The English Civil Wars, Part 2 of 2
00:01It is the 20th of January 1649 in London.At the south end of Westminster Hall, a guard stands at his post,the cold from the stone floor seeping through his boots.Before him, the vast chamber has been cleared for an unprecedented purpose.Upon a raised chair sits the Lord President of the Court, John Bradshaw.Nearby stand the lawyers for the prosecution in their black gowns.Across from them, before the assembled commissioners and the watching crowd, a single red chair waits for the accused.Everyone else is merely here to be a witness to this extraordinary trial.
00:50The door opens and a murmur goes around the cavernous ceremonial hall before fading to whispers as the prisoner is brought in.The guard straightens, the gravity of the moment unmistakable.King Charles is not dragged or manhandled as other prisoners may be.Though he walks in under guard, he is dignified as he does so,and takes his place on the red seat with grave composure.He is dressed in dark, sober clothes and still wears his hat.In one hand he carries a paper.In the other, a silver-tipped cane.
01:30Once the most powerful man in the kingdom,he is now defeated, captured, and about his hand.captured and about to be brought to judgment by his own subjects.From his post the guard watches the king settle, eyes defiant as he assesses the room.The court is called to order and the indictment begins.Yet almost at once the king pushes back.As John Cook, the prosecuting lawyer, reads the charge, Charles leans forward from his chairand taps him sharply on the shoulder with his cane, trying to halt him in mid-flow.
02:07Cook carries on.Charles touches him again, harder this time.The gesture brief, sharp, and incredulous.Even now, the monarch refuses to accept that such an accusation can lawfully be spoken against him.In the tension of the moment, the silver tip of his cane comes loose and clatters onto the floor.For an instant, the sound hangs in the hall, and the guard stifles a smile.But the proceedings continue and the charge is read in full.Charles is accused not merely of failure or bad counsel, but of tyranny and of making war upon
02:52his own people.Before the words can settle, he cuts in again, demanding to know by what authority thiscourt presumes to sit in judgment on him, a crowned king and anointed by God.Around the hall surprise registers in a rustle of bodies, and it is a rustle of bodies, and afew uneasy whispers. Then silence again, as Bradshaw insists the proceedings continue.The prosecutors press on. Charles continues his disruptions and the atmosphere darkens.The court will not yield. Charles will not submit.Watching on, the guard understands that this is larger than one man's fate. If the court succeeds,
03:38the sacred distance that has always separated a king from his subjects will be gone.The monarch will have been brought inside the law like any other man.And if it fails, then all the bloodshed of the past years may yet lead only to more war.The first English civil war ended with King Charles I defeated, his armies broken and his cause apparently lost.But military victory for the parliamentarians brought no real peace.Instead, the months that followed saw an even more volatile struggle,as Parliament turned on itself, and the captive king continued to bargain, delay and deceive.As the search for settlement gave way to renewed fighting, the conflict evolved into outright revolution.
04:42And when the extraordinary solution to the problematic monarch was finally enacted,it would shock even many of those who fought against him.But why didn't the military defeat of Charles I bring the kingdom back to peace?How did Parliament's victory give rise to deeper division and more radical politics?And why did a war fought to limit the power of the monarchy end with the king on trial for his life?I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is the second in this two-part short history of the English Civil Wars.As 1647 dawns, technically the first civil war is over. The royalist armies have been beaten,Their strongholds are falling, and Charles has surrendered to the Scots before being handed over to the English Parliament.
05:46The king is now effectively powerless.But the war's end brings no real peace.And England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland are left reeling from a conflict of extraordinary violence and upheaval.Mark Stoyle is Professor of History at the University of Southampton and specialises in the English Civil Wars.This is completely uncharted territory for Englishmen and English.women, what's going to happen now with the king defeated and Parliament suddenly calling the shotsacross the whole of the country in a way that it's never done before?The war has left the kingdoms demoralised and deeply scarred. Families and communities have been
06:27torn apart and the scale of the bloodshed is immense. As a percentage of population, in England,the civil war has exacted a heavier death toll than the First and Second World Wars combined.In Ireland and Scotland, the devastation is greater still.But Parliament is already struggling to turn victory into peace,and the alliance that held its side together during the war starts unraveling.It splits into two broad factions, the Presbyterians and the Independence.The independents are religious radicals who want a much sort of freer form of Protestantism established here in England.The Presbyterians are more conservative Protestants.
07:14They're not as conservative as the King's support as the Andlicans,but they want some sort of state church.And there's this big divide now in the triumphant parliamentary campbetween the radical independence on one sidewho are particularly influential and numerous in the New Model Armyand the more conservative Presbyterians, on the other hand,who are not so strong in the New Model Army.In Westminster, MPs are split over what kind of settlement
07:42should now be imposed. Though Charles has lost the war and is no longer free, he remains king,and many in Parliament still intend to bring him back under strict conditions rather than abolishmonarchy altogether. The question is how much power he should be allowed to keep and whether he canbe trusted to honour any agreement. The Scots, who have helped secure victory, are determined to securesomething that protects both their political influence and the Presbyterianism they have fought todefend. Meanwhile, the new model army, hardened by war and increasingly conscious of its own strength,also wants a say in how the land will be governed. Everybody wants peace, obviously, but the problem isthat they all want peace on their own terms. So those groups have all got different agendas and
08:33motivations, and the king for his part, he feels that he's appointed by God. His father had toldand repeatedly you're appointed by God,your duty is to protect the throne,protect the country and to protect the church.And so Charles feels that he must do those thingsand that he can't give those things awayin terms of compromising too far.Even in captivity, Charles refuses to accept
08:59that he is truly beaten.Passed between different custodiansand cut off from direct power,he continues to believe that his opponentsare too divided to act decisively without him.He's still hoping to kind of play these sides off against each other and hoping, eventually,by the lining myself with one of these groups, I might be able to restore myself to a positionwhich is strong enough that I can reconcile it with my duty to God and my office.
09:27I mean, that may have been an absolutely hopeless premise, but that's what he's constantlystriving to obtain.His best chance, as he sees it, is with the Scots.Though they fought against Charles, they did so to defend their presbyterian.church, not to destroy the monarchy altogether.As the independence and the new model army gain power in England,many Scots fear that the religious promise they had fought for is slipping away.Charles' hope is that, though weakened, if he offers enough on religion,
10:01the Scots will see him as a less dangerous option than an England dominated by radicalindependence.So, rather than making the kind of meaningful concessions that might secure a lastingsettlement, Charles negotiates separately with the Scots, with Parliament, and with elementsinside the army. But his reputation for scheming runs deep, and many doubt whether he can betrusted at all. And as the search for peace falters, the New Model Army goes from being Parliament'smilitary instrument to a political force in its own right. The New Model Army is an army of the typewhich England has never seen before. It's a standing army at this time. It's been kept in being.
10:44What the Presbyterians want to do, of course, is to dismantle the New Model Army so that their independent rivals no longer have a military force at their disposal.But of course, the leaders of the Independent faction are very unwilling to see the New Model Army dissolve.And particularly when the soldiers haven't yet been paid.With its soldiers awaiting their wages, the New Model Army suspects that the politicians in Westminster, who were eager to use them in war, will cast them aside unpaid in peace.But material grievances are only part of the story.Years of conflict and sacrifice, as well as intense religious conviction, lead many withinits ranks to demand some influence over how the kingdom should now be run.Commanders like Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell become central figures, but the
11:38army's political energy also comes from within the rank and file.Ordinary troopers and officers are now petitioning, debating and spreading radical religiousand constitutional ideas.This October on the Noiser podcast network,Real Dictators Returns.We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo.On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Damand follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster.
12:11On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure,as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea,and a man is struck blind all alone.at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews,and in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasureand murder in the sign of four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.By 1647, the New Model Army is not just a powerful armed force,but an organization that sees itself as separate from Parliament, a guardian of the cause for which it has
12:54And that is deeply unsettling for political authority.In the autumn, discussions over the future are held with remarkable openness at St. Mary's Church in Putney, just outside London.Known as the Putney debates, these are not parliamentary meetings, but gatherings of the New Model Army's General Council,bringing together senior officers, soldier representatives, and radical voices to argue over the future of the kingdom.Though the debates don't settle anything, they expose the differences now in play.Some want a more limited settlement that preserves hierarchy and property,while others press for sweeping reforms of political and individual rights.Meanwhile, with his wife by now having fled to France,
13:46Charles is in the custody of the army at Hampton Court.It's a strange confinement in which he still treated with ceremonyand surrounded by attendance, but cut off from power.But even within the opulent prison walls, he may not be totally safe.Among the most outspoken of his opponents are the levellers,a loose political movement pushing for revolutionary constitutional changeand a broader voice for ordinary men.The levellers are very sort of radical independent group,
14:19and there are rumours flying that the levellers are actually seeking to assassinate Charles and get rid of him.The rumours may or may not be true,but they add to the sense of danger surrounding the king's position.In November 1647, he slips away from Hampton Court and makes for the Isle of White just off England's south coast,hoping its governor might offer protection, or at least prove sympathetic to his cause.But the gamble fails.Now again, if Charles had been a weaker character, or perhaps if he'd just been someone who thought,well, my wife's on the continent, why don't I just go into exile, get back with Henrietta,
14:57just live my life out there and just escape from all this trauma.He refuses to do that.He makes his way to the Isle of Light.He is then sort of semi-arrested by the governor of Carrizbrook Castle.Though confined again, Charles is not so completely cut off that he can't continue to bargain.Through letters, intermediaries and secret negotiations,he continues exploiting the divisions among his enemies to try to recover his position.So he knows there's this huge rift between the Presbyterians and the independents.
15:28He knows that there's all this uncertain.in London, and he knows that many former royalists hate this new parliamentary regime,and Wats see the back of it.And he also knows that the Scots are very, very worried about what's happening in England,and they don't like the fact that the independence are gaining all this power.So essentially, the King, by sort of promising or offering to promise all sorts of thingsto different factions, he's able to kind of summon up a second civil war.Still refusing to accept meaningful limits on his power, the King reaches a secret agreement
16:02with the Scots, promising to support Presbyterianism in England for a limited period in returnfor their military backing.And Scotland is not his only possible source of support.The old Royalist armies may have been beaten, but their loyalty hasn't disappeared.In parts of England and Wales, the King's allies remain bitter, ready to move if the chance comes.Some Presbyterians are also increasingly alarmed by the power of the New Model Army and thethe independence. Fighting reignites and the second civil war begins in earnest.Lots of former royalists rise against the parliament. Some Presbyterians also rise in favour
16:47the king and against the parliament and the Scots actually barrel over the border. Once again,this time the idea is that if they support the king and they are able to place him back onthe throne that he would agree to establishing a kind of Presbyterian form of churchacross the whole of the three nations.So that would be a massive win for them.For a brief while, it looks as though the king may actually succeed in his bid to recover power.But his opponent has changed considerably since the beginning of the first war.What throws all of his calculations out and those of all of his allies
17:22is that by this time the new model army is simply the most powerful military force thatEngland has ever seen. There is no other force in these islands that's able to defeat it.And the New Model Army is able to gradually pick off all of these different groups one by one.They crush the Royalist risings.They crush the risings in Wales.Although the King's supporters are eventually suppressed,the outbreak of a second civil war has enormous political consequences.For many in the New Model Army, it proves that the King is not a partner in peace,
17:55but the persistent author of war, willing to plunge his kingdoms back into conflict to avoid compromise.The decisive moment comes when the New Model Army turns on the largest remaining threat, the Scottish invasion.It is August 1648 near Preston, Lancashire.A teenage drummer boy in the New Model Army tries to stay resolute despite the driving rain.He focuses on the dull weight of the drum against his hip as he marches forward through the wet Lancashire lanes.Around him, Cromwell's army moves in a column.Perhaps eight or nine thousand men are converging on Preston to drive back the Scots who have pushed deep into England in support of Charles.Amid the tramp of so many boots, the horses snorting clouds into the cold air and the rolling of his drum,
19:03the teenager hears officers shouting orders and the rising crack of gunfire ahead.He is young enough to remember when drums meant fairs, parades and church days.Now, every beat he gives is a great thing.command, carrying orders to halt or advance to men who could well be dead by dusk.The road churned to filth by hooves and wheels, the army closes in in the town.Shots snap through the rain, and voices call out that he continues his rhythm,trying to keep shape and purpose in the confusion. Soon they're inside the town, and the fightinggets closer and more jagged. Sound ricochets off stone and timid
19:48and timber as muskets are fired from windows.There are men yelling in the streets, horses skidding on the slick ground.The steady sound of his drum is swallowed by the din.The boy sees soldiers ahead of him hesitate, fire, reload, push on.One man spins and drops in the mug.Another crashes into him from the side and keeps running.Smoke hangs low in the damp air, mixing with rain until the whole town seems to steam.with battle. His hands shaking now. He senses the change in the fight. The Scots are giving ground.
20:30Their line is fraying under the pressure, turning from order into claps as they retreat. By the time the day begins to fail, the drummer boy knows the Scots have been broken.The King's last serious military hope is being driven back towards the border.Charles' war flared back into life briefly. But here, in the rain and smuggling,of this northern town, it has been crushed by the New Model Army.At Preston, Cromwell's forces defeat the Scottish Army in a hard-fought three-day campaignthat effectively breaks the back of the invasion.Militarily, the rising is contained.Politically, however, the effect is explosive.
21:23For the army, Charles' betrayal in driving them back into war is the very last straw.The fact that Parliament or the New Model Army winssuch a stunning victory at Preston. I think everyone now realizes that the army is completelydominant in military terms. And I think that the people within the army realize that as well,and think, well, look, this is the second time we've had to go through this and sort of wade throughblood to get here. Many people, the more radical Puritans, believe that God has spoken againstthe king. You know, he lost once in the first civil war. That was God's judgment. And bystirring up a second civil war and in brewing the kingdom in blood again, he's kind of gone against
22:02God. But though Preston breaks the back of the Scottish invasion, it doesn't instantly silence everyroyalist threat. Around 50 miles northeast of London, Colchester survives 11 weeks under siege and doesnot surrender until the end of August 1648. Royalist held castles on the Kent coast areretaken only after further fighting. Up in Yorkshire, Pontefract Castle remains a dangerous royalisthold out into 1649, and beyond England, Ireland is still largely outside Parliament's control.The King's military cause has been gravely wounded, but the wars across the three kingdoms have notyet burned themselves out. And outside the army, England is not quite ready to abandon the monarchy.Most MPs still hope that some form of agreement can be reached with Charles, and that the old
22:57political order can somehow be steadied rather than destroyed.Most people in England at this time, the great majority, whether they'd fought for the kingor the parliament during the Civil War, they couldn't envisage England without a king.The army, though, have by now reached a far more radical conclusion.Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people?Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your adsthan they do on social?let me introduce you to fans, and they're here with me on Spotify.
23:38Trust me, I know fans.They don't skip, they stay for hours.They don't move on, they manifest.They're not a demographic group, they're fans.Spotify advertising, you're among fans.This October on the Noiser podcast network,Real Dictators Returns.We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo.
24:00On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley,the creator of Frankenstein and his monster.On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea,and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world.In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews,and in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpicked.and epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the sign of four.Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
24:42On the 6th of December 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride, a parliamentarian officer acting on behalf of thearmy's leaders, stations soldiers outside the House of Commons. Presbyterian MPs,believed to be likely to support continued negotiations with the King, are barred from entry.Some are arrested, though many more are turned away or simply leave in protest.This is really the point at which blunt military power is absolutely exerted to completely take control in England.What the new model army and its supporters do, they essentially purge the parliament of everyone who will not support them and their much more radical view of the future.Known as Pride's Purge, it is one of the most shocking moments in the entire.crisis. Functioning essentially as a military coup, it precipitates a collapse of the old
25:37framework of constitutional bargaining. What remains is a reduced commons, the so-calledrump parliament. So you're left with this small number of MPs, the rump of MPs in the parliamentwho do support the new model army and the kind of independent agenda. And it's that diminishedor reduced parliament, that is the one that passes the app for the child of the king.In January 1649, England enters entirely uncharted political territory.Only a month has passed since Pride's purge.In that short time, the remaining MPs have moved with extraordinary speed,pressing for the king to be brought to trial.
26:20Since the idea of trying a monarch has no proper precedent in English law,the House of Lords refuses to endorse the trial of the kingor help create an illegal basis for it.Undeterred, the Commons pushes on, declaring that it acts in the name of the people.It creates a special High Court of Justice and orders that Charles Stewart, King of England,be brought before it.For the first time in history, a reigning European monarch is to be placed on trial by his own subjects,accused of being a tyrant, a traitor, and an enemy to the people.
26:59If the court finds him guilty, the penalty will be death.This is an earth-shattering event.Nothing like this has happened in Europe before.And, you know, kings have been killed and done away within the past,but to actually be tried in open public.That's something completely new.So this is absolutely shocking.I mean, it's hard to overstate how shocking it is.
27:22By now, Charles has been brought back under close guard from the Isle of Wight to the mainland.From Windsor, he has taken to London to face trial in Westminster Hall,the great ceremonial heart of royal and legal authority.The trial opens on the 20th of January 1649 before a packed audience.A special court of commissioners has been appointed with the lawyer John Bradshaw presiding as Lord President.The prosecution is led by John Cook, who demands that Charles answers for the bloodshed of the kingdoms.From the king's point of view, everything that's happened is just monstrous, you know, from his perspective.None of this is what he expected.
28:04genuinely believes that he's tried to rule as a good king, following his father's footsteps,following very carefully his father's advice, which had been left for him. So he simply doesn'trecognize the court. He sees this as a kangaroo court that's been created out of nothing by rebels.Charles refuses to accept the court's authority, insisting that no lawful power on earth cansit in judgment on a divinely appointed king. He doesn't enter any plea in the normal sense,because to plead would be to admit that the court has jurisdiction over him.Again and again, he interrupts to challenge the tribunal itself,demanding to know by what authority it sits and refusing to answer any of its charges.
28:50That makes the trial strange to modern years.There is no full adversarial contest in which Charles answers the accusationsand the court weighs his defense.Instead, the prosecution presents the charge.Witnesses are heard to establish that Charles has directed war against Parliament and the kingdom.And the king persists in eloquently refusing to recognise the whole process.Something that's very interesting about the king is that he'd always suffered from this stammer.He'd never been a good public speaker, and he'd often seemed very awkward and hesitant in public.
29:25It's fascinating to note that during his trial, that stammer disappears, and many people say, many contemporaries say that they'd never seen him speak so well or so clearly.In the courtroom, Charles seems to grow in stature. His refusal to bend and the clarity with which he defends the principle of kingship lends him an unexpected authority.Even many who oppose him are struck by the dignity of his bearing.What he's actually hoping at this time is really hard to say.Some people believe that he already knows that he's doomedand he simply wants to go out in the most dignified and courageous way he possibly can.Over several days, the court hears its case and moves steadily towards judgment.And Charles' refusal to cooperate largely only serves to stiffen his enemy's resolve.
30:21To them, he is proving once again that he will concede nothing, learn,nothing, and place his own conception of monarchy above the peace of the kingdom.Charles, for his part, sees no honorable course except to go on resisting the court and let theprocess run its course. On the 27th of January 1649, Charles Stewart is found guilty.He is condemned to death by the severing of his head from his body.Three days later, on the 30th of January, he has led out to a scaffold erected outside the banquetinghouse at Whitehall. On the platform, Charles remains calm and controlled. It is bitterly cold,and he is dressed carefully, wearing extra clothing so that no one will mistake a shiver for fear.
31:13He speaks briefly, insisting that he dies a Christian king and not a tyrant, and when themoment comes he faces it with remarkable composure. Before the thousands gathered at Whitehall,Charles lays his head on the low block.A mass executioner steps forward and the axe falls.One eyewitness writes of a dismal, universal groan from the crowd,while others tell of people rushing forward to dip handkerchiefs in the king's bloodas a trophy, a relic, or as a curative elixir from a godly source.It is one of the most extraordinary and shocking moments in British history,
32:00a reigning king defeated in war judged in publicand now put to death by the state he once ruled.Someone said about Charles that nothing in his life became himlike the ending of it.And most historians see this in some ways as his finest hourbecause, you know, he shows great courage,he shows great dignityand he goes to his eventual death
32:25with the kind of demeanour that was expected in a king.At the time of his execution, his wife is in exile, and some of his children are in Parliament's custody.But his eldest son, 18-year-old Charles, is safely abroad and now becomes the focus of royalist hopes.The king may be dead, but the royal line has not disappeared.In the months that follow, the monarchy is abolished, the House of Lords is swept away,and England is declared a commonwealth.Now it is a republic, which at least in theory will be governed without a monarch.With the king gone, it becomes very clear what the situation is.
33:08Essentially, England is being ruled, and it's a kind of military dictatorship.It's a regime that has been set up based on the naked power of the new model army.And the great majority of English and Welshmen and women do not agree with this regime,You know, whether they're diehard royalists or Presbyterians, this is a government which they feel has been imposed on them by force.So there's no sense of huge majority of people being enthusiastically behind this.But equally, people are even more exhausted by this time, even more demoralized.Most people just don't want to return to war.And they can also see that there is no hope of defeating the New Model Army.
33:45It is an ungovernable force as far as everyone else is concerned.The political transformation is immense, but it rarely.rests on shaky foundations. The new model army may dominate England, yet the new regimecommands little real enthusiasm across the wider population. And beyond England, the problemis greater still. Or has by now been raging across the British Isles since 1642. The royalistuprisings of the Second Civil War have been put down, but the authority of Westminster stilldoesn't reach cleanly across the three kingdoms. In Ireland, English control has long since brokendown. In Scotland, outrage of the execution of Charles I strengthens resistance to the new regime.
34:34In Wales and parts of the Far West, too, loyalties to the old monarchy and the old church remain strong.Cornwall and the other leaders of the new model army, the other sort of army officers, they've nowcreated this Republican regime. So they know that there's a huge amount of opposition to them in thecountry as a whole. And they also know that from the moment that Charles I was,executed and his head fell from the chopping block, his son, his elder son, Charles, is instantlyaccepted as king by diehard royalists and also by many in Scotland and Ireland.In Scotland, many who are appalled by the execution rally to the new king at once.In Ireland, too, resistance to the English Commonwealth begins to gather around his name.
35:25The army leadership knows that if this opposition is left to coalesce, the war is.could begin again in earnest.The struggle now becomes a wider campaignto impose the authority of the new republicacross the whole of the British Isles.So now, although the army is firmly established in England,there are still all sorts of threats from Charles IIand the Exiled Royalists on the continent.
35:49There's also now this sort of Scottish threat.And of course, there's Ireland,which has for now for a long time been out of English control.English puritans and parliamentarians,they're determined to re-exert English control over Ireland.And so that's really the first thing that they do.In Ireland, Cromwell leads a harsh and deeply controversial campaign against Confederate and royalist resistance.Beginning with the notorious sack of Drogata in September 1649,
36:19in which large numbers of defenders and civilians are killed.The memory of that campaign will cast a long shadow of Irish history.But Cromwell's men have no intention of.stopping until they have total control.Eventually, with the New Model Army at the helm,English dominance over the archipelago is gradually restored.So during 1645 to 6, the New Model Army reconquers Wales and Cornwall.1649, 15 onwards, they reconquer Ireland.
36:47And then Scotland is really the last sort of independent powerin these islands still holding out against them.In September 1650, Cromwell defeats at Dunbar,a mortal blow that shows once again thissuperiority of the new model army in the field. But to them, the dead king's eldest son isalready Charles II, even if the English Republic refuses to recognize him. On the first day of1651, he is crowned King of the Scots at Schoon near Perth. He now offers opponents of the EnglishRepublic a living, legitimate monarch, around whom to rally. Charles and his supporters still believe there is
37:32one last chance. If they cancarry the war into England itself, gather royalists on the March South, they just might beable to reignite resistance to the Commonwealth.So in the summer of 1651, Charles II leads his army across the border and into England.It is a final gamble, both bold and brave, especially considering the fate of his fatherjust two and a half years earlier.He hopes that English royalists will rise and old loyalties will be revived.all evident to the contrary, he is optimistic that the Republic will crack under the strain of his
38:09great invasion. But the support he needs never materializes insufficient strength. Cromwell movesfast to counter the attack, and on the 3rd of September 1651, the two sides meet at Worcester.The battle that follows is decisive. Charles II's army is overwhelmed, his cause broken,and his hopes of restoring the monarchy by force shattered.Worcester will prove to be the last major battle of the civil wars.All Charles can hope for now is flight, concealment and survival.It's September 1651 in Boscable Wood, Shropshire,a short distance to the northwest of Birmingham.
39:04Charles II is a king on the run.Only days ago he marched south at the head of an army,But that army was broken in the Battle of Worcester, and now the 21-year-old monarch is stumblingthrough fields and woodland with mud on his boots and fear tight in his chest.Around him, the men still loyal enough to risk their lives for his cause speak in urgent whispers.They can't stay together.It's too dangerous.Too many in one place will draw attention, and too many horses leave tracks.
39:39They can't afford for the king to be caught.So one by one, the company breaks.apart. A servant is sent one way, while a companion disappears into the trees with the lasthurried instruction to draw hunters away. Charles keeps moving forward into the wood, no longer a kingwith attendance, but a hunted man being passed from hand to hand through a country full ofpatrols and informers. Behind him, he knows parliamentarian soldiers are searching the roads and lanes,checking houses, questioning locals, looking for the fugitive who only days before had still been a crowned hope for the royalist cause.Charles stops beneath the trees and listens.
40:28For a moment, all he can hear is his own breath and the faint stir of leaves.But then, unmistakably, comes the dull rhythm of hooves approaching through the wood.With the last of the men, he stands close to an oak, its trunk,perhaps broad enough to hide one or two of them.There is no time to run further.The ground is too open and the road too close.But above them, the branches of the tree spread thick and low,leaves shifting in the late summer air.
41:03Charles looks up, then back towards the sound of the road.The final hope of the royalist cause has come to this,a defeated king in a wood searching for a hiding place.With no time to lose, he makes his decision and reaches for the trunk.Bark scrapes against his palms.His boot finds a notch, slips, finds it again.Hardly daring to glance towards the road, he begins to climb into the safety of the old oak.This October on the Noyser podcast network, Real Dictators Returns.
41:49We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo.On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and followMary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster.On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea,and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world.In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews, and in Sherlock Holmes short stories,Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the sign of four.Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
42:34Charles escapes and eventually reaches the relative safety of the continent.To royalists, he remains the rightful king.But after Worcester, he has no army and no kingdom securely under his control.In England, the men who overturned the old order are left with a harder task,how to govern with the power they have gained.Oliver Cromwell now stands at the center of that experiment.Yet the Republic proves fragile, depending heavily on the army and increasingly on its persuasive and charismatic leader himself.In a way, it seems as if the new model army is all dominant by the late 1650s.
43:15The Republic has been set up, the government is functioning well, there is this very, very powerful army in place to support it.Things look good, but essentially by this time, Cronmel has kind of recreated himself as a quasi-monarch, that he is at athe center of this government and he's the one man that can hold it together because everythingabout the republic is so opposite to what had happened in England before. When Cromwell dies in1658 of complications arising from malaria and a kidney complaint, the system he is held together beginsto falter. It is a flower that has not had time to put down very deep roots, if you like. And with Cromwellgone, there is simply no one else who can hold the whole thing together. And so gradually,the Republic begins to collapse into confusion.
44:04More and more people are beginning to look across the channel to Charlesand eventually certain officers and men within the new model army itselfbegin to hold out of hand him.And at that point, it sort of curtains.But essentially, the Republic had been an attempt to uphold a very unpopular Puritan regimealmost at the point of the knife.And once that military threat is removed,the great majority of English men and women, I would argue,
44:30are actually quite happy to see the return of the monarchy and restoration of what seems likenormality in many ways. In 1660, Charles II returns and the monarchy is restored. On the surface,it might seem as though England has come full circle, back to kings, bishops and the traditionalforms of rule. But the journey through civil war, regicide and republic has changed the kingdomstoo profoundly for any true return to the old world. And that leads to the world. And that leads to thethe great question hanging over the whole conflict.After so much bloodshed, upheaval and destruction,what in the end was it all for?
45:10The English civil wars are difficult to explain,because the conflict was never just one thing.At its heart were struggles over the power of the monarchyand the rights of Parliament,but those constitutional battles were inseparablefrom fierce disputes about religion, sovereignty,the use of armed force,and the nature of political obedience.
45:32of political obedience.Who had the right to rule?By what authority, God, or the people?And to what extent could ordinary subjects resist a king whom they believed had broken faithwith them?The wars transformed the relationship between ruler and ruled and shattered old assumptionsabout sacred kingship.Briefly, ideas that had once seemed almost unthinkable now appeared possible,
46:01like religious tolerance, broader political representation,and the right to challenge authority.They also left behind a more powerful armyand a new awareness that politics could be foughtnot only in palaces and parliaments,but in pulpits through pamphlets and on the streets.I think first of all, we should remember the terrible impactit has on everyone living here in England and Wales and Cornwall.
46:27For everyone who lived through the Civil War,it was the biggest event of their lives.And for the rest of their lives,they would refer to it as the war,or the wars, just as our grandparents referred to the Second World War as the war.You know, this was the big event.Nobody ever forgot it, so its impact on its own time is enormous.Even after the monarchy was restored in 1660, the old world order was not simply reinstated.
46:51The memory of civil war, regicide and republic continued to shape British politics for generations.Kings would never be so powerful again.Charles II and those who followed him would never enjoy the power.that Charles I, or Henry V, that had.And in some ways what happens in 1660 is a classic sort of English compromise,that, you know, kings are back, but they're nothing like as powerful as they'd been before.Parliaments are still effectively an advisory body,but they have much more ability to advise and control than they'd had in the past.
47:24So that's a huge change.It's impossible to overstate that.And the impact of briefly being a republic released energies that transformed society.The Republic and the whole period of the Civil Warit lets all of these things out of boxeswhich can never really be pushed back againso all sorts of amazing things happen during the Republicyou get women preachers,
47:46you get women writing and publishingin a way they've never done before,you get all sorts of ordinary men doing so as wellall sorts of new ideas and thoughts are unleashedand in religious terms as wella very interesting compromise is arrived at.After the restoration,as Charles II's installation on the throne of England
48:09is known, the Church of England returned as the established church, broadly in the shapeits defenders had been trying to preserve all along. But the old dream of a single national churchhad been damaged beyond repair. The state was increasingly forced to recognize that some peoplewould follow other Protestant paths and that non-conformity could not simply be crushed out ofexistence. Over time, England found ways to make room for people who worshipped differently. And theThe same was true in politics, though the armies disbanded and Charles II was installed ona throne.The old divisions did not vanish.
48:50The concept of the parliamentarian roundhead and royalist cavalier became more than labels froma battlefield.They became identities and traditions, ways of thinking about power, religion, monarchy, andparliament that would echo long after the fighting stopped.Really, all of our political groupings after 1660,a kind of descendants of the roundheads and cavaliers.So those who fought for the king, the royalists,they eventually become the Tories,
49:19very much high church.Those who fought for parliament,they eventually become the Whigs,the non-conformists,they eventually blend into the more liberalEnglish political tradition.And eventually we end up with sort of conservative in labor,which until quite recently were very much
49:35the kind of spiritual descendants of the roundheads and cavaliers.So the resonance of the civil waris still all around us today, and it's kind of baked into our political system.To me, it's probably the single most important conflict we've ever been involved infor all sorts of reasons, apart from possibly the Second World War and the defeat of HIPAA.Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of Mary Shelley.I think Mary Shelley continues to fascinate because she's got it all.I mean, she has got the double whammy of having written something astonishing,
50:17which has entered not just the mainstream of readingor even not just the mainstream of film and entertainment,but it has passed into language.And then there's her story.Both the work and the life,it's an extraordinary combination.That's next time.You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of right now
50:40without waiting and without adverts by subscribing to Noiser Plus.Just hit the link in the episode descriptionor head to www.org.org.com forward slash subscription.to unlock more episodes today.This October on the Noyser Podcast Network,Real Dictators Returns.We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo.On short history of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam
51:03and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster.On real survival stories, a modern Viking adventure,as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea,and a man is struck blind all alone.All alone at the very top of the world.In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews,and in Sherlock Holmes short stories,Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the sign of four.
51:34Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
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