0:00:06 > 0:00:13The story of the British is a tale of invention and creativity,
0:00:13 > 0:00:14but also of constant struggle.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20The tale has been told many times and in different ways
0:00:20 > 0:00:22but this about the people's experience.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26Told with the help of communities right across the British isles.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32The real makers of our story were the people themselves,
0:00:32 > 0:00:37for it was they, often in the face of great adversity,
0:00:37 > 0:00:39who created our rights and our freedoms.
0:00:41 > 0:00:45And in that story, the next great turning point is the 17th century.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53Then the ordinary people fought their rulers for democracy itself.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58And for the first time in our story, the tales of all
0:00:58 > 0:01:00the peoples of Britain come together in one common narrative.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04It's the next chapter of the Great British story.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22At the start of the 17th century,
0:01:22 > 0:01:26the British Isles were poised between the old world and the new.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31In 1603, Elizabeth I dies childless,
0:01:31 > 0:01:35and the English invite the King of the Scots, James VI,
0:01:35 > 0:01:38to come down here to London
0:01:38 > 0:01:41and to rule the kingdom of England and Wales and Ireland, too.
0:01:41 > 0:01:46And, of course, James's perspective is not an English one. He's a Scot.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53He's sees the British world from the North.
0:01:53 > 0:01:54In his lifetime,
0:01:54 > 0:01:57he'd seen the terrible divisions that had afflicted the island
0:01:57 > 0:02:03and in his mind crystallises the idea of Great Britain.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05A single kingdom under one monarch
0:02:05 > 0:02:09and one law encompassing the whole of the Isles.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16They even devise a new flag
0:02:16 > 0:02:22to symbolise this union of what James called North and South Britain.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26And there were many, of course, north and south of the border
0:02:26 > 0:02:30who vehemently disagreed with that vision of the future.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34But, at that moment, it's a time of optimism.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46A typical English community then was Halesowen in the Black Country.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49It was a metalworking place.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54There'd been cutlers and blade-makers here since the 1200s.
0:02:54 > 0:02:55Back in the reformation,
0:02:55 > 0:02:59they'd survived the Tudor religious crises in relative calm.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03Like most of the country by now,
0:03:03 > 0:03:07the people here had accepted the new Protestant religion,
0:03:07 > 0:03:11but, fatefully, it would be their metalworking skills
0:03:11 > 0:03:13that would draw them into war.
0:03:15 > 0:03:181618 here in Halesowen must have seemed a year like any other.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23The wars and revolutions, the violence which would engulf the
0:03:23 > 0:03:28British isles in the 17th century and sweep across the Black Country,
0:03:28 > 0:03:33turning neighbour against neighbour, wasn't even a cloud on the horizon.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38We know about life here from the churchwarden's books,
0:03:38 > 0:03:40which show us the time through the people's eyes.
0:03:41 > 0:03:46When you open the churchwarden's accounts for those years,
0:03:46 > 0:03:50it's the simple record of an English community
0:03:50 > 0:03:53rubbing along together.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01Expenses of the wardens, the charitable donations,
0:04:03 > 0:04:05church festivals,
0:04:05 > 0:04:10King James's holy day at the end of July.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13But the great event for the village was the decision
0:04:13 > 0:04:18taken by the parish to cast a new great bell.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22"Paid for ale at the Black Boy Tavern in Halesowen
0:04:22 > 0:04:27"when we agreed for the casting of the great bell."
0:04:28 > 0:04:31"Paid in earnest of the bargain."
0:04:34 > 0:04:36To cast their great bell,
0:04:36 > 0:04:40the villagers dug a casting pit in the church yard.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42Here, the bell maker worked with the villagers' help.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53Puritans then saw church bells as a superstitious hangover
0:04:53 > 0:04:54from the old catholic religion.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01But Halesowen wasn't a fanatical place.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05They threw themselves into the project with energy and enthusiasm.
0:05:09 > 0:05:14In a proud metalworking town, every detail mattered.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18"Paid to John Hadley, for fetching the bell metal from Birmingham,
0:05:18 > 0:05:20"12 pence."
0:05:21 > 0:05:26"Paid for oil to the bells, three pence."
0:05:26 > 0:05:27"Paid for leather to make
0:05:27 > 0:05:29"the Baldrics, four pence."
0:05:32 > 0:05:36"Paid to John Hadley for fetching the clay to make the moulds,
0:05:36 > 0:05:37"four shillings."
0:05:39 > 0:05:40"Paid for the fetching of horse muck
0:05:40 > 0:05:44"to make the moulds, 16 pence."
0:05:49 > 0:05:52"Paid for men to help us out of the ground with the bell,
0:05:52 > 0:05:55"on the morrow after the casting, four shillings."
0:05:59 > 0:06:03This is how it's been done since Taylor's was here, kind of thing.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06And if this method works, why change it?
0:06:08 > 0:06:11"Paid to the bell caster for casting our great bell,
0:06:11 > 0:06:13"four pounds and ten shillings."
0:06:29 > 0:06:31There we've got the date it was made,
0:06:31 > 0:06:35and then round the other side we have the inscription.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39Even in 2011, these things matter to people.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43This will ring out for, hopefully, thousands of years,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46providing it's looked after and whatnot.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49There we are.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51That must make the job extra satisfying.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54It does, it does. Certainly does.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00CHURCH BELLS RING
0:07:00 > 0:07:05So, in 1618, Halesowen's great bell rang out as it still does.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11But, in March 1625, it tolled for the death of the old King James,
0:07:11 > 0:07:14and rang in the new Charles I.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18A fateful moment for all British people.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25It would make the Black Country a crucible of war,
0:07:25 > 0:07:29as Britain turned its plough shears into swords.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33King James had been a canny politician,
0:07:33 > 0:07:36keeping religious and political tensions in balance.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42But King Charles was a different kettle of fish. He had no political sense.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46Not least, as we'll see, with his own Parliament in London.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52But it was Charles' religious policies towards the Celtic world,
0:07:52 > 0:07:54towards the Scots and the Irish,
0:07:54 > 0:07:57which, in the end, would lead to disaster.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03The problem was the idea of Great Britain itself.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08The English, Welsh and Scots were now Protestant nations.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11But in Catholic Ireland, the people would have none of it.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15So the English government planned to civilise the Irish by colonisation.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20Starting in the 1580s, the English government had encouraged
0:08:20 > 0:08:24settlers to build farms in Ireland, plantations.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30They came from Devon and Cornwall, but were mainly Scots Protestants.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34We've been here for hundreds of years now.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38They came for better land,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41to escape persecution, perhaps, back in Scotland,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45to improve their lot and make things better for their families.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50I see myself as being Ulster Scots.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53Very much a, sort of, fit in both camps, as it were.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58It's part my being, who I am, where I belong.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01BAGPIPES PLAY
0:09:01 > 0:09:05And that pride in their Scottish roots is still tenaciously
0:09:05 > 0:09:08kept by the Ulster Scots.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11In Annalong, County Down, it's Burns Night.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14The Hanna family came to Ulster in the 17th century,
0:09:14 > 0:09:16driven by famine and poverty.
0:09:18 > 0:09:23I'm not sure what the circumstances were, but I'm sure it was right for the family to move here.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28Obviously, we've managed OK ever since moving,
0:09:28 > 0:09:29so I suppose that was a good decision.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33In a sense, the Ulster Scots were returning to their ancient roots,
0:09:33 > 0:09:35for in the Dark Ages,
0:09:35 > 0:09:38the Scoti had come from Ireland as Burns himself said.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43He opened up with the words, "I cannot forget that the Ulster man,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46"has blood of my blood and bone of my bone."
0:09:46 > 0:09:48Now, he got it the wrong way round,
0:09:48 > 0:09:53The Scots man is blood of the Ulster man's blood,
0:09:53 > 0:09:58and bone of the Ulster man's bone. But I share his sentiment.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01BAGPIPES PLAY
0:10:04 > 0:10:07But in the 17th century, it was not blood
0:10:07 > 0:10:10but religion and culture that would divide them.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18Ireland's misfortune in this coming age of atrocities
0:10:18 > 0:10:22was perhaps not so much the arrival of hard-working colonists
0:10:22 > 0:10:26as the tragic divisions born of reformation politics.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39The English government's plan for colonisation involved
0:10:39 > 0:10:43founding towns, building churches, suppressing Irish culture,
0:10:43 > 0:10:47all driven by their bitter anti-Irish and anti-Catholic agenda.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53And in 1641, the Irish rose in revolt.
0:10:53 > 0:10:59The rebellion of 1641 is hugely significant for the history of Ireland,
0:10:59 > 0:11:02but also for the history of Scotland and England,
0:11:02 > 0:11:04so those three Stuart kingdoms, Michael.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08More people lost their lives during this particular moment
0:11:08 > 0:11:12of intense violence than in any other period in Ireland's history.
0:11:12 > 0:11:17It triggers or unleashes a whole series of events that really
0:11:17 > 0:11:23plunges these three kingdoms into utter turmoil and crisis.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26We have a decade of very, very intense civil war
0:11:26 > 0:11:29that resulted in great bloodletting in all three kingdoms.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37Across the Irish countryside, the rebels butchered the settlers.
0:11:38 > 0:11:44The story is told in an archive unique in British and European history.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47We're coming into the deposition here, where Elizabeth Price
0:11:47 > 0:11:51and the other settlers are being herded onto the bridge at Portadown.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59The poor widow of a settler, Elizabeth Price's testimony
0:11:59 > 0:12:04is one of more than 3,000 witness statements to the atrocities of 1641.
0:12:04 > 0:12:09"They are driven like sheep or beef to a market,
0:12:09 > 0:12:13"those poor prisoners, being about 115,
0:12:13 > 0:12:16"to the bridge of Portadown.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21"The said captain and rebels
0:12:21 > 0:12:25"then forced all those prisoners
0:12:25 > 0:12:30"nd amongst them the deponents, five children
0:12:30 > 0:12:35"By name, Adam, John Ann, Mary and Joan,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38"off the bridge, into the water,
0:12:38 > 0:12:43"and there, instantly and most barbarously,
0:12:43 > 0:12:45"drowned the most of them.'
0:12:48 > 0:12:52"Those that could swim and came to the shore,
0:12:52 > 0:12:55"they knocked them in their heads
0:12:55 > 0:12:58"and thereafter drowned them,
0:12:58 > 0:13:01"also shot them to death in the water."
0:13:03 > 0:13:05It's really powerful stuff,
0:13:05 > 0:13:10and it goes on, page after page, like this.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12Like modern war atrocities, almost, isn't it?
0:13:12 > 0:13:14And her five children, are they killed?
0:13:14 > 0:13:17They're all drowned, and that's what she's describing there,
0:13:17 > 0:13:19the loss of her own children.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23The depositions get used a lot in later times
0:13:23 > 0:13:28to sustain sectarian interpretations of history, don't they?
0:13:28 > 0:13:31How important is religion, though?
0:13:31 > 0:13:33I think religion is hugely important.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36Religion meant a huge amount to people living in the 17th century,
0:13:36 > 0:13:38whether they were Catholic or Protestant,
0:13:38 > 0:13:43and what comes out here even in Elizabeth Price's deposition,
0:13:43 > 0:13:47is that fundamental hatred that has bubbled to the surface.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51The rebels target churches, they piss on bibles.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53They dig up Protestant graves.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56Again, it's this struggle and turmoil,
0:13:56 > 0:13:59it's an age of religious wars,
0:13:59 > 0:14:04and this is Ireland's own encounter and experience with that.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11The rebels were a confederacy of Irish and old English Catholic
0:14:11 > 0:14:15families who'd lived in Ireland since the Middle Ages.
0:14:16 > 0:14:21For nearly ten years, they'll be, effectively, an independent Ireland.
0:14:23 > 0:14:25Meanwhile, on the mainland,
0:14:25 > 0:14:29the Presbyterian Scots, too, had risen against Charles,
0:14:29 > 0:14:32in fury at his attempt to impose an Anglican prayer book.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36Charles marched north to suppress them,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40but they defeated him and forced him to pay huge war reparations.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45The edges of Charles' Great Britain were burning.
0:14:48 > 0:14:53King Charles had ruled through the 1630s without Parliament.
0:14:53 > 0:14:55The Eleven Years' Tyranny, they called it.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00But now, bankrupted by his wars with the Scots,
0:15:00 > 0:15:02and with the situation in Ireland worsening,
0:15:02 > 0:15:07Charles was forced to recall Parliament to ask for more money.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10But the majority in Parliament were bitterly opposed to him
0:15:10 > 0:15:14and disputed his right to raise any tax without their consent,
0:15:14 > 0:15:17especially to raise armies within Britain.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21It had become a fundamental matter of political authority.
0:15:21 > 0:15:24Did it reside with the King or did it reside with Parliament?
0:15:25 > 0:15:29Both sides now began to raise armies and prepare for war.
0:15:29 > 0:15:31BELL TOLLS
0:15:33 > 0:15:36The war would split regions, neighbours and even families.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39Western Britain was especially for the King,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41the rich Southeast for Parliament.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46In the Black Country, Halesowen's Lord was a royalist,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49while puritan radical Birmingham went with Parliament.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Sunderland supported Parliament.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56Newcastle was with the King.
0:15:58 > 0:16:02In Edinburgh, the Scots made their covenant against Charles, for now.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08English armies rampaging in Ireland, the Scots marching through England.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11These were British civil wars.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14The Welsh were largely royalist,
0:16:14 > 0:16:16confirming the view in London that
0:16:16 > 0:16:18Wales was a dark corner of Britain.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37In August 1642, the King raised his standard at Nottingham.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41Then, moving his army to Shrewsbury,
0:16:41 > 0:16:43he sent his recruiting men into the villages.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47This morning, we're going to talk about possible careers within the army.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50Among them was the little Shropshire farming community of Myddle.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53I joined the British army a little bit younger than yourselves.
0:16:53 > 0:16:54I was 16.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58And we know what happened here from a unique village history,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01written by a local, Richard Gough.
0:17:01 > 0:17:03There's about 140 different jobs in there.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06The attraction for the boys then was regular pay.
0:17:08 > 0:17:11Four shillings and eight pence a week was over £400 today.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15A good wage for a farm labourer.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18Right, lads, you've heard me rabbit on for the last half hour or so.
0:17:18 > 0:17:23Is anybody considering making it a vocation if they're not successful at football?
0:17:23 > 0:17:25Why not?
0:17:25 > 0:17:26Don't want to die!
0:17:26 > 0:17:28Don't want to die? I'm here.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34If you're told to do it by the government of the day,
0:17:34 > 0:17:36irrespective of whether you agree politically,
0:17:36 > 0:17:40you should be professional enough to do the job that you signed on to do.
0:17:42 > 0:17:44The village economy had hit hard times,
0:17:44 > 0:17:46and twenty boys from Myddle joined up,
0:17:46 > 0:17:49swearing their oath of allegiance
0:17:49 > 0:17:52to defend King Charles with their utmost.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59"The King commanded all men between the age of 16 and 60 to appear on Myddle Hill."
0:18:01 > 0:18:03"And if any person would serve as a soldier in the wars,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06"he should have 14 groats a week for his pay."
0:18:09 > 0:18:12"I was about eight years old. I went to see this great show."
0:18:14 > 0:18:17In the late summer of 1642, you would have seen
0:18:17 > 0:18:19scenes like this across Britain.
0:18:20 > 0:18:26Musters, trained bands, volunteers - a nation divided.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29It was the first war that involved us all.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39In Leicestershire, the village of Kibworth was occupied by both sides
0:18:39 > 0:18:42at different times during the war.
0:18:42 > 0:18:44And there were dead bodies here in Mainstreet
0:18:44 > 0:18:46after the battle nearby at Naseby.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49Charles' army actually camps in the village
0:18:49 > 0:18:51and the other villages around before Naseby.
0:18:51 > 0:18:52Right.
0:18:52 > 0:18:54And, of course, once the battle's been lost,
0:18:54 > 0:18:56they're swarming through here.
0:18:56 > 0:19:01Go into the posture of order. Most of you are at order.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04You know the term "running a man through" comes from the pike?
0:19:04 > 0:19:05Oh, does it?
0:19:05 > 0:19:06Yeah, run at them, through,
0:19:06 > 0:19:08push the body off the end, carry on running.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10Gruesome.
0:19:10 > 0:19:11Horrible, isn't it?
0:19:11 > 0:19:15How grateful I am to be living in the 21st century, is all I can say.
0:19:17 > 0:19:22At the start of the war, censorship was relaxed and printed news
0:19:22 > 0:19:26and propaganda became important for the first time in our history.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31There were proportionally more young men with higher education
0:19:31 > 0:19:33than at any time before the 20th century,
0:19:33 > 0:19:37so the rank and file were literate and politically aware.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42We hear that the King's on his way to Nottingham to raise an army
0:19:42 > 0:19:46to put Parliament down.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49Parliament is an important part of how this country runs.
0:20:03 > 0:20:04Fire!
0:20:13 > 0:20:18After the first indecisive pitched battle at Edgehill,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21things settled down to a war of attrition across Britain.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31Gradually, the conflict drew in the regions.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37And one of the most bitter and prolonged struggles
0:20:37 > 0:20:41in the British mainland was in Cornwall,
0:20:41 > 0:20:43which stuck with the King through thick and thin.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56On the eve of the Civil War, the Cornish were still seen
0:20:56 > 0:21:00as a separate nation within England -
0:21:00 > 0:21:02a nation with its own language and customs -
0:21:02 > 0:21:04and the Cornish saw King Charles
0:21:04 > 0:21:10as representing British rather than English interests,
0:21:10 > 0:21:14and hence Cornish interests and Cornish religion,
0:21:14 > 0:21:18and so they backed the King in the Civil War.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21And for Cornish identity and Cornish culture,
0:21:21 > 0:21:22that turned out to be a disaster.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29Here in the hills outside Fowey, Parliament had its biggest defeat
0:21:29 > 0:21:31and the battlefield's now being mapped in a project
0:21:31 > 0:21:35using metal detectors and GPS.
0:21:36 > 0:21:40The added gain for Cornish nationalists.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43It was Cornwall's greatest triumph
0:21:43 > 0:21:45Yeah, that's looking good.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48That's the only English one we do have working with us.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51- You tolerate him, do you? - Yeah.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55Huge interest, isn't it?
0:21:55 > 0:21:58It's the greatest battle in the Civil War in the Southwest
0:21:58 > 0:22:00but it's a Cornish victory, as well, isn't it?
0:22:00 > 0:22:02Oh, yes, yes, it's Cornish.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05John and Graham are mapping every bullet,
0:22:05 > 0:22:09every buckle and every powder cap left on the battlefield.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13Out of this, they're hoping to create the most detailed map ever
0:22:13 > 0:22:15of a British battle.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17METAL DETECTOR BEEPS
0:22:17 > 0:22:20- That's a good sound. - So, what's that responding to?
0:22:20 > 0:22:22It'll be a musket ball, I reckon.
0:22:22 > 0:22:23There, there.
0:22:23 > 0:22:25Can you see her?
0:22:29 > 0:22:30Now, we don't want to...
0:22:30 > 0:22:32METAL DETECTOR BEEPS
0:22:32 > 0:22:34..damage the musket ball.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38Yeah, if you look at the impact on it.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42This'll be done by the rod, there, look. That is the ramming.
0:22:42 > 0:22:43Right.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47And if you look on here, look, see where the impacts are.
0:22:47 > 0:22:48So that's an impact one.
0:22:48 > 0:22:50It's been fired?
0:22:50 > 0:22:51It's been fired, definitely fired.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54And how many of these have you discovered, then?
0:22:54 > 0:22:556,000.
0:22:55 > 0:22:566,000?!
0:22:56 > 0:22:596,000, yeah.
0:22:59 > 0:23:01I've never seen a project like this.
0:23:01 > 0:23:05I've never seen a battlefield so amazingly observed before.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10And as vast numbers of finds are mapped,
0:23:10 > 0:23:13the chaos of battle begins to take on a pattern.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17Each and every musket ball is recorded.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19As you can see on this map here...
0:23:19 > 0:23:23The ferocious fighting along the hedgerows -
0:23:23 > 0:23:24the Civil War killing grounds.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27Look at how much is here. It's colossal.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34The terror of a civil war firestorm, as the doomed parliamentarian army
0:23:34 > 0:23:39under the Earl of Essex was cornered, here above Fowey.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45The parliamentarians referred to this as the Cornish mousetrap.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49They're trapped in this little area of land between Fowey and St Blazey.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53They're running out of food, they're running out of ammunition,
0:23:53 > 0:23:56they're hoping that supplies will come by sea,
0:23:56 > 0:24:00but the wind is in the wrong direction and nothing's coming.
0:24:00 > 0:24:02And also, they're very heavily outnumbered.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04I mean, Essex himself claims that
0:24:04 > 0:24:06the royalist horse were coming in in a great cloud.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20There were rules of war to protect civilians,
0:24:20 > 0:24:22and in the mainland they were usually observed.
0:24:25 > 0:24:26But there were war crimes.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Before the battle, the Cornish town of Lostwithiel had been occupied
0:24:31 > 0:24:34and badly treated by the parliamentarians.
0:24:34 > 0:24:39And now the townsfolk vented their fury on the defeated prisoners.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Another bridge, another scene of savagery.
0:24:48 > 0:24:53We're told that they tore off their hats, their coats,
0:24:53 > 0:24:56their clothes and threw a number of them actually into this river.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59And they didn't just attack the parliamentarian soldiers.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02They also attacked the women coming with them, their camp followers.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06They threw a pregnant woman into this, this water,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09having taken, you know, most of her clothes away,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12and, according to a parliamentarian source, at least, she died
0:25:12 > 0:25:14as a result of the treatment she'd received.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20You get an impression from a lot of the sources of the time
0:25:20 > 0:25:23that the English viewed the Cornish as being,
0:25:23 > 0:25:25kind of, primitive, barbarian, boorish.
0:25:25 > 0:25:27Yeah, absolutely.
0:25:27 > 0:25:28Peasants, almost.
0:25:28 > 0:25:30There's a racial hierarchy, if you like,
0:25:30 > 0:25:32through the eyes of Englishmen in London,
0:25:32 > 0:25:34with the English at the top, Irish at the bottom and Welsh
0:25:34 > 0:25:37and Cornish sitting somewhere rather uncomfortably in-between.
0:25:37 > 0:25:41And during the Civil War, parliamentary propagandists
0:25:41 > 0:25:43go out of their way to draw parallels
0:25:43 > 0:25:45between the Welsh and the Cornish, almost to alienise them
0:25:45 > 0:25:47still further, if you like.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49And I think the royalists did their best
0:25:49 > 0:25:50to work things the other way,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53and to present the King as a particular defender of the Cornish,
0:25:53 > 0:25:56someone who's particularly anxious to preserve their rights
0:25:56 > 0:25:58and their traditions and customs.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01So both sides if you like trying to use Cornishness to their own end.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12So eating up men, money and resources,
0:26:12 > 0:26:15the war spread out to touch the farthest corners of Britain.
0:26:17 > 0:26:19But so far as we can tell,
0:26:19 > 0:26:22most ordinary people resisted being brutalised.
0:26:24 > 0:26:29Our local records give us vivid glimpses of human kindness.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34"Seeing three of the prisoners badly bleeding, I dressed their wounds."
0:26:34 > 0:26:38"Captain Palmer told me not to help the enemies of God."
0:26:38 > 0:26:42"I replied I had a duty to treat them as men not as enemies."
0:26:43 > 0:26:45'What the war was like at village level
0:26:45 > 0:26:48'is revealed in our local constable's books,
0:26:48 > 0:26:52'with their charity to wounded soldiers, paupers, and refugees.'
0:26:54 > 0:26:57Parish constable's accounts.
0:26:57 > 0:27:001640 to 1666.
0:27:00 > 0:27:02'Lying on the Great North Road,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05'the village of Upton saw the constant movement of armies.'
0:27:05 > 0:27:10In the 17th century, you had constables in every village.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12And they're not like the police constables today
0:27:12 > 0:27:14but they were the origin of them.
0:27:14 > 0:27:19Upton, like many other places, would have seen soldiers
0:27:19 > 0:27:22at least every week and there'd be one person in that troop
0:27:22 > 0:27:25who'd be a treasurer, and he would have a book of receipts,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27handwritten receipts or printed receipts,
0:27:27 > 0:27:29and they would collect things from the village constable,
0:27:29 > 0:27:32and this account book has all of those collections.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37And one of the constables in Upton was a woman, Jane Kitchin.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44"Given to six Irish people that had great loss,
0:27:44 > 0:27:48"both by sea and land, sixpence."
0:27:51 > 0:27:55"Paid for a pair of boots for a soldier, two shillings."
0:28:00 > 0:28:03"Given for carrying the clubs and pikes
0:28:03 > 0:28:07to Newark the 17th of May, sixpence."
0:28:10 > 0:28:12What do you think of what it was like to live here
0:28:12 > 0:28:13at your age, at that time?
0:28:13 > 0:28:15Do you think it was scary?
0:28:15 > 0:28:18Would you have liked to have been alive then?
0:28:18 > 0:28:21You might be freaked out because you don't know what's going to happen.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24Think it would have been quite horrible
0:28:24 > 0:28:28and so you might have to move to different places.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32Be kind of weird seeing all the dead bodies and stuff.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35Were there rules of war, Martyn?
0:28:35 > 0:28:38I mean, I'm there with my two little daughters like Ella and Emily here,
0:28:38 > 0:28:40and the soldiers come into the town.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44Would they just go into our barn and steal our corn?
0:28:44 > 0:28:46There are very clear rules.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48You are not supposed to plunder anybody,
0:28:48 > 0:28:52and most soldiers that are based in this area, nearby,
0:28:52 > 0:28:54aren't going to cause a mess.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58However, if this is an area occupied by royalists, for example,
0:28:58 > 0:28:59a parliamentarian regiment
0:28:59 > 0:29:04might be a bit less polite about giving out quittances,
0:29:04 > 0:29:06and if there's been a siege and a town is stormed,
0:29:06 > 0:29:10that is it's attacked and the attackers get into the town,
0:29:10 > 0:29:13then, again, theoretically,
0:29:13 > 0:29:16you're not supposed to take things from people's houses,
0:29:16 > 0:29:21or kill civilians or injure them in any way or burn their house down.
0:29:21 > 0:29:23But that sort of thing, unfortunately, does happen.
0:29:23 > 0:29:28Would the mum and dad care if they went to war?
0:29:28 > 0:29:30If the children went to war?
0:29:30 > 0:29:32Yes, they would. If they liked you.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34I mean, if they didn't like you they might be quite happy,
0:29:34 > 0:29:38pack you some sandwiches and off you go.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41Yes, parents would be very worried if their children went to war.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45It's not just a danger of being shot or stabbed
0:29:45 > 0:29:48or mangled by a cannonball.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51But you can catch terrible diseases because it's frightening
0:29:51 > 0:29:54and horrible, and you may never see them again.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03And, of course, many young men in the civil wars
0:30:03 > 0:30:04were never seen again.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09In Myddle, 13 of the 20 boys never returned.
0:30:10 > 0:30:12Looking back in his old age,
0:30:12 > 0:30:15Richard Gough recorded their names and their stories.
0:30:19 > 0:30:24"Thomas Haywood, brother to Joseph Haywood, the innkeeper in Myddle,
0:30:24 > 0:30:27"He was killed in the wars, but no-one knows where."
0:30:31 > 0:30:35"Rhys Vaughan, a brother of William Vaughan, a weaver in Myddle,
0:30:35 > 0:30:38"He was killed at Hopton Castle and cut into pieces."
0:30:42 > 0:30:45"Thomas Taylor, son of Henry Taylor of Myddle
0:30:45 > 0:30:48"was killed at Oswell Street."
0:30:50 > 0:30:54"John Benion of Newton, a tailor who married Elizabeth,
0:30:54 > 0:30:56"the daughter of John Hall of Myddle."
0:30:56 > 0:31:00"Soon after, he went for a soldier and died in the wars."
0:31:02 > 0:31:06"Richard Chaloner of Myddle, son of Richard Turner
0:31:06 > 0:31:08"and brother of Alan Turner, the blacksmith,
0:31:08 > 0:31:10"a big lad to who went to Edgehill to fight,
0:31:10 > 0:31:13"and was never heard of afterwards in this country."
0:31:19 > 0:31:23"If so many died out of this small place," said Gough,
0:31:24 > 0:31:27"How many thousands died in England in that war?"
0:31:35 > 0:31:38For the British people, it was the first modern war,
0:31:38 > 0:31:43and making the munitions needed to fight it transformed the economy.
0:31:44 > 0:31:4717th century Britain didn't have an arms industry...
0:31:49 > 0:31:51..but now, in Halesowen and across the Black Country,
0:31:51 > 0:31:56their metalworking skills were turned to weapons of war.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00It looks like the Lost City of the Incas, doesn't it,
0:32:00 > 0:32:03with the roots coming out of the stonework.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07But this is one of the most important and most interesting
0:32:07 > 0:32:12and least known sights of industrial archaeology in the whole of Britain.
0:32:12 > 0:32:14This is the sight of Hales Furnace.
0:32:16 > 0:32:17With this flow of water,
0:32:17 > 0:32:20there must have been iron masters working here from the Middle Ages.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25But this landscape was transformed soon after 1600
0:32:25 > 0:32:28with the creation of a furnace.
0:32:28 > 0:32:29They dammed the river,
0:32:29 > 0:32:32created this weir with all this stonework around it.
0:32:33 > 0:32:38A big water wheel and with it huge bellows made out of leather and wood,
0:32:38 > 0:32:41which drove the blast furnace.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45And from then on it became one of the most important
0:32:45 > 0:32:48iron producing places in the country.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53Agricultural tools, ploughs, spades, mattocks,
0:32:53 > 0:32:55all that sort of stuff, but also weapons.
0:32:55 > 0:32:58Pikes and gun barrels for the Civil War.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02Now in the forges of the Black Country,
0:33:02 > 0:33:05plough shears literally were turned into swords.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09The lock makers of Wolverhampton, making firing mechanisms.
0:33:11 > 0:33:13The scythe makers of Sedgeley and Klent, sword blades.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19From Stourbridge came shot. From Dudley, cannons.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22From Halesowen, blades and pike heads.
0:33:22 > 0:33:26The forges of Halesowen and Cradley worked for the King,
0:33:26 > 0:33:29while puritan, radical Birmingham supplied Parliament.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35So the rivalry between the brummies and the Black Country
0:33:35 > 0:33:37goes back a long way.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40We certainly don't like to be classed as brummies,
0:33:40 > 0:33:43and brummies don't like to be classed as black countries,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46as they call us, Yam Yams.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49We are definitely Black Country.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51Forged in the Black Country.
0:33:51 > 0:33:53Definitely.
0:33:55 > 0:33:58As always in history, war generates growth and wealth.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01The origins of the Black Country as the workshop of the world
0:34:01 > 0:34:03lie in the Civil War.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11"Robert Porter, cutler of Birmingham,
0:34:11 > 0:34:14"provided the parliamentarians of Staffordshire with the following."
0:34:14 > 0:34:17"500 swords, four shillings and eight pence each."
0:34:19 > 0:34:22"500 belts, 13 pence each.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26"500 Bandoliers, 16 pence each."
0:34:26 > 0:34:29So Birmingham became a key target for the royalists.
0:34:29 > 0:34:35In 1643, the King's dashing nephew Prince Rupert attacked the town.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37Among the dead were civilians.
0:34:38 > 0:34:42"On Monday, April 3, 1643,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46"Prince Rupert marched against Birmingham
0:34:46 > 0:34:48"with 2,000 horse and foot."
0:34:50 > 0:34:53"After two hours' fights, he entered,
0:34:53 > 0:34:58"put diverse people to the sword and burnt about 80 houses to ashes."
0:35:01 > 0:35:06"His forces kindled fire in the town with gunpowder and burning coals."
0:35:06 > 0:35:09"Shooting at anyone who appeared to quench the flames."
0:35:12 > 0:35:15"Making no differences between friend or foe."
0:35:20 > 0:35:22As the war swept across Britain,
0:35:22 > 0:35:26more and more civilians were dragged into the conflict.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30"A thousand dragoons came into Hereford this week."
0:35:30 > 0:35:34"I fear they will burn my barns and place soldiers so near me
0:35:34 > 0:35:37"that there will be no going out."
0:35:37 > 0:35:40And, as in all wars, the soldiers left their girls behind.
0:35:42 > 0:35:44"William, son of a stranger."
0:35:46 > 0:35:48"Elizabeth, daughter of a soldier,
0:35:48 > 0:35:50"his name unknown, but courted in the courthouse."
0:35:50 > 0:35:54Even close neighbours were on opposite sides.
0:35:55 > 0:35:59Sunderland challenged royalist Newcastle's coal monopoly.
0:35:59 > 0:36:00It's local pride.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03It's just that historical battle against each other.
0:36:04 > 0:36:09So the Geordies and the Mackems felt the adrenaline rush of war.
0:36:09 > 0:36:11I've been thinking about it all week,
0:36:11 > 0:36:15like a nervous feeling in my stomach, you know, until it's over.
0:36:18 > 0:36:20As a rhyme of the day said,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23"The Newcastle gallants fighting for the crown
0:36:23 > 0:36:26"against the cuckolds of Sunderland town."
0:36:29 > 0:36:34Everyone paid a price, from Land's End to north Scotland.
0:36:35 > 0:36:40In February 1645, a royalist army whose core was Irish
0:36:40 > 0:36:43marched all the way through the Highlands
0:36:43 > 0:36:47and arrived here in the central square of the little town of Elgin
0:36:47 > 0:36:49in Morayshire in Northeast Scotland.
0:36:50 > 0:36:53An amazing document has survived here in Elgin,
0:36:53 > 0:36:57which gives you a grass roots picture of what it was like
0:36:57 > 0:37:01to live in a small town during the British civil wars.
0:37:02 > 0:37:07In the huge Elgin deposition roll, today's townsfolk
0:37:07 > 0:37:11discovered for themselves what it felt like to put up a royalist army.
0:37:12 > 0:37:14Plundered by the common enemy, horrific.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17Has a real resonance to it, doesn't it?
0:37:17 > 0:37:24"From the said William Robertson in the month of December 1645."
0:37:26 > 0:37:29"Alexander Russell, merchant of Elgin."
0:37:29 > 0:37:33"He was pitifully murdered in May, 1645."
0:37:35 > 0:37:38"Following the losses of Isabel Geddis in Elgin."
0:37:40 > 0:37:43"But there was taken and plundered from her, clothes, habiliments,
0:37:43 > 0:37:48"money, victuals, household provisions
0:37:48 > 0:37:52"and others of that kind about written."
0:37:57 > 0:38:02"Vittle, armour, gold, silver, coined and uncoined,
0:38:03 > 0:38:07"household provisions and others of that kind."
0:38:07 > 0:38:12"Losses to the sum of £144 money."
0:38:13 > 0:38:15Did they get the compensation?
0:38:15 > 0:38:19The ordinary people, as far as we can tell, never got a penny piece.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22However, the Provost of the town, a chap called John Hay,
0:38:22 > 0:38:28he was given, by Parliament, an interim payment of £1,000.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31Phwoar, that's a lot of money!
0:38:31 > 0:38:32That was to tide him over
0:38:32 > 0:38:36until he got his full payment of a further 3,600.
0:38:38 > 0:38:39That's an enormous sum of money.
0:38:39 > 0:38:41An enormous sum of money,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44but, of course, John Hay was a member of Parliament.
0:38:48 > 0:38:49We all know about them!
0:38:50 > 0:38:53The ordinary people had the satisfaction
0:38:53 > 0:38:57of knowing that they were in the deposition's documents.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01They want to show how grievously they've suffered, but they do know,
0:39:01 > 0:39:04I think, deep down, they're not going to get any money back.
0:39:12 > 0:39:17In June 1645, King Charles was decisively defeated at Naseby,
0:39:17 > 0:39:21by Parliament's new model army under Generals Cromwell and Fairfax.
0:39:23 > 0:39:27Charles attempted to claw things back in a second civil war,
0:39:27 > 0:39:31but all the money and material support by now was with Parliament,
0:39:31 > 0:39:34and by 1648, it was all over.
0:39:40 > 0:39:44In the aftermath, Parliament moved its forces down into Cornwall
0:39:44 > 0:39:47to mop up the last stubborn resistance.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08For the Cornish people, the bitter circumstances of their final defeat
0:40:08 > 0:40:11by Parliament have never been forgotten.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16The price of loyally supporting the King would be the eventual loss
0:40:16 > 0:40:21of their independence, their language, and their culture.
0:40:25 > 0:40:29And for the diehard leadership, there was no escape but the sea.
0:40:32 > 0:40:38For the Cornish, 1648 would take its place in their mythology
0:40:38 > 0:40:42of the tragic defeats going back to the 1497 rising,
0:40:42 > 0:40:451549 prayer book rebellion.
0:40:45 > 0:40:50The core of the resistance was here in the tip of the peninsula on the lizard,
0:40:50 > 0:40:52across there to the land's end,
0:40:52 > 0:40:57the last refuge of the old families, the old culture, the old language.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01And after the defeat, the rebels fled to take shelter
0:41:01 > 0:41:04in these wild coasts in cliff caves,
0:41:04 > 0:41:06and even, it was said, down the tin pits.
0:41:07 > 0:41:12But the principal firebrands, so a local historian reported,
0:41:12 > 0:41:18once they were trapped, were so desperate that, scorning mercy,
0:41:18 > 0:41:23they joined hands together and ran themselves violently into the ocean...
0:41:23 > 0:41:25perished in the waters.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38With the king now in prison and facing trial,
0:41:38 > 0:41:41a new path in British history opened up.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44Political leadership at the beginning of the Civil War period
0:41:44 > 0:41:46wanted a re-adjustment in the balance of power
0:41:46 > 0:41:50between King and democracy, between Parliament and the monarchy.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55Out of that, they radicalised the ordinary people.
0:41:56 > 0:42:02The soldiers were given a catechism, based on quotations from the bible
0:42:02 > 0:42:04that supported taking up arms against the King.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09So when the war ended and they were told to go home,
0:42:09 > 0:42:12the Parliamentarian soldiers said, "Just a minute, no.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15"We've got this text that says it's ours. It's our victory.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17"We want a say."
0:42:17 > 0:42:21All the debates we're having now about the nature of Parliament,
0:42:21 > 0:42:24the nature of the monarchy, all of these questions were opened up,
0:42:24 > 0:42:30debated and, interestingly, solutions found in the 17th century.
0:42:31 > 0:42:34It radicalises ordinary people in a way that they've not been involved
0:42:34 > 0:42:38in central government politics ever before.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42Alarmed now by the flood of radical ideas coming from the rank and file,
0:42:42 > 0:42:46the army leadership, who were property-owning gentry,
0:42:46 > 0:42:50held a public debate about the future of British politics.
0:42:51 > 0:42:53St Mary's church here in Putney was the place
0:42:53 > 0:42:57where the victorious members of the parliamentarian army
0:42:57 > 0:43:02met to debate fundamental issues of political liberty.
0:43:02 > 0:43:06Fairfax, Ireton, Cromwell, the generals at a table at that end,
0:43:06 > 0:43:11the rank and file in the church, radicals like Rainsbrough and Sexby.
0:43:11 > 0:43:17The place is packed, electric. Not quite like tonight, perhaps,
0:43:17 > 0:43:21but then democracy itself was at stake.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24Everything in Britain politics was up for grabs.
0:43:24 > 0:43:29We are talking about creating a community of goods and abolishing
0:43:29 > 0:43:32the wages system and having common and democratic ownership
0:43:32 > 0:43:37and control of the means of producing and distributing wealth.
0:43:37 > 0:43:41It was the first time that ordinary people were able to take part,
0:43:41 > 0:43:44and so you could imagine a whole social gathering of the army people
0:43:44 > 0:43:48and their families waiting for the results of these debates.
0:43:48 > 0:43:50And that's where you get Buff Coat
0:43:50 > 0:43:54and all these lovely ordinary soldiers who are mentioned.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57The electoral reform and religious tolerance,
0:43:57 > 0:43:58all these things were debated,
0:43:58 > 0:44:03but the whole crux of it was very much centred on the scriptures,
0:44:03 > 0:44:06the idea of equality, which they'd got from the bible.
0:44:08 > 0:44:12Women radicals, led by Katherine Chidley,
0:44:12 > 0:44:15petitioned for women's rights, in a ferment of democratic ideas.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19"By natural birth, all men are equal and alike.
0:44:19 > 0:44:21"Born to like propriety, liberty and freedom
0:44:21 > 0:44:23"to enjoy their birthright."
0:44:25 > 0:44:30"We judge that all inhabitants should have an equal voice in elections."
0:44:30 > 0:44:34"I think the poorest man in England has a life to live,
0:44:34 > 0:44:36"as does the greatest man."
0:44:37 > 0:44:40"That in all laws made, every person should be bound alike
0:44:40 > 0:44:42"and that no estate, degree birth,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45"or place should allow any exemptions."
0:44:47 > 0:44:50"These things we declare to be our native rights,
0:44:50 > 0:44:54"which we have dearly earned, yet our peace and freedom depends upon
0:44:54 > 0:45:00"those who intended are bonded and brought a cruel war upon us."
0:45:02 > 0:45:03King Charles was now tried
0:45:03 > 0:45:06and convicted for crimes against the people.
0:45:08 > 0:45:09He was executed here in Whitehall.
0:45:11 > 0:45:12As a radical of the time put it,
0:45:12 > 0:45:17"The common people, by their common consent and purse
0:45:17 > 0:45:20"have overthrown their oppressor, King Charles."
0:45:20 > 0:45:24They found justification for it in the law, in history,
0:45:24 > 0:45:27and in the bible, of course.
0:45:27 > 0:45:29Where in the bible was there justification
0:45:29 > 0:45:33for one part of mankind ruling another?
0:45:33 > 0:45:36"Only in selfish imaginations," they said,
0:45:36 > 0:45:41"was one human being set up to rule over others."
0:45:41 > 0:45:45The question now was how far would the revolution go?
0:45:51 > 0:45:53# You noble diggers all
0:45:53 > 0:45:55# Stand up now, stand up now
0:45:55 > 0:45:56# You noble diggers all
0:45:56 > 0:45:59# Stand up now. #
0:45:59 > 0:46:03There were those who wished to push the revolution much further.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07Radical groups, levellers and diggers wanted to do away
0:46:07 > 0:46:11with class, wealth, privilege, property, the banks.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14Declaring the earth a common treasury,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17they formed a commune on St George's Hill in Surrey.
0:46:17 > 0:46:22This is where Winstanley felt called by God to come.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27They just took a small area of the land where they planted crops.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32They built makeshift houses and they just got on peaceably together.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34Putting a spade in the ground -
0:46:34 > 0:46:37this is about breaking the soil on St George's Hill
0:46:37 > 0:46:39and declaring freedom to the creation.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43Declaring freedom to the creation.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50Their chief inspiration was a draper, Gerrard Winstanley,
0:46:50 > 0:46:54who became one of our greatest writers and greatest radicals.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59"We have no intent of tumult," he said,
0:47:01 > 0:47:03"But to work together in righteousness
0:47:03 > 0:47:07"and to eat the blessings of the earth in peace."
0:47:09 > 0:47:13"Posterity," said his friend, John Lilburn,
0:47:13 > 0:47:17"We doubt not shall reap the benefit of our endeavours."
0:47:21 > 0:47:24It's one of the great stories in British history.
0:47:24 > 0:47:28These were ordinary people, inspired, inflamed
0:47:28 > 0:47:31by the astonishing events of the 1640s,
0:47:31 > 0:47:34by the teaching of the scriptures and by basic ideas
0:47:34 > 0:47:38about social justice, they decided to take action
0:47:38 > 0:47:40to make history for themselves.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46"Just a bunch of people planting parsnips and carrots,"
0:47:46 > 0:47:51it was said by a sneering contemporary, but their ideas,
0:47:51 > 0:47:56what they said, what they did, are in the very fibre of British history
0:47:56 > 0:47:59from the peasants' revolt and the lollards in the 14th century,
0:47:59 > 0:48:04down through William Blake to the modern British radical tradition,
0:48:04 > 0:48:07as Winstanley himself had hoped,
0:48:07 > 0:48:11their ideas became part of OUR birthright.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17But not yet.
0:48:17 > 0:48:21Inevitably, the levellers were crushed by Parliament.
0:48:21 > 0:48:24"Cut them to pieces," said Cromwell, "or they'll cut you to pieces."
0:48:28 > 0:48:34Parliament was now supreme, and with the situation stabilised at home,
0:48:34 > 0:48:39there was unfinished business over the sea, in Ireland.
0:48:40 > 0:48:44"In August 1649, a fleet of over 100 ships loaded with men,
0:48:44 > 0:48:46"weapons and supplies,
0:48:46 > 0:48:49"landed at Ring's End on the outskirts of Dublin."
0:48:49 > 0:48:52For almost ten years, the Irish confederacy
0:48:52 > 0:48:55had ruled much of Ireland independent from England.
0:48:58 > 0:49:00Cromwell's invasion put an end to that.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03"Within four years, as many as 500,000 people
0:49:03 > 0:49:06"or 25% of the population of the population of Ireland
0:49:06 > 0:49:07"would be dead."
0:49:14 > 0:49:16Drogheda, on the river Boyne, County Meath.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21The terrible events that took place here
0:49:21 > 0:49:24retain an almost mythic force in Irish history.
0:49:27 > 0:49:29Cromwell, in fact, was not especially anti-Irish
0:49:29 > 0:49:34or anti-Catholic, but he decided to demoralise the Irish
0:49:34 > 0:49:36with a deliberate act of terror.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46When the royalist garrison refused to surrender,
0:49:46 > 0:49:49Cromwell ordered them all to be put to the sword.
0:49:50 > 0:49:55But with them died 700 or 800 civilians - men, women and children.
0:49:56 > 0:50:00And here they remember it still in exact detail.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03They did break in the walls in that little graveyard over there
0:50:03 > 0:50:09on the 11th of September 1649 with 10,000 men.
0:50:12 > 0:50:13You can't grow up in Drogheda
0:50:13 > 0:50:15without knowing who Oliver Cromwell is.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21A man who came to our town and massacred the townspeople.
0:50:22 > 0:50:27Got them in the church and the blood ran down Scarlet Street.
0:50:27 > 0:50:29That's what they called it, Scarlet Street.
0:50:29 > 0:50:31He killed the nuns there, did he?
0:50:32 > 0:50:33He killed everybody, though.
0:50:35 > 0:50:37He's a bit of a bollocks.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41The atrocities that him and his army committed around the town here,
0:50:41 > 0:50:42there's no question it was genocide
0:50:42 > 0:50:47that took place in this area all around us here.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50But Cromwell was a vicious kind of guy.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55On the streets of Dublin, Cromwell is still a swear word.
0:50:55 > 0:50:56Not nice.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58Oliver Cromwell? Not a nice guy, no. We don't like him.
0:51:00 > 0:51:05Cruel man, who came and did all sorts of awful things.
0:51:05 > 0:51:08Pure hatred. Simple as that.
0:51:18 > 0:51:21Cromwell's conquest of Ireland was the culmination
0:51:21 > 0:51:23of a century of English colonisation.
0:51:23 > 0:51:26At least 400,000 people are thought to have died
0:51:26 > 0:51:29from slaughters, starvation and disease.
0:51:29 > 0:51:31A fifth of the population.
0:51:34 > 0:51:36The British civil wars were almost over.
0:51:38 > 0:51:41Parliament's last enemy was their old ally, the Scots.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48The Scots had sided with King Charles in the second Civil War,
0:51:48 > 0:51:51and were now allied to his son, Charles II.
0:51:54 > 0:51:58In 1651, Cromwell mounted his attack on Scotland.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02He forced their last line of defence on the Firth of Forth,
0:52:04 > 0:52:08defeated the Scots and brought the civil wars to a close.
0:52:10 > 0:52:15One of the great, almost, mysteries of that traumatic period in British history
0:52:15 > 0:52:19is the way in which the conflict is described as the English Civil War,
0:52:19 > 0:52:21as if Scotland or perhaps Ireland had no part in it,
0:52:21 > 0:52:24but unfortunately, an awful lot of Scottish people were involved
0:52:24 > 0:52:27and sadly an awful lot of Scottish people died as well on both sides.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32Scotland put up stiff resistance and it was only really
0:52:32 > 0:52:35when the battle of Inverkeithing in July 1651 was lost
0:52:35 > 0:52:37that Scotland fell.
0:52:40 > 0:52:43So the conflict fundamentally affected
0:52:43 > 0:52:45every aspect of Scottish life.
0:52:45 > 0:52:51Indeed, after Scotland fell to Cromwell's soldiers and army in 1652,
0:52:51 > 0:52:55for the next, almost, ten years until the restoration in 1660,
0:52:55 > 0:52:57every aspect of Scottish life changed.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00The human cost of the civil wars was huge.
0:53:02 > 0:53:04In Britain, maybe 80,000 had died in the battles
0:53:04 > 0:53:06and more still of disease and famine.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09A higher proportion of the population
0:53:09 > 0:53:10than in the First World War.
0:53:16 > 0:53:21Cromwell died in 1658, and in 1660, the monarchy returned.
0:53:24 > 0:53:29In Halesowen, the great bell rang in the new king, Charles II.
0:53:33 > 0:53:35So the monarchy was restored,
0:53:35 > 0:53:38but with a king whose powers were now limited.
0:53:40 > 0:53:45Britain was not yet a democracy, but it was a parliamentary state.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49In Cornwall, in 1660, the restoration was greeted
0:53:49 > 0:53:54with special feelings of pride in their sufferings through the war
0:53:54 > 0:53:57and their loyalty to the crown.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59- That's magnificent, isn't it? - It's a fine church.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02Just here, above the door, is the king's letter.
0:54:02 > 0:54:03Oh, yeah.
0:54:04 > 0:54:07Original copies of these, which were printed in Oxford as broadsides,
0:54:07 > 0:54:10were stuck up in the churches during the Civil War itself.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13It's royalist propaganda as well as praise to the Cornish history.
0:54:13 > 0:54:16He's pushing his own cause here, and I can imagine
0:54:16 > 0:54:20the parliamentarians' troops then tore them down in 1646.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23But after the restoration, they put them up again
0:54:23 > 0:54:26in these more solid lasting forms.
0:54:26 > 0:54:31"In the most public and lasting manner we can devise,
0:54:31 > 0:54:35"commanding copies to be printed and published and one of them
0:54:35 > 0:54:38"to be read in every church and chapel therein."
0:54:38 > 0:54:42"And to be kept for ever." It's absolutely great, isn't it?
0:54:44 > 0:54:47"To the inhabitants of the county of Cornwall."
0:54:47 > 0:54:52"We are so highly sensible of their great and eminent courage
0:54:52 > 0:54:53"against so potent an enemy..."
0:54:56 > 0:54:59"..that we cannot but desire to publish it all to the world."
0:55:01 > 0:55:05"And we do hear render our royal thanks to be kept for ever
0:55:05 > 0:55:09"as a record, as long as the history of these times
0:55:09 > 0:55:11"and this nation shall continue."
0:55:19 > 0:55:23You'll never effectively get away from the radicalism
0:55:23 > 0:55:26of the 17th century. It will re-occur.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29It re-occurs in English politics in the 18th century,
0:55:29 > 0:55:33the French not only use the radicalism of the English revolution,
0:55:33 > 0:55:36they take away the terminology.
0:55:36 > 0:55:38The American revolution steals wholesale
0:55:38 > 0:55:39from the English revolution.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42It's still here now.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45But in the English occupy movement, you can see them
0:55:45 > 0:55:49using leveller and digger philosophy straight from the 17th century.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54Democracy was a dangerous word in the 17th century.
0:55:55 > 0:55:59Even most parliamentarians thought is could only lead to anarchy,
0:55:59 > 0:56:01and yet from the Putney debates
0:56:01 > 0:56:06we can trace that great idea down to our own time,
0:56:06 > 0:56:08to the universal declaration of human rights,
0:56:08 > 0:56:10and to the political systems
0:56:10 > 0:56:13under which the majority of the world now lives.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17And the core idea behind it
0:56:17 > 0:56:22is the freely-elected representatives of the people,
0:56:22 > 0:56:25irrespective of class, gender,
0:56:25 > 0:56:29creed, wealth or status.
0:56:30 > 0:56:32And that idea doesn't come from ancient Greece,
0:56:32 > 0:56:34it comes from 17th century England,
0:56:34 > 0:56:38it comes from Buff Coat and his fellow soldiers at Putney,
0:56:38 > 0:56:40and from the ordinary people.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44From tradesmen and tradeswomen like Gerard Winstanley
0:56:44 > 0:56:48and Katherine Chidley in the English revolution.
0:56:55 > 0:56:57So, in the 17th century,
0:56:57 > 0:57:01the British and Irish peoples went through their civil wars ordeal.
0:57:02 > 0:57:04A generation of struggle and violence.
0:57:07 > 0:57:08Divine right challenged,
0:57:08 > 0:57:10the King executed,
0:57:10 > 0:57:13the monarchy abolished, but life went on.
0:57:17 > 0:57:21The King was restored with an Anglican
0:57:21 > 0:57:23rather than a Protestant church.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26A typically English compromise.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32Even here in Myddle, the cost had been heavy.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38But, as Richard Gough saw it, like communities up and down the land,
0:57:38 > 0:57:42the people of Myddle had come through,
0:57:42 > 0:57:46rubbing along, even when they were on opposite sides,
0:57:46 > 0:57:49and their descendants still rub along together in the village today.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52You remember their fathers and then their grandfathers,
0:57:52 > 0:57:56and at my age I'm now looking at the grandsons
0:57:56 > 0:58:01and I think, golly, I know four or five generations of these people.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04They carry the stain of generations, just as in Gough, you know.
0:58:06 > 0:58:12'But, in 1700, as Gough looked back over his tumultuous century,
0:58:12 > 0:58:13'a new age was being born.'
0:58:13 > 0:58:17'An age of industry and empire.'
0:58:17 > 0:58:20'And with the union of England and Scotland,
0:58:20 > 0:58:24'a new identity for us all, as Britons.'
0:58:24 > 0:58:27'And that's the next part of our story.'
0:58:29 > 0:58:32Thank you very much. Can you hear at the back without a microphone?
0:58:32 > 0:58:34It's probably better, isn't it?
0:58:34 > 0:58:38Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here.
0:58:38 > 0:58:43SONG: "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"
0:58:50 > 0:58:53Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd