Royalist revenge was exacted on Easter Monday, 3 April 1643, when Prince Rupert returned to Birmingham with 1,200 cavalry, 700 footsoldiers and 4 guns. Twice repulsed by the small force of 200 defenders behind hastily erected earthworks, the Royalist cavalry outflanked the defences and overran the town in the Battle of Birmingham, before burning 80 houses and leaving behind the naked corpses of fifteen townspeople. Although the Royalist victory was militarily insignificant, and came at the expense of the death of the Earl of Denbigh, the resistance of a largely civilian force against the royalist cavalry, and the subsequent sack of the town, presented the Roundheads with a major propaganda boost that was eagerly exploited by a series of widely circulated pamphlets.