Early in the Civil War, Edgbaston Hall along with Hawksley House on Clent Ridge, was a stronghold of Col. John Fox, the so-called �Jovial Tinker�. The Edgbaston Garrison musters presented below are from 19th August 1645 and 30th April 1646, found among the accounts of the Warwickshire County Committee, along with musters, warrants, levy assessments and other documents submitted by field officers and garrison commanders to be examined by the county committee of accounts. There were other Parliamentary garrisons at Tamworth, Warwick, Coventry, and Astley and the soldiers were evidently shifted around between them. On 10th July 1645, three weeks after the capture of Tamworth Castle by Parliamentary forces under the command of Col. William Purefoy after a brief siege, the Parliamentary governor Waldive Willington commanded 10 officers and 77 soldiers in Tamworth with a further 9 officers and 37 soldiers making up the �town company�. A later Tamworth muster of 28th May, 1646 lists only 23 names, �the rest of the soldiers being about fiftie are at Lichfield Leguer uppon duty there�. There were 156 officers and 1,120 soldiers quartered in Coventry under the command of Col. Willoughbie, Colonel Boseville and Colonel Bridges. Major Hawkswell's "horse troops" at Astley in 1646 comprised 79 officers and 462 soldiers, while a later muster of the Warwick garrison under Major Bridges refers to a garrison of some 350 troops. (Musters, SP 28/122/II; 28/122/III; 28/123/IV). In comparison, the Edgbaston garrison with no more than 40 soldiers and officers including Thomas Rawlins, �a prisoner�, was comparatively small.

The second document is part of a claim for quartering and losses submitted to the County Committee by the inhabitants of Sparkenhoe Hundred in southwest Leicestershire from Exchequer accounts SP 28/161. The parliamentary garrisons in Warwickshire made frequent incursions into Leicestershire following the capture of Tamworth Castle. The claims relating to Sparkenhoe Hundred for quartering and losses from the garrisons at Tamworth, Coventry, Edgbaston, Astley and Warwick were submitted to the Warwick county committee in June, 1646, described in �A charge expressing particularly what free quarter, horses and other goods have been taken from any of the forces under the Parliament�s Command within the County of Warwick so far as at present can be found out�. Eusaby Cradock, the clerk to the committee, advised that "much more � will be charged upon the several garrisons so soon as the Country Books of Accounts come in". 8th September, 1644, Only six townships claimed losses the Edgbaston garrison although there were probably more. An account of Colonel Fox�s incursions from can be found in R. E. Sherwood�s Civil Strife in the Midlands, 1642-1651 (1974) pp.127-128.

Edgbaston House Garrison Musters SP 28/122/Pt.2, SP 28/123/II

Muster 19th August 1645

Col. John Fox
Capt. Lieut. John Allen
Cornet: Thomas Shute
Quartermaster: Richard Burbidge
29 names of soldiers including 
Thomas Rawlins, �prisner�.

Muster 30th April 1646
Governor: Col. John Fox
Captain John Allen
Lieutenant
Quartermaster Richard Burbidge
Corporal
25 troopers, 7 footsoldiers
Minister
Treasurer
Commissary of Arms Marshall
Porter
Brewer
Salter
Cornet: Thomas Shute