little or no military defences. In 1642 unrest between the Royalist (Worcestershire) and the Parliamentarians (Warwickshire) lead to many small battles and skirmishes taking place in the surrounding countryside. The allegiances around Birmingham were blurred with a mishmash of landowners, nobility and gentry all fighting for different sides. The Royalists first passed through Birmingham proper in great force in 1642, the town was mainly Puritan, and some looting took place. As an apology to the town King Charles ordered two of his captains to be hanged, this did not appease the town and some time later a baggage train of the king was captured and delivered to Warwick. With further unrest both sides prepared for war, the smiths of Birmingham were called upon and over 15,000 sword blades were manufactured, these were supplied to Parliamentarian forces only. Kings Norton and Hawksley both acted as battlefields during October, Prince Rupert's troops were ambushed with many casualties, although both sides claimed the upper hand (see Battle of Kings Norton). In March 1643 Prince Rupert in command of about 1,900 men requested entry to the unfortified town which was refused by about 200 towns folk and a company of Roundheads from the garrison at Lichfield under the command of Captain Richard Greaves. The Battle of Camp Hill started with a direct assault by the Cavaliers on the earthworks at Camp Hill, after being twice repulsed the Cavaliers captured the earthworks by launching flanking attack with their cavalry. The Cavaliers pursued the fleeing townsmen into Birmingham where they came under fire from some houses, which they torched. At the far end of the town at Cape Hill the Roundhead troopers charged and successfully checked the Cavaliers, killing their officer William, Earl of Denbigh, and allowing Graves and his men to retreat unmolested back to Lichfield. The laws of war at that time allowed for the burning of property in an undefended (unfortified) town of village if soldiers were shot at from those properties. Those houses from which shooting was thought to originate were set on fire by the Royalists, the inhabitants of whom were not allowed to quench the fires or to recover their movable possessions. About 80 houses were "burnt to ashes" (some of which belonged to Royalist sympathises), and some 15 men, and two women were killed, with many more wounded and left destitute. The Historian Trevor Royal writing in 2004 states