th century in Berkshire