0:00:03 > 0:00:08Between 1603 and 1714, the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland
0:00:08 > 0:00:12were ruled by a royal family that, more than any other,
0:00:12 > 0:00:14shaped modern Britain.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19You've heard of them, even if you think you haven't.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23You've heard of Charles I, the king that got his head cut off,
0:00:23 > 0:00:26and you've heard of Charles II, the Merry Monarch.
0:00:26 > 0:00:29And you've heard of the man that they both fought against,
0:00:29 > 0:00:32Oliver Cromwell, and of course you've heard of Roundheads
0:00:32 > 0:00:34and Cavaliers.
0:00:38 > 0:00:43Over the last 350 years, we've repackaged the wars of the 1640s
0:00:43 > 0:00:47and '50s as a jolly piece of British pageantry...
0:00:47 > 0:00:50The Civil Wars!
0:00:52 > 0:00:56Bring a picnic and a tartan blanket and pass a pleasant afternoon.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01The truth is less attractive.
0:01:01 > 0:01:03GUN FIRES
0:01:03 > 0:01:06Because the wars that raged in England, Scotland
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and Ireland in the 1640s and '50s
0:01:08 > 0:01:13were like the wars in what used to be Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20Driven by religious hatred, religious misunderstanding,
0:01:20 > 0:01:23religious violence.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25GUNS FIRING
0:01:31 > 0:01:35"I will make them one nation," said James VI and I,
0:01:35 > 0:01:38when he became King of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1603.
0:01:40 > 0:01:44But under his descendants, the three kingdoms fell into an abyss.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49Mass graves, massacre, murder,
0:01:49 > 0:01:53atrocity, plunder, rape.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56That was the reality of civil war.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14It was a century of struggle marked by religious divisions,
0:02:14 > 0:02:17revolution and conflicting visions of what Britain would be.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22A struggle which has echoes today.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28They are the first family of Great Britain.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31They are the Stuarts.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50This is the story of a story we told ourselves.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54A story we told ourselves to help three different kingdoms
0:02:54 > 0:02:56sleep at night, beneath a single flag.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02For hundreds of years, the wars of the three kingdoms
0:03:02 > 0:03:04of England, Scotland and Ireland
0:03:04 > 0:03:06were known as the English Civil Wars.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09By the nineteenth century,
0:03:09 > 0:03:13when the Houses of Parliament were rebuilt in carefully medieval style,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16the story seemed set in stone.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22Here was a mythic vision,
0:03:22 > 0:03:25in which Crown and Parliament struggle.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29Parliament asserts its rights and comes to dominate.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33The monarch becomes a mere figurehead.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41It's a story in which this is the cradle of democracy.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44Here is the Mother of Parliaments.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47People come from far and wide to see it.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50And to hear that same story.
0:03:50 > 0:03:55We're standing outside the Houses of Parliament, seat of the
0:03:55 > 0:03:58UK government. If I can get you to just look across the road,
0:03:58 > 0:04:01you'll see a bust of Charles I.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06And it's very ironic that Charles Stuart, King Charles I,
0:04:06 > 0:04:08is on that church,
0:04:08 > 0:04:12facing in front of Westminster Hall, his nemesis, if you like,
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Oliver Cromwell, the great Puritan.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18Deeply religious, hated the monarchy,
0:04:18 > 0:04:23hated what they stood for, wanted to get rid of the monarchy completely.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25And of course Charles I,
0:04:25 > 0:04:30believing firmly in the divine right of kings. Nobody should argue with
0:04:30 > 0:04:35him, nobody should actually question him, what he said went, he was
0:04:35 > 0:04:39the ruler. And at the end of the day, only one would reign supreme.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44That's the story Westminster tells us.
0:04:44 > 0:04:46In stone and steel and lead.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52King against Parliament.
0:04:52 > 0:04:54Monarchy versus democracy.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01But, for the last 30 years, some historians like myself
0:05:01 > 0:05:05have been trying to change the way we tell this story.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08To us, Cromwell looks anything but democratic.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14And then there's this tendency to call it the "English Civil War".
0:05:14 > 0:05:18Civil wars, yes, but those wars took place in all three Stuart kingdoms.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22They didn't even begin in England. They started in Scotland.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26And that first Scottish war was as much about religion as it was about
0:05:26 > 0:05:32politics, in an age when politics and religion were fatally entwined.
0:05:35 > 0:05:40In 1625, Charles had inherited three very different
0:05:40 > 0:05:42kingdoms from his father, James.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48Ireland was Catholic, apart from the Protestants that James had
0:05:48 > 0:05:51planted on Catholic lands around Derry.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57England was Anglican, although many, known as Puritans,
0:05:57 > 0:06:01felt that the Anglican Church wasn't Protestant enough.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05Like those English Puritans, Scotland's Presbyterians
0:06:05 > 0:06:09distrusted bells, smells, bishops and priests.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12The simple word of God was what they wanted.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17Three profoundly different populations.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21One profoundly stubborn king...
0:06:21 > 0:06:24who had dissolved England's Parliament
0:06:24 > 0:06:28in 1629 for its disobedience and ruled without it ever since...
0:06:32 > 0:06:34..who cheerfully contemplated using
0:06:34 > 0:06:38troops from one of his kingdoms to suppress rebellion in another.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43Who had been trying, too, since the middle of the 1630s,
0:06:43 > 0:06:47to turn Scotland's Presbyterians into Anglicans.
0:06:48 > 0:06:50Why?
0:06:56 > 0:07:00It was the fact that Charles was the head of the Anglican Church.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Its supreme governor, like every English monarch
0:07:03 > 0:07:07since Henry VIII, like the Queen is today.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09It was the fact that the Anglican Church had to do
0:07:09 > 0:07:11what the monarch told it.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14And Charles liked that very much indeed.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19Have mercy upon the holy church and so rule the heart of thy
0:07:19 > 0:07:23chosen servant Elizabeth, our Queen and governor. That she,
0:07:23 > 0:07:25knowing whose minister she is,
0:07:25 > 0:07:28may above all things seek thy honour and glory.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35And that we and all her subjects duly considering whose
0:07:35 > 0:07:37authority she hath...
0:07:39 > 0:07:42..may faithfully serve, honour and humbly obey her.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48If Scotland became Anglican, Charles would be head of both church
0:07:48 > 0:07:51and state in two of his three kingdoms.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56One step closer to a dream he'd shared with his dead father.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02The dream that his three kingdoms would be one.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05"A union of hearts and minds."
0:08:05 > 0:08:07But it was just a dream.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13For Presbyterians, a king was only a political figure.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16Spiritual power belonged to God.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20To a Presbyterian, an Anglican cathedral like Worcester
0:08:20 > 0:08:24was an empty, meaningless shrine to merely human power.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31In their National Covenant, Scotland's Presbyterians
0:08:31 > 0:08:33framed their answer.
0:08:33 > 0:08:34It was a contract with God.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38The majority of Scots signed it in person.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42There was no room for a middleman, king or not,
0:08:42 > 0:08:44and this was the first spark,
0:08:44 > 0:08:49the first open conflict in this supposedly English story.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55The Scots rioted, rebelled and declared war on Charles.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02They occupied the north-east of England
0:09:02 > 0:09:05and in 1640 sent Charles the bill.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09£850 a day, to cover their costs.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Only his English Parliament could vote the taxes needed
0:09:14 > 0:09:16to pay that sort of money.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18Charles recalled it.
0:09:20 > 0:09:22It was as disobedient as ever.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26Charles found Parliament full of men whose political
0:09:26 > 0:09:29and religious preferences were alarmingly close to
0:09:29 > 0:09:32those of Scotland's Presbyterians.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35Puritan pedants with picky principles.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40Ponderous individuals like John Pym,
0:09:40 > 0:09:44with his record-breakingly long speeches, insisting that Parliament
0:09:44 > 0:09:49refuse all money to the King until he stopped abusing his power.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52And John Hampden, who said much less than Pym
0:09:52 > 0:09:55and probably for that reason alone said it better.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00Those Parliamentary Puritans sat for day after day,
0:10:00 > 0:10:04knocking corners off the royal prerogative. Your Majesty cannot
0:10:04 > 0:10:08this, Your Majesty must not that...
0:10:08 > 0:10:10It was Charles's personal hell.
0:10:11 > 0:10:16But it soon became clear that this was only hell's first circle.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22Because Ireland's Catholics,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25impressed by Scotland's successful rebellion,
0:10:25 > 0:10:29had seen at last that neither king nor Parliament
0:10:29 > 0:10:32would remove the Protestants planted by King James.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42In November 1641, in the Irish town of Newry,
0:10:42 > 0:10:45a proclamation was read before the townsfolk.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48A proclamation purporting to be from Charles himself,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51ordering his faithful Catholic subjects to seize
0:10:51 > 0:10:55"All the forts, castles and places of strength and defence
0:10:55 > 0:11:01"in Ireland and also to arrest and seize the goods, estates and persons
0:11:01 > 0:11:04"of all the English Protestants within the said kingdom."
0:11:06 > 0:11:09It was just enough to make this document plausible.
0:11:09 > 0:11:11It purported to come from Scotland,
0:11:11 > 0:11:13which was where Charles was negotiating with the Scots.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16It also bore his Scottish great seal.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18It came from a king who'd long used the idea,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21or at least kept the idea in his mind, of using Irish Catholic
0:11:21 > 0:11:24troops to suppress his English and Scottish political enemies.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27And Charles himself didn't deny it.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30Could it? Could this document be genuine?
0:11:32 > 0:11:36With hindsight, no, it couldn't. It's a poor fit for a king
0:11:36 > 0:11:40we know was more interested in promoting the Anglican Church.
0:11:43 > 0:11:48But in Ireland, in 1641, it was more than credible enough to work.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51Thinking they were doing the King's bidding,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55Catholics rose in rebellion and Protestant blood began to spill.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01The most reliable witness to this particular incident is
0:12:01 > 0:12:04William Clark. Further, he said that he was,
0:12:04 > 0:12:09by the said rebels, imprisoned for the space of nine days,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12with at least 100 men, women and children.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15During which time, many of them were sorry tortured,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18strangling and half hanging.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21And many others, many other cruelties.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25After which time of imprisonment, he, with the hundred men,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28women and children, or thereabouts, were, by the said rebels
0:12:28 > 0:12:33and their compatriots, driven like hogs about six miles to
0:12:33 > 0:12:38a river called The Ban and with their pikes, and swords,
0:12:38 > 0:12:44and other weapons, thrust them down headlong into the said river,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47and immediately there perished.
0:12:48 > 0:12:50SCREAMING
0:12:53 > 0:12:55BOMBS FIRE
0:12:59 > 0:13:02And what sort of justifications do these deponents say
0:13:02 > 0:13:04the rebels were invoking?
0:13:04 > 0:13:06They contended from the outset that their actions were
0:13:06 > 0:13:11approved of in advance by the King. Now, such statements were
0:13:11 > 0:13:15seized upon by the Parliamentarians in England, subsequently,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19to say there is quite a clear evidence that the King was
0:13:19 > 0:13:24deeply involved in the actions which were responsible for the slaughter
0:13:24 > 0:13:26of all of these Protestants in Ireland.
0:13:26 > 0:13:27And therefore, this is one
0:13:27 > 0:13:32of the factors which further erodes the credibility of Charles I
0:13:32 > 0:13:37as a monarch for a Protestant people, ruling over three kingdoms.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51It's estimated 4,000 Protestants at most were killed.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56But in Westminster, it was rumoured that the death toll was 200,000.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01Pamphlets were produced. The illustrations were graphic,
0:14:01 > 0:14:04but they were illustrations that printers already had to hand,
0:14:04 > 0:14:08showing atrocities from previous conflicts on Continental Europe.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Everything was inaccurate and inflated.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Weeks after the rebellion had begun, Charles denied any
0:14:16 > 0:14:21hand in the Newry proclamation, and decried the violence perpetrated.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23But it was far too late.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29The Irish Rebellion created a fatal vortex of fear,
0:14:29 > 0:14:32mistrust and paranoia.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35At Westminster, John Pym was in no doubt who
0:14:35 > 0:14:39he blamed for this latest popish plot - the King.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45One of those Puritans who now saw Charles as a man
0:14:45 > 0:14:48with Protestant blood on his hands was new to Parliament.
0:14:48 > 0:14:53A gentleman farmer from near Cambridge. A backbencher.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56Not quite a nobody - Oliver Cromwell.
0:14:59 > 0:15:01The rumours spread further -
0:15:01 > 0:15:05settled on the King's Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria. Some MPs
0:15:05 > 0:15:08believed she had undue influence, wanted to arrest her.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13Charles responded with an equally explosive series
0:15:13 > 0:15:16of counter accusations, insisting that Pym, Hampden
0:15:16 > 0:15:20and their associates were guilty of high treason, which, if proven,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22carried a certain sentence of death.
0:15:25 > 0:15:29The King's next move was both a fatal mistake
0:15:29 > 0:15:31and a fundamental element in the legend.
0:15:31 > 0:15:35Here was the error that made the English Civil War inevitable.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42It's preserved in the rebuilt Houses of Parliament in a painting.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45Charles plays the pantomime villain.
0:15:46 > 0:15:51Entering Parliament with armed guards to arrest five members,
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Pym and Hampden among them. But the men had already fled.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58The Speaker denies all knowledge of their whereabouts.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07It's become part of the ritual of British democracy.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10We re-enact it annually - not as it happened,
0:16:10 > 0:16:12but as it should have happened.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16At the State Opening of Parliament,
0:16:16 > 0:16:20Black Rod approaches the doors of the Commons as an emissary
0:16:20 > 0:16:23of the King and the door is rudely slammed in his face.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30The King's trespass prevented -
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Parliament's independence re-asserted.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36What do you think foreign visitors - I mean, presumably you
0:16:36 > 0:16:38obviously show around a lot of foreign visitors or
0:16:38 > 0:16:41schoolchildren - I wonder what they make of what looks like quite
0:16:41 > 0:16:44a rude gesture, erm, obviously being the highlight of your
0:16:44 > 0:16:48ceremonial role. How do you explain that when it seems...?
0:16:48 > 0:16:51Oh, I think it's easy to explain. It's, it's...
0:16:51 > 0:16:53It's like the whole business
0:16:53 > 0:16:56of the State Opening of Parliament is theatre,
0:16:56 > 0:16:59and the State Opening of Parliament is one of the great ceremonies
0:16:59 > 0:17:03of our country and it plays a role in our national life as a reminder
0:17:03 > 0:17:07of the historical legacy which we have, and to the pageantry.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11And do you feel that you now subsume your personality within Black Rod?
0:17:11 > 0:17:14Well, I think I'm just a speck in the history of, erm...
0:17:14 > 0:17:17I'm the 59th or the 60th Black Rod,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20we're not quite sure. Everybody here calls me Black Rod -
0:17:20 > 0:17:23I mean, I'm sure that there are plenty of peers who have
0:17:23 > 0:17:27no idea what my name is... Hardly ever is my name used itself.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Even my wife sometimes calls me Black Rod when she wants me to listen.
0:17:38 > 0:17:43The ritual is tidy - once a year, it gently restates the myth
0:17:43 > 0:17:46that this was an English affair - a fatal breakdown
0:17:46 > 0:17:50in the relations between an English king and an English Parliament.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58And in that painted Parliamentary corridor,
0:17:58 > 0:18:00we find the next step too.
0:18:00 > 0:18:02Here was Charles,
0:18:02 > 0:18:07raising his standard near Nottingham Castle in August 1642.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10Here was the beginning of the English Civil War.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16But the wars were already three years old.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20There had been bloodshed and battles in Scotland and Ireland.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24Standard histories have always described
0:18:24 > 0:18:28what happened on Sunday the 23rd of October, 1642,
0:18:28 > 0:18:32as the first major battle of the English Civil War.
0:18:32 > 0:18:37Yet England was the last, not the first, of the three Stuart kingdoms
0:18:37 > 0:18:42in which the war of words became war, pure and simple.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46Edgehill, where the English war finally began,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49is an intensely English place.
0:18:53 > 0:18:55There was never fighting here.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57That's what the architecture tells us.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00No bloodshed.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05Just beer. And vicars.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10But these streets would have seen troops,
0:19:10 > 0:19:12cavalry...
0:19:12 > 0:19:14conflict...
0:19:14 > 0:19:18in the fields all around for ten square kilometres.
0:19:18 > 0:19:20Dogged fighting.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22Inexperienced troops.
0:19:24 > 0:19:28Roughly 1,000 deaths, roughly 3,000 casualties.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34Both sides claimed victory, but neither side had won.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38The war would not be short.
0:19:38 > 0:19:44At its peak, there were 210,000 men bearing arms in all three kingdoms.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47One in five adult males would fight,
0:19:47 > 0:19:50one in 20 would die.
0:19:52 > 0:19:53GUNSHOT
0:19:54 > 0:19:58It was not simply a matter of King versus Parliament.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00It was not one war, there was war
0:20:00 > 0:20:04within as well as between the kingdoms.
0:20:04 > 0:20:09And in all three kingdoms, a fatal mix of politics and religion.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Catholics, Puritans, Anglicans.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16All were lost in a violent world of mutual misunderstanding.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18BANG
0:20:18 > 0:20:23And so, these civil wars were anything BUT civilised.
0:20:23 > 0:20:27Civil wars never are, no matter when or where.
0:20:27 > 0:20:29This seems particularly clear to Fergal Keane,
0:20:29 > 0:20:34who has reported from civil wars in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37Fergal, one of the things I've heard you talk about is
0:20:37 > 0:20:39- when you've talked about different war zones -
0:20:39 > 0:20:41sometimes an awful sense of familiarity
0:20:41 > 0:20:44when you see one civil war in a different context.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47The thing that's struck me so often, whether I was covering
0:20:47 > 0:20:51wars in the Balkans or in Rwanda, was this notion, this notion that
0:20:51 > 0:20:56if you didn't kill your neighbour first, he was going to kill you.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02Two hugely important things happen in this period,
0:21:02 > 0:21:04and they echo to the present day,
0:21:04 > 0:21:06you can see it again and again in modern history,
0:21:06 > 0:21:10and that is, first of all, people justify what they do by saying,
0:21:10 > 0:21:12"It is sanctioned by God."
0:21:13 > 0:21:15And they also justify it by referring
0:21:15 > 0:21:17to the atrocities that have been committed against them,
0:21:17 > 0:21:20and they do this in the 1640s
0:21:20 > 0:21:23by resorting to the mass media of the time.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26I think this period is the most crucial.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31It is the crucible in which people's ideas of each other
0:21:31 > 0:21:38in these islands are formed - all of the mistrust, all of the fear,
0:21:38 > 0:21:44the bloodshed. It really begins with a vengeance in this period.
0:21:44 > 0:21:48And there's something particularly grotesque or atrocious,
0:21:48 > 0:21:53literally atrocious, about the kinds of incidents of violence
0:21:53 > 0:21:56in civil war that you've noticed?
0:21:57 > 0:22:01There's a terrible intimacy about the killing,
0:22:01 > 0:22:03when people set about their neighbours,
0:22:03 > 0:22:06people that they have grown up alongside, people who until
0:22:06 > 0:22:08that moment may have trusted them,
0:22:08 > 0:22:12and suddenly find that they open the door and the neighbour
0:22:12 > 0:22:16comes through to kill, to rape your daughters.
0:22:16 > 0:22:22And this echoes right through to 1991 in the former Yugoslavia,
0:22:22 > 0:22:25to 1994 in Rwanda.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28It is this notion that Seamus Heaney
0:22:28 > 0:22:31so wonderfully described - "These neighbourly murders".
0:22:31 > 0:22:35There's a dehumanisation process somehow, that you almost forget,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38or you can't see people as you knew them before,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41that they have to assume a different kind of quality, is that...?
0:22:41 > 0:22:45One of the things that happens when a climate of violence is present,
0:22:45 > 0:22:49is that all kinds of violence become possible,
0:22:49 > 0:22:53the worst elements in society very frequently come to the fore.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57And as they kill, and as they rape and as they pillage, others,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00who would never have thought under normal circumstances to become
0:23:00 > 0:23:01involved, are drawn into it.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17By the autumn of 1648, Ireland was a bloody wasteland,
0:23:17 > 0:23:20with Protestants and Catholics at each other's throats.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23Scotland was given over wholly to religious extremes.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25And the King was defeated -
0:23:25 > 0:23:30imprisoned far from London, here, at our next tourist destination -
0:23:30 > 0:23:33Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38In London, Parliament was split between those who
0:23:38 > 0:23:42believed that the King could be persuaded to sign a treaty
0:23:42 > 0:23:46that met all of Parliament's needs and those who did not.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50Hardline Puritans made of sterner stuff,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54who thought Charles couldn't be trusted to take part in any honest
0:23:54 > 0:23:57and binding negotiations.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01Who saw him as a knot too complicated to untie.
0:24:01 > 0:24:07A problem best solved by something sharp and something final.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11By the autumn of 1648,
0:24:11 > 0:24:14when negotiations with the captured king began,
0:24:14 > 0:24:17war had become a thoroughly professional business.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24Parliament had secured its victory through the ruthless
0:24:24 > 0:24:27efficiency of the New Model Army.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30Its soldiers were skilled in theological debate,
0:24:30 > 0:24:34but their most pointed arguments were pike and musket.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40One of its leaders was Oliver Cromwell -
0:24:40 > 0:24:43no longer an obscure backbencher -
0:24:43 > 0:24:46who believed his victories were signs that God was on his side.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51An MP as well as a military leader -
0:24:51 > 0:24:54an example of something new, not altogether attractive,
0:24:54 > 0:24:56in British politics.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01A Parliamentary faction with military teeth.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04And it was this hardline minority that thought
0:25:04 > 0:25:09these negotiations were worthless, pointless, doomed.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12Charles, they insisted, was still the same Charles -
0:25:12 > 0:25:17unchanged after six years of defeat and disappointment.
0:25:17 > 0:25:22As committed as he'd ever been to defending his divine right to rule,
0:25:22 > 0:25:24his vision of the Anglican Church,
0:25:24 > 0:25:28and to continuing the war until he had secured victory.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34Charles was tired, the years of war had aged him.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39But fatigue aside, Cromwell and his generals were quite correct -
0:25:39 > 0:25:41Charles hadn't changed at all.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45Whilst imprisoned here at Carisbrooke Castle,
0:25:45 > 0:25:49before the negotiations had begun, Charles had tried
0:25:49 > 0:25:51and failed to escape.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54A group of royalists had gathered outside with horses,
0:25:54 > 0:25:57and Charles was meant to climb through the window
0:25:57 > 0:25:59and join them, but he'd got stuck.
0:25:59 > 0:26:03There were several other escape attempts, each more farcical
0:26:03 > 0:26:06and desperate than the last, and all failures.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09And all the while, at the negotiations, Charles was
0:26:09 > 0:26:13making meaningless concessions to Parliament's representatives.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18Hoping for rescue, playing for time, but time had now run out.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23On the 6th of December 1648,
0:26:23 > 0:26:27MPs were met by soldiers of the New Model Army
0:26:27 > 0:26:29with a list of 180 members who were to be excluded
0:26:29 > 0:26:31for supporting the King.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38Parliament's 470 members was reduced to around 300.
0:26:39 > 0:26:43The trial of the King began on the 20th of January 1649,
0:26:43 > 0:26:45in Westminster Hall.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51The King's accusers compared him to classical tyrants -
0:26:51 > 0:26:55Caligula, the Emperor Nero.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58They called him "a man of blood".
0:26:59 > 0:27:01Charles was bemused.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04His only defence, repeated time and time again,
0:27:04 > 0:27:08was that his accusers had no right to try him at all.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13Constitutionally, Charles was absolutely right,
0:27:13 > 0:27:18but legal theory couldn't trump political reality.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22The truth was this - his father had left Charles three kingdoms
0:27:22 > 0:27:26that were already very different to each other.
0:27:26 > 0:27:30And it was Charles's actions as king that had destabilised those
0:27:30 > 0:27:34different kingdoms so much that civil war had erupted
0:27:34 > 0:27:36and that was why he was here, now.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42On the 27th of January, they sentenced him to death.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44MOURNFUL SINGING
0:27:49 > 0:27:50The heart of the legend -
0:27:50 > 0:27:53what we did to the King at the Banqueting House.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00Now, it was the 30th of January and it was a very cold day,
0:28:00 > 0:28:03so Charles I wore two shirts that day
0:28:03 > 0:28:06so that he wouldn't shiver, and the people think
0:28:06 > 0:28:08he was afraid to die.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12He came out of a first-floor window
0:28:12 > 0:28:14on to a specially erected scaffold
0:28:14 > 0:28:16that was made here.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19Now, Whitehall was full of thousands of people
0:28:19 > 0:28:21who'd turned out to watch the execution.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26Charles insisted that the headsman wait for his signal,
0:28:26 > 0:28:31so, when the headsman struck, it was at the King's command.
0:28:31 > 0:28:33His last command.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40And with one blow of the axe, his head was chopped off.
0:28:43 > 0:28:44And the crowd surged forward,
0:28:44 > 0:28:48and many of them dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood that
0:28:48 > 0:28:51was dripping from the platform, because they wanted a memento.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56And if you look across the road at Horse Guards
0:28:56 > 0:28:58just across there on the clock,
0:28:58 > 0:29:02you will see, at two o'clock, there is a black spot, and that
0:29:02 > 0:29:06black spot is there to represent the time of the execution.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11The time that we executed our monarch.
0:29:13 > 0:29:20This was the one and only time we executed a king for treason.
0:29:24 > 0:29:29But who do we mean by "we"? What had REALLY happened here?
0:29:41 > 0:29:45I'm in the Parliamentary archives at Westminster, looking at the
0:29:45 > 0:29:49death warrant for King Charles I, and it's an extraordinary,
0:29:49 > 0:29:53very evocative document. You see prominent signatures
0:29:53 > 0:29:58like that of Cromwell, but what really strikes you is the few number
0:29:58 > 0:30:02of signatures authorising this extraordinary act.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05Just two months earlier, the House of Commons had been made
0:30:05 > 0:30:08up of about 300 MPs, but now there were only about 80
0:30:08 > 0:30:11that dared to attend its proceedings.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13Only 59 signed the death warrant.
0:30:15 > 0:30:20So there were only 59 men who were willing, or could be persuaded,
0:30:20 > 0:30:25or perhaps even forced to sign this warrant to kill their king.
0:30:29 > 0:30:31And whose king was it?
0:30:31 > 0:30:35These 59 men represented what was left of the English Parliament.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39But the king whose head they had cut off had worn three crowns,
0:30:39 > 0:30:41only one of which was English.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46News of the King's execution took several days to reach his son,
0:30:46 > 0:30:48Charles, in Holland.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52Charles was only 18, but already famous for his composure.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57When his courtiers broke the news, they did so simply
0:30:57 > 0:31:00by addressing him as "Your Majesty".
0:31:00 > 0:31:02Charles's composure collapsed.
0:31:02 > 0:31:03He burst into tears.
0:31:07 > 0:31:10But was he "Your Majesty"? Was he a king?
0:31:10 > 0:31:12Not in England.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15On the day of the regicide, Parliament had passed a law
0:31:15 > 0:31:18preventing anyone from succeeding to the throne.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21The King was replaced by a committee,
0:31:21 > 0:31:24of which Oliver Cromwell was a leading member.
0:31:26 > 0:31:28But just days after Charles's death,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32the Scottish Parliament overrode the English,
0:31:32 > 0:31:34declaring his son "King of Britain, France
0:31:34 > 0:31:37"and Ireland by the providence of God."
0:31:37 > 0:31:40And Ireland's Catholics also proclaimed their loyalty
0:31:40 > 0:31:42to Charles II and the House of Stuart...
0:31:45 > 0:31:49..which Oliver Cromwell could not permit.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56Cromwell's Irish campaign of 1649 to '50
0:31:56 > 0:31:58was fuelled by delusion -
0:31:58 > 0:32:02the belief that the rebellion of 1641 had taken
0:32:02 > 0:32:05hundreds of thousands of Protestant lives.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10The massacres of Drogheda and Wexford became legend.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16I'm used to thinking of Cromwell as a figure from our past,
0:32:16 > 0:32:19but in Belfast, where taxi tours of murals from both sides
0:32:19 > 0:32:22of the Troubles have recently become possible,
0:32:22 > 0:32:24he feels more present tense.
0:32:27 > 0:32:30He's still an icon for the Protestant, Loyalist community.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36Well, here we are, we're in East Belfast and we have a number of
0:32:36 > 0:32:41murals here reflecting the British Protestant culture here in the North.
0:32:45 > 0:32:50And over here on the right-hand side, we have a mural in memory
0:32:50 > 0:32:52of Oliver Cromwell.
0:32:56 > 0:33:00Seen as a hero, as a defender of the Protestant faith
0:33:00 > 0:33:02and the Protestant way of life.
0:33:04 > 0:33:07And today, still very relevant to that mindset
0:33:07 > 0:33:10and that political, ideological thought.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21Elsewhere in Belfast, around the Shankill Road, murals of Cromwell
0:33:21 > 0:33:24have been removed in the years since the Good Friday Agreement.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30We're just going to take a left into this street here,
0:33:30 > 0:33:34and, as you can see, the kerbs are painted red, white and blue,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37and this is to do with their Britishness.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40There's a lot of flags as well as murals, yeah.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43This is to do with their identity, their culture,
0:33:43 > 0:33:45and their political expression.
0:33:45 > 0:33:47Just here on the right-hand side...
0:33:50 > 0:33:55..we have a mural which, which actually USED to be here,
0:33:55 > 0:33:59of Oliver Cromwell, but it was taken away
0:33:59 > 0:34:04as part of the regeneration of minds and attitudes towards
0:34:04 > 0:34:08symbolism here - what was seen as a negative symbol,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11from the Catholic perspective,
0:34:11 > 0:34:13and they've replaced it with this here image.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16- So it says, "Remember, respect, resolution."- Yeah.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18So, you've got a picture there, Brendan...
0:34:18 > 0:34:21I have a picture here, yeah, and this is actually
0:34:21 > 0:34:24a picture of the original mural.
0:34:24 > 0:34:27And, as you can see, it's a painting of Cromwell's
0:34:27 > 0:34:31armies involved in conflict and killing, stuff like that.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34There's actually a script in the corner here,
0:34:34 > 0:34:36and it's actually highlighting
0:34:36 > 0:34:39that "Catholicism is more than a religion, it is a political power.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42"Therefore I am led to believe there will be no peace
0:34:42 > 0:34:46"in Ireland until the Catholic Church is basically eradicated," you see?
0:34:46 > 0:34:48So, it's more of a prophecy,
0:34:48 > 0:34:50as well as just a particular historical event?
0:34:50 > 0:34:54Exactly. It's inflaming the situation, you see?
0:34:54 > 0:34:56The Catholics will see Oliver as a man who,
0:34:56 > 0:34:59who butchered County Wexford and Drogheda,
0:34:59 > 0:35:03and marched his soldiers through the towns and villages of Ireland
0:35:03 > 0:35:07during the conquest to suppress the Irish, you see?
0:35:07 > 0:35:12Where to the Protestant people, he was seen as a man who militarily
0:35:12 > 0:35:17paved the way for the plantation of the Protestants in Ireland, you see?
0:35:17 > 0:35:21So one man's meat is another man's poison, so to speak.
0:35:25 > 0:35:29By May of 1650, there was no significant Irish resistance left.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35But the Scots still clung to their Stuart king.
0:35:37 > 0:35:39Charles arrived in Scotland in June -
0:35:39 > 0:35:43he'd come to collect a Scottish crown, and an army.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47The Scots forced him
0:35:47 > 0:35:50to sign their National Covenant before he'd even landed.
0:35:50 > 0:35:55Then they brought him here, to Falkland Palace in Fife,
0:35:55 > 0:35:59where they lectured him at length on his duties as a covenanted king.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03But it was all for nothing. Cromwell came north
0:36:03 > 0:36:08and thrashed a much larger Scottish army at the Battle of Dunbar.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11And then Charles tried what he'd really rested his hopes on
0:36:11 > 0:36:15all along - he marched an army of 12,000 soldiers south into England,
0:36:15 > 0:36:19hoping that royalists would rise in their thousands to support him.
0:36:20 > 0:36:21But they didn't.
0:36:21 > 0:36:26On the 3rd of September 1651, Charles's 12,000 troops
0:36:26 > 0:36:30faced 28,000 Parliamentarians at the Battle of Worcester.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34Charles watched the first part of the battle from the tower
0:36:34 > 0:36:36of Worcester Cathedral...
0:36:40 > 0:36:43..then joined his men to fight shoulder-to-shoulder,
0:36:43 > 0:36:46as the battle ran through Worcester's streets.
0:36:47 > 0:36:51'As Yugoslavia's army moves to crush Slovenia's democratic
0:36:51 > 0:36:55'bid for independence, should the rest of Europe stand aside?'
0:37:02 > 0:37:06The fighting was hand-to-hand, and house-to-house,
0:37:06 > 0:37:07but Charles's defeat was utter.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12First, he was forced back to his lodging house,
0:37:12 > 0:37:16and then he escaped, with some of his cavalry, and fled north.
0:37:18 > 0:37:23Charles took refuge in a forest - he hid in a large oak tree.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30He heard the soldiers of Cromwell's army
0:37:30 > 0:37:33thrashing about in the undergrowth, looking for him.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39One casual glance upwards would have revealed his presence...
0:37:40 > 0:37:42..but no-one looked up.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54Charles fled the country.
0:37:54 > 0:37:57He would live in exile for the next nine years -
0:37:57 > 0:37:59a hand-to-mouth existence,
0:37:59 > 0:38:02pursued from place to place by Cromwell's foreign policy.
0:38:04 > 0:38:09September of 1654 found him here, in Germany.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16In the cathedral city of Aachen, with his sister Mary.
0:38:20 > 0:38:22It was a spa town.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25They took the waters.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31And in the cathedral, they were shown the relics of Charlemagne -
0:38:31 > 0:38:33Charles the Great,
0:38:33 > 0:38:37dead more than 800 years by the time of Charles's visit.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42A figure of seismic historical importance,
0:38:42 > 0:38:46Charlemagne's dominions had stretched through France,
0:38:46 > 0:38:49parts of modern Germany and northern Italy.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52You have to wonder what went through Charles's mind as he inspected
0:38:52 > 0:38:55the remains of his famous namesake.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59Would he ever regain his rightful thrones? And if he DID regain
0:38:59 > 0:39:03his rightful thrones, would he be remembered with this much reverence?
0:39:04 > 0:39:07Mary politely kissed the skeleton's skull.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10Charles kissed the skeleton's sword, and then -
0:39:10 > 0:39:14he couldn't resist it - he measured it.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20He was an unemployed king.
0:39:20 > 0:39:24There was only one job he was fit for - and Oliver Cromwell had it.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27In his letters, you find money worries,
0:39:27 > 0:39:30occasional flurries of activity.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35In October, Charles wrote several letters on the same subject.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39His mother had neglected to tell him
0:39:39 > 0:39:43that his younger brother Henry was about to convert to Catholicism.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45So, Charles wrote to his mother asking, what was she thinking of?
0:39:45 > 0:39:48He also wrote to his younger brother James in Paris,
0:39:48 > 0:39:50telling him to put a stop to it.
0:39:50 > 0:39:52And he also wrote to young Henry himself.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57"Remember the last words of your dead father, which were to be
0:39:57 > 0:40:01"constant to your religion, and never to be shaken in it."
0:40:05 > 0:40:09He had to behave as though there was a chance of restoration -
0:40:09 > 0:40:13and a king with a Catholic brother would not be restored.
0:40:13 > 0:40:17But the chances of restoration seemed slimmer than ever.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21In London, Cromwell now held the title of Lord Protector.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24He seemed more kinglike day by day.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27His family too seemed more and more royal.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33In 1654, when his mother Elizabeth died,
0:40:33 > 0:40:36he had her buried in Westminster Abbey,
0:40:36 > 0:40:39whose bells you can hear now in the background.
0:40:41 > 0:40:47His mother, when she died in 1654, was given a state funeral.
0:40:48 > 0:40:50Just like a queen!
0:40:50 > 0:40:53Just like our own Queen Mother when she had her
0:40:53 > 0:40:57funeral in Westminster Abbey - the same kind of ceremony,
0:40:57 > 0:40:59the same kind of pomp.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28And this disgusted people, because they started
0:41:28 > 0:41:31to think, you know, hang on, this isn't what we fought for,
0:41:31 > 0:41:33this isn't what we wanted.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36At one point when he was, uh...
0:41:36 > 0:41:39I was trying to think of the right word, it's not crowned,
0:41:39 > 0:41:41but I so want to say crowned!
0:41:41 > 0:41:45When he became Lord Protector, he wore a robe, he carried a sceptre,
0:41:45 > 0:41:50you know, everything you think of that a monarch would have.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56And so that old story of King versus Parliament,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59of the roots of democracy, runs aground.
0:42:01 > 0:42:05No democrat, Cromwell dissolved Parliament as often as he called it,
0:42:05 > 0:42:07like his predecessor.
0:42:07 > 0:42:12He became remarkably like a Stuart - not so much a revolution,
0:42:12 > 0:42:14more a head transplant.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20King in all but name, as Lord Protector, Cromwell made
0:42:20 > 0:42:23the great Stuart dream of union a reality,
0:42:23 > 0:42:27creating the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland,
0:42:27 > 0:42:31a union of bloody conquest and occupation.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38And here was its flag - England's St George's Cross,
0:42:38 > 0:42:42quartered with Scotland's cross of Saint Andrew, and the Irish Harp.
0:42:42 > 0:42:47And at the centre, a white lion on a black shield -
0:42:47 > 0:42:48the arms of Oliver Cromwell.
0:42:55 > 0:42:58In 1657, Parliament granted Cromwell the right to
0:42:58 > 0:43:00nominate his son as successor,
0:43:00 > 0:43:04and when he died in September 1658,
0:43:04 > 0:43:07his eldest son Richard did indeed inherit.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14"Tumbledown Dick", they called him.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18"Queen Richard". He was anything but a chip off the old block.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23In May of the following year, Parliament forced his resignation.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28And then there was nothing. No Lord Protector,
0:43:28 > 0:43:31just a headless House of Commons.
0:43:33 > 0:43:35And a king, in another country.
0:43:36 > 0:43:41Charles was in the Netherlands, itching for his throne.
0:43:41 > 0:43:43But the matter was delicate.
0:43:43 > 0:43:46Help came from the least likely direction -
0:43:46 > 0:43:48a man called General Monck,
0:43:48 > 0:43:51who had been the leader of Parliament's armies in Scotland.
0:43:54 > 0:43:56Now, he had managed to exploit
0:43:56 > 0:43:58the vacuum following Tumbledown Dick's departure,
0:43:58 > 0:44:02securing something close to Cromwell's control over Parliament.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06But he had no intention of making that position permanent.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09The hole in the constitution was king-shaped,
0:44:09 > 0:44:11and for Monck, only a king could fill it.
0:44:13 > 0:44:18On 4 April 1660, Charles issued a document that would become known
0:44:18 > 0:44:20as the Declaration of Breda.
0:44:21 > 0:44:25A careful document, written to Monck's prescription.
0:44:25 > 0:44:30It invited Parliament to consider Charles's gracious offer to return.
0:44:30 > 0:44:35And Parliament, after a decade of increasingly kingly
0:44:35 > 0:44:37Lord Protectors, said yes.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43And so, on 29 May 1660,
0:44:43 > 0:44:46Charles sat here in the Banqueting House
0:44:46 > 0:44:49at a grand celebration for the return of the King.
0:44:51 > 0:44:53Beneath the hymn to divine-right monarchy
0:44:53 > 0:44:56that Peter Paul Rubens had painted for Charles I.
0:44:57 > 0:45:00Beneath these visions of his grandfather, James,
0:45:00 > 0:45:02as a kind of demigod.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07The date had been carefully chosen.
0:45:07 > 0:45:09It was Charles's 30th birthday,
0:45:09 > 0:45:12to be known hereafter as Oak Apple Day,
0:45:12 > 0:45:15in memory of that day in an oak tree.
0:45:15 > 0:45:19It was political theatre, and Charles understood it perfectly.
0:45:21 > 0:45:27He played the king. He was gracious. Urbane. Witty.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30The wit was a little edgy, but it had to be.
0:45:32 > 0:45:35Dry as dust, he observed, "If I'd known how well
0:45:35 > 0:45:38"I'd be received, I'd not have stayed so long away."
0:45:44 > 0:45:47It was a time for laughter and forgetting.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55The English Parliament passed an act pardoning everything
0:45:55 > 0:46:01done in the name of either Crown or Parliament between 1637 and 1660.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05This was the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08It freed everyone of legal responsibility.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10It imposed amnesia.
0:46:13 > 0:46:17Scotland's Parliament took similar steps.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19But Ireland was more difficult.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28In Scotland and England, as many as a quarter of a million people
0:46:28 > 0:46:31had lost their lives to the civil wars.
0:46:31 > 0:46:35To famine and disease, as well as cannon, pike and musket.
0:46:38 > 0:46:41In Ireland, the number of deaths has been furiously debated
0:46:41 > 0:46:45for over 300 years, but there's no doubt that Ireland saw
0:46:45 > 0:46:47the worst atrocities,
0:46:47 > 0:46:50that it was in Ireland where most lives were lost,
0:46:50 > 0:46:54that the majority of those lost lives were Catholic lives.
0:46:57 > 0:47:02Restoration left Ireland with open wounds,
0:47:02 > 0:47:06unresolved battles between Catholic and Protestant.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10In Ireland, there was simply too much history to deny.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14There still is. Those walls and terrace ends are daubed in it.
0:47:18 > 0:47:21Charles II's revenge for his father's death
0:47:21 > 0:47:23was surgically precise.
0:47:23 > 0:47:27Ten men involved in the regicide were executed.
0:47:27 > 0:47:32And on 30 January 1661, four men died a second death.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36Cromwell and three others were exhumed, sentenced,
0:47:36 > 0:47:40and here, where the famous Tyburn Tree once stood,
0:47:40 > 0:47:42the tree of execution,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45they were hung by their necks and decapitated.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55Cromwell's head was stuck on a spike above Westminster Hall,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58and that was the King's revenge complete.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09The head was blown down in a storm 25 years later,
0:48:09 > 0:48:13exhibited in freak shows in the 18th and 19th centuries,
0:48:13 > 0:48:16gawped at, shown to school children.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25In 1957, it was donated to the Cambridge College
0:48:25 > 0:48:27where he'd studied, Sidney Sussex.
0:48:29 > 0:48:31It was then taken by the Master,
0:48:31 > 0:48:36three senior fellows at the time and the people who donated the head,
0:48:36 > 0:48:40and it was buried somewhere close to here, in the college chapel.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43So, when you say close to here, it suggests you don't quite know where.
0:48:43 > 0:48:46At the moment I don't, I'm the acting Master.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49I'll shortly become the Master proper,
0:48:49 > 0:48:52and at that point I'll be given the secret
0:48:52 > 0:48:54as to where the head is buried,
0:48:54 > 0:48:57and I'll become one of the three people with that knowledge.
0:48:57 > 0:48:58So why the secrecy?
0:48:58 > 0:49:02Well, even after all these years it's obvious that Cromwell still
0:49:02 > 0:49:05inspires many passions, both for and against,
0:49:05 > 0:49:09and the worry is that maybe some people will come up
0:49:09 > 0:49:13and try and dig him up, and that's something we want to avoid.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18Today, Cromwell is scar tissue.
0:49:19 > 0:49:22Celebrated, secretly buried.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25It's in the figure of Cromwell, most of all,
0:49:25 > 0:49:29that the ragged edges of this British story grind together.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34So, here we are at the end of our tour,
0:49:34 > 0:49:37standing outside Westminster Abbey,
0:49:37 > 0:49:41and this is where, on 23 April 1661,
0:49:41 > 0:49:48King Charles II came for his coronation, St George's Day 1661.
0:49:50 > 0:49:53Coronations do take a while to organise,
0:49:53 > 0:49:55but this one had some particular problems,
0:49:55 > 0:49:57because we had no Crown Jewels.
0:49:57 > 0:50:01The old set had been destroyed on Cromwell's orders,
0:50:01 > 0:50:06and you can't have a coronation without having a crown
0:50:06 > 0:50:10to put on the King's head, so a new set of Crown Jewels had to be made,
0:50:10 > 0:50:12and in 1661 they were made,
0:50:12 > 0:50:17at a cost of 21,978 pounds
0:50:17 > 0:50:2111 shillings and nine pence,
0:50:21 > 0:50:24which is roughly the equivalent today
0:50:24 > 0:50:26to about 2.5 to 3 million pounds.
0:50:26 > 0:50:31Which is pretty good value for money if you think that even today
0:50:31 > 0:50:33we still use those Crown Jewels,
0:50:33 > 0:50:38and they were last used 60 years ago to crown Elizabeth II,
0:50:38 > 0:50:43in her coronation in this abbey in 1953.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47So we've come to the end of our tour.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50Thank you very much, enjoy your day!
0:50:54 > 0:50:58As Charles II took his place on the throne,
0:50:58 > 0:51:01the seams of history seemed to close.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04It was as though his father had died the day before.
0:51:04 > 0:51:06The choir sang, the people cheered
0:51:06 > 0:51:09and Charles made himself comfortable.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18Fragments of the past began quietly to reappear.
0:51:18 > 0:51:23Statues lost for over a decade, the holy ghost of the decapitated king.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30In 1660, Charles used his powers as head of the Church
0:51:30 > 0:51:33to declare his father a martyr and a saint.
0:51:33 > 0:51:36The only saint ever created for the Anglican Church,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39whose cult came complete with a book,
0:51:39 > 0:51:42the Eikon Basilike - the Image of the King,
0:51:42 > 0:51:44lavishly illustrated.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50You're the curate of the Society of King Charles the Martyr...
0:51:50 > 0:51:53- Chaplain.- Sorry, chaplain. You're the chaplain...
0:51:53 > 0:51:55- It's become I'm so young! - Yes, exactly! Erm...
0:51:55 > 0:51:59The chaplain of the Society of King Charles the Martyr.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01Can you tell us a little bit about that society?
0:52:01 > 0:52:07Yes, the society was founded in 1894, really to revive interest
0:52:07 > 0:52:13and encourage interest in the life of the Church of England's only saint,
0:52:13 > 0:52:19and we have branches in America and Australia and throughout Britain,
0:52:19 > 0:52:23erm, and our main event is the 30th of January,
0:52:23 > 0:52:25the day of the King's martyrdom,
0:52:25 > 0:52:29and we have a High Mass at the place of the martyrdom,
0:52:29 > 0:52:35Whitehall, at which the relics of the King are placed on the altar.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38We have a fringe from a glove he was wearing,
0:52:38 > 0:52:40we have a part of his coffin,
0:52:40 > 0:52:44part of the pall, the cloth that covered his coffin.
0:52:44 > 0:52:49We have a square of the shirt that he wore,
0:52:49 > 0:52:54and, er, our primary relic is a piece of his beard,
0:52:54 > 0:52:57and it's a splendid and very moving and poignant occasion.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03The father had become a holy spirit.
0:53:03 > 0:53:05The son was anything but.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11He made his body into a sort of public spectacle.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14He played tennis - real tennis.
0:53:16 > 0:53:18The older version with the enclosed court,
0:53:18 > 0:53:21in which the ball could be bounced off the upper walls.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25It was a performance as much as a pleasure.
0:53:25 > 0:53:27He sweated for his subjects,
0:53:27 > 0:53:30who were allowed to come and watch his daily games,
0:53:30 > 0:53:32if they were up early enough.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35Charles usually liked to play at five in the morning.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39This king was fit, that was the point.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42Fit to rule, fit for every royal duty -
0:53:42 > 0:53:46but not, like his father, fatally lacking in irony.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49Charles was a heart-throb, who sprawled across his early
0:53:49 > 0:53:54official portraits and broadcast a different sort of royalty,
0:53:54 > 0:53:58a crown not worn at all, or worn lightly, confidently,
0:53:58 > 0:54:02even cynically, as just one of several costumes he might have worn.
0:54:07 > 0:54:09At St James's Palace,
0:54:09 > 0:54:12Charles established a court of sexual opportunity.
0:54:15 > 0:54:17Acquired the nickname Old Rowley,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20after one of his best breeding stallions.
0:54:20 > 0:54:24He kept multiple mistresses, and held meetings with diplomats
0:54:24 > 0:54:26and ministers in his lovers' bedrooms.
0:54:27 > 0:54:30Which were conveniently placed.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33Nell Gwyn's were 30 seconds' brisk walk in that direction.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42Nell was only the most famous of Charles's myriad mistresses.
0:54:42 > 0:54:44He had 14 acknowledged bastards.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48It was the stuff of pamphlets, plays, caricatures.
0:54:49 > 0:54:55This was royalty as entertainment, as gossip, as a distraction.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57But there was method to this madness,
0:54:57 > 0:55:00and a message conveyed by this merry monarch.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04This was a king whose royal body was apparently apolitical,
0:55:04 > 0:55:10a king interested less in authority than in games of all and every sort.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12So why resist a king
0:55:12 > 0:55:16who didn't seem to be interested in oppressing anyone?
0:55:19 > 0:55:24Whilst off-duty, Charles fathered children at a furious rate.
0:55:24 > 0:55:26But on official business in the royal bed,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29with his Catholic wife Catherine of Braganza,
0:55:29 > 0:55:33King Charles II proved unable to father a legitimate heir at all.
0:55:39 > 0:55:41That Catholic wife of his worried people,
0:55:41 > 0:55:43and his publicly smutty court.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50In 1665, plague spread through London's streets.
0:55:53 > 0:55:57People feared the following year, 1666, would bring apocalypse.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03Had the King's bad conduct called down divine retribution?
0:56:06 > 0:56:09When fire broke out in a bakery in Pudding Lane,
0:56:09 > 0:56:13and when it spread, and threatened to consume the entire capital,
0:56:13 > 0:56:15it seemed the answer was yes.
0:56:20 > 0:56:24But King Charles II turned this apparently providential punishment
0:56:24 > 0:56:28into a public-relations coup. With his brother James,
0:56:28 > 0:56:32he personally organised bucket brigades, waded in drains
0:56:32 > 0:56:35and promised generous rewards to all who helped to fight the fire.
0:56:37 > 0:56:39He put his own royal body on the line,
0:56:39 > 0:56:42risked his own life alongside his subjects,
0:56:42 > 0:56:47and when the fires were out, why, he was the fire-fighting king,
0:56:47 > 0:56:50as he and his brother cemented their reputations
0:56:50 > 0:56:52for tremendous personal courage.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59And all around them, the lines of a new London
0:56:59 > 0:57:02rose from the ashes - stately, harmonious,
0:57:02 > 0:57:06the very emblem of a kingdom that had made peace with,
0:57:06 > 0:57:08or forgotten, its past.
0:57:13 > 0:57:17The final proof, it seemed, that Charles was not like his father.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20He put out fires instead of starting them.
0:57:23 > 0:57:25But behind the fine stuccos and veneers,
0:57:25 > 0:57:27the cracks were all still there.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34Thanks to Charles I, these three kingdoms
0:57:34 > 0:57:37were more deeply divided by religion than ever,
0:57:37 > 0:57:40and Charles II would do nothing to heal those wounds.
0:57:42 > 0:57:46His only guiding principle was to keep the throne.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50And what about his fire-fighting partner?
0:57:50 > 0:57:53What about James, Duke of York?
0:57:53 > 0:57:57In 1666, James was next in line to the throne.
0:57:57 > 0:58:01He always would be - Charles never did produce a legitimate heir.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04James was destined to inherit the three crowns,
0:58:04 > 0:58:08but three years after helping to put out the Great Fire of London
0:58:08 > 0:58:11he started another, and set it smouldering,
0:58:11 > 0:58:14by secretly converting to the Catholic faith.
0:58:20 > 0:58:24The final dramatic act of the Stuart century saw the royal family
0:58:24 > 0:58:26fatally divided by religion.
0:58:26 > 0:58:31Brother against brother, and two daughters at war with their father.
0:58:31 > 0:58:34These struggles, and the lack of a Protestant heir,
0:58:34 > 0:58:35would end Stuart rule,
0:58:35 > 0:58:40and almost by accident cause the creation of Great Britain.