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*

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This ceiling at the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall

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was created by Rubens to celebrate the majesty of monarchy.

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A little after 2pm on the 30th of January 1649, Charles I walked through this room.

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As he went, he must have reflected on the irony of the image above him.

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He descended these stairs,

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then walked through a hole cut in the wall just there

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onto a scaffold draped in black.

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After making a short speech which few could hear, he prayed,

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then fell to the ground and put his head on the block.

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The headsman's axe severed it with a single blow.

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18 miles north of London,

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in a Northamptonshire field,

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Mike Westaway and Peter Burton are tracking the distribution of lead musket balls.

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This is the battlefield of Naseby,

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the Civil War's decisive clash.

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- HOOT!
- Got a signal, Pete!

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It was here on the 14th of June, 1645, that Charles lost the war

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and began his long downward slide that ended on a scaffold in Whitehall.

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300 years later, the land yields up its secrets.

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- Mike, you'll have to pinpoint this one.
- I'm not entirely convinced.
- Oh, it's there.

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- HOOTING
- It'll be THERE. Right?

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Ah, here we are!

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- You're the first man to touch that since 1645.
- Remarkable!

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Absolutely remarkable! Goodness me... Look at that.

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The war may seem remote to us now, but that musket ball is a reminder that men fought and died here

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in a struggle that was to decide who was to rule the country -

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King or Parliament.

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The campaign that ended on Naseby field began 100 miles to the south.

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Oxford has been called "the home of lost causes".

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During the Civil War, it was the Royalist capital

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and Charles's Parliament, set up in opposition to the rather larger one at Westminster,

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met here in the Hall at Christchurch.

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By the spring of 1645, the war had been going on for almost three years.

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It was a deeply divisive conflict,

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pitting family against family, father against son, brother against brother.

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Men fought one another with the firm conviction that God was on their side -

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none more so than Charles himself.

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But the tide of war was running hard against the King.

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Many of his advisors believed that now was the time

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to gain a military advantage which might turn into a compromise peace.

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His nephew, Prince Rupert, a distinguished soldier at 26, commanded the Royalist forces.

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But a recent defeat convinced him that peace must be sought.

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George, Lord Digby, courtier and amateur soldier,

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was for engaging the enemy with the help of troops from Ireland.

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Charles himself - chilly, easily influenced, yet immovable on the issue of Royal power -

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continuously wavered.

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With the King's advisors divided,

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we shouldn't be surprised that the 1645 campaign began in an air of uncertainty.

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But it soon developed into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

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One May morning, this quadrangle bustled with the activity that precedes a campaign.

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Charles left his quarters over there, mounted his horse, and, leaving Oxford well garrisoned,

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set off north with his army, perhaps to join his Scots supporters.

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It was a fateful decision.

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Hardly had he left than the Parliamentarians arrived in hot pursuit

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and laid siege to the city.

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They dug gun positions up here on Headington Hill,

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with its commanding view of Oxford,

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and prepared to bombard the city.

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In command was Sir Thomas Fairfax,

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a 33-year-old peer's son from Yorkshire,

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whose dark hair and swarthy features earned him the nickname Black Tom.

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Fairfax needed to test Parliament's recently formed New Model Army.

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Its soldiers, many of them conscripts, were promised regular pay and a decent uniform.

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The New Model was untried in battle.

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The Royalists were anxious to draw Fairfax away from Oxford

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and they decided that the best way of doing so would be to fall upon some place possessed by Parliament.

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They chose Leicester.

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The castle and newarke retained their mediaeval stone walls

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and the rest of the town had earth and timber defences.

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On the 30th of May, Rupert ordered it to surrender.

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When it refused, the batteries up here opened fire.

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By nightfall, they had blown a breach in the walls and Rupert assaulted the city.

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Some of the defenders of Leicester

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fired their guns through loop holes cut in the old town walls.

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But the attackers had surprises of their own.

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Grenados, grenades made of pottery,

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were filled with black powder, with powder running down a wooden fuse.

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You lit the fuse from a length of slow-burning cord

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and then threw them over the walls

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to cause consternation amongst the inexperienced defenders on the far side.

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The outnumbered defenders fought like tigers

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and many townspeople joined in.

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This enraged the attackers, who fell upon soldiers and civilians alike.

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One Royalist says, "They fired upon our men out of their windows and from the tops of their houses,

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"and threw tiles down upon their heads.

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"Finding one house better manned than ordinary and many shots fired at us,

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"we resolved to make them an example, which they did -

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"breaking the doors, they killed all they found without distinction."

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Once taken, the town was remorselessly pillaged.

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When the Mayor turned out to welcome Charles's formal entry, his silver mace was snatched as he waited.

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So great was the carnage

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that it is said Charles wept, and ordered a stop to the killing.

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Though the fate of Leicester was harsh by the standards of the Civil War,

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the line between discipline and obedience was always pretty thin.

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Soldiers carried a snapsack - we'd now call it a knapsack - in which to put their daily ration:

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two pounds of bread, a pound of meat or cheese,

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a bottle of wine or two bottles of beer.

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Yet the sudden arrival of an army often exhausted local foodstocks.

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Since soldiers were paid late, if at all, they sometimes existed simply by marauding.

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They even ran out of clothes.

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A Parliamentarian officer complained that his men had one pair of trousers between two.

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When one was on duty, decency compelled the other to remain in bed.

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Small wonder that men looted when they got the chance.

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After Leicester, the Royalists drifted southward to Daventry, not knowing if their strategy had worked.

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They spread out over the surrounding area, living off the country.

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On the evening the 12th of June, the King was hunting deer in the park, when he heard good news and bad.

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The good news was that the New Model had given up the siege at Oxford.

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The bad news was that it was only a few miles away. His strategy had worked all too well.

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Fairfax had been told to abandon the siege of Oxford on the 2nd of June.

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He came pounding up here, well aware that the King's Field Army was his real target for the campaign.

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He spent the night watching the Royalists,

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but when he got back to headquarters, he'd forgotten the password

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and the sentry kept him outside until the Captain of the Guard came to identify him.

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And it's a measure of Fairfax that he gave the sentry a coin for his soldierly honesty.

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On the night of June 13th, 1645,

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some Royalist cavalrymen, dining at this table in Shuckborough Hall in Naseby,

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were surprised and captured.

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A few got away and galloped off north to Market Harborough -

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Prince Rupert's headquarters after the long day's march from Daventry.

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The Royalists held a Council of War there in the small hours.

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Rupert and most senior officers probably advised marching north.

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They knew they were outnumbered and they had a healthy respect for the New Model,

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which Digby and his cronies scornfully called "The New Noddle".

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The King, as usual, was undecided, but eventually he sided with Digby.

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His army would offer battle.

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The Royalists left Market Harborough - behind me - at dawn on the 14th.

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They marched up here to take position on what one officer called "rising ground of great advantage"

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and waited for the New Model to appear from the direction of Naseby.

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Unfortunately, it didn't.

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And Francis Ruce, the Scoutmaster-General, was sent off in search of it.

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He was soon back with the news that it was nowhere to be found.

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Rupert was unimpressed. If the New Model wasn't about, who pushed in his patrols last night?

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So he set off down there, with a strong advance guard, to find it.

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Rupert was right. The Parliamentarians had not gone away.

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From their vantage point to the north-east of Naseby, they watched the Royalist column move off

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and shadowed it across a landscape of unenclosed expanses of rough grassland,

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interspersed with gorse and boggy ground.

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Like two wrestlers, circling,

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looking for an advantage,

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the armies moved westwards, seeking better ground.

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The Royalists marched between Sibbertoft and Clipston

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onto Dust Hill, where the Royal Standard now flies.

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The New Model had less far to come

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and it finished up on Mill Hill, behind me.

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Between the two armies lay Broad Moor, a great open plain.

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This near-contemporary engraving gives a very good view of the opposing forces.

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In the 17th century, armies faced each other in strict formation -

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cavalry opposite cavalry on the wings,

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and infantry, made up of blocks of pike and musket, in the middle.

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Fairfax had about 16,000 men -

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some in the infantry, a bit shaky,

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others very good - especially the cavalry, under Cromwell.

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There were about 12,000 Royalists on the ridge opposite.

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Sir Marmaduke Langdale -

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a Yorkshireman so dour that when he was at the point of death, nobody dared tell him -

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commanded the cavalry on the Royalist left.

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In the centre, Lord Astley, a professional soldier in his sixties, commanded the Royalist infantry.

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Very good, this - the King's old foot, with a high proportion of experienced officers.

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On the right was Prince Rupert with some of his best cavalry regiments.

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And it was on this flank that the first of the action took place.

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Colonel John Okey was one of the New Model's new men.

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He was a stocky, tough soldier with a taste for Republican politics, and a devout Puritan.

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He was issuing ammunition

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when Cromwell ordered him forward to secure the hedges on the New Model's left flank.

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Okey's men lined these at right angles to Rupert's cavalry.

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The Royalists saw that they were in a position to do great damage to their horse as they passed by

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so they strived to flush them out.

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At this period, dragoons were really mounted infantry.

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They could fight on horseback if they had to,

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but their mounts were cheap nags, smaller than proper cavalry chargers.

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They carried a flintlock musket, and when they dismounted, they left one man in ten to hold the horses.

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The Battle of Naseby began just here,

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with the Royalists hemming Okey in on three sides.

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He received them, as he put it, "with shooting and rejoicing,

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"but it pleased God that we beat them off, both horse and foot, and kept our ground."

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It wasn't really in Rupert's interests to attack first.

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He'd have to come past Okey's dragoons and then up a slope to get at Ireton's men.

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But he wasn't one to hang about.

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When the armies were formed up, he led his cavalry forward, past the dragoons, who hit him in the flank.

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He paused briefly about here - probably a combination of a parish hedge and boggy ground -

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and then he was off.

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Rupert's men would have ridden three-deep, knee to knee.

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They'd have started at a walk, then broken into a trot,

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and at about 60 paces from the enemy line, into a gallop.

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Fairfax's cavalry came down the slope to meet him and fought hard.

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But before long, Rupert was through, riding with loose rein and bloody spur

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into the open country beyond.

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At the same moment as Rupert charged, the Royalist Infantry advanced.

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They came up this slope, as Cromwell admitted, "in gallant order"

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and as they crested the rise, they saw the New Model's infantry drawn up just in front of them.

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It must have been an unnerving sight, but these were hard men.

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Present! Your places! Cock your match!

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First to engage were the musketeers.

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There was an exchange of volley fire

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at close range.

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Aim... Fire!

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- Mick, this is the matchlock musket used by the foot on both sides.
- Yes.

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By Naseby, two-thirds of the foot on both sides had matchlock muskets.

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- How do you work it?
- Well, we open the pan, take the priming flask...

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we prime the pan, we close the pan,

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shake off loose powder, blow off loose powder...

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- take a measured charge out of one of these holders...
- How much powder?

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About three drams. We take some wadding...

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We draw the scouring stick...

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ram home the wad,

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replace the scouring stick...

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take a ball, put a ball in...

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We then mount the match,

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blow on your coals...

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test the match...

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adjust it to fall in the pan.

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Then we present and give fire.

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- Recover.
- How many could you fire in a minute?
- Two to three rounds.

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- A good musketeer might manage three.
- You had to know your business.
- Absolutely.

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The musket was a grubby affair, with plenty of opportunities for burnt fingers and a singed moustache.

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Men also needed to master collective drills.

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"Firing by introduction" allowed them to achieve a continuous fire.

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As the line advanced, the front rank fired, to be immediately replaced by a succession of ranks from the rear.

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Mike and Peter's harvest is a poignant one.

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Here's a good cross-section of artefacts from Naseby field.

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A belt buckle,

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that's a spur buckle

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and these are various strap buckles.

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A horse harness buckle, found in a concentration of bullets,

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and of course bullets themselves.

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That bullet obviously hit something very hard

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and one would assume it was armour.

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- And flattened right out.
- Yes. Indeed.

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- This really enables you to touch the past, doesn't it?
- It's real history.

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A third of the infantry carried the pike.

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It was meant to be 18 feet long,

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but soldiers, understandably enough, often shortened it for convenience.

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Pikemen would have advanced with their weapons at the shoulder

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and then, before contact brought them down to the charge,

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for that ghastly business called "push of pike".

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- Pike!
- ARGGH!

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After an hour of fighting, the Royalist infantry had the upper hand.

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But victory proved elusive.

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While Rupert won the cavalry battle on the New Model's left, Cromwell did exactly the same on the right.

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Many of Rupert's men went in search of fleeing Parliamentarians,

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while Cromwell swung his uncommitted regiments against the rear of the hitherto unbeaten Royalist Infantry.

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It was the battle's decisive moment.

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Vainly, the Royalists fought back.

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But they must have been asking the question that we still ask today.

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Where was Rupert?

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The New Model's baggage train

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stood somewhere here with its guard.

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A party of cavalry approached, led by an officer in a red montero cap

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just like the one that Fairfax had worn before he put his helmet on that morning.

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Thinking it was his general, the Guard Commander approached, doffed his hat and asked how the day went.

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He was shocked to be invited to surrender. It was Rupert himself.

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The Guard fired and beat the Royalists off

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but by the time Rupert got his men back to the battlefield, the day was lost.

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Charles I was no coward.

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On the chilly morning of his execution,

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he deliberately donned two shirts lest any shivering be misunderstood.

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As the tide of battle turned against him,

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he prepared to lead his last reserve forward, into the valley down there.

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However, the Earl of Carneth, who rode alongside him, uttered some Scots oaths and grabbed his bridle.

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As the King's horse turned, there was something like a panic in the cavalry surrounding him.

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The whole lot, we are told, "turned their horses and rode upon the spur

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"as if they were, every man, to shift for himself."

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The Parliamentarian propagandists were quick to talk of a Royalist rout,

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but the new archaeological finds

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suggest otherwise.

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Historian Glenn Foard has reassessed the evidence.

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Glenn, I always thought, once the King failed to lead that last charge,

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- the battle was over very quickly.
- That has been the understanding.

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But the new archaeological evidence has really turned the tables.

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That low hill in the distance is the site where the King's infantry was destroyed.

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That hill is LITTERED with musket balls.

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That distance - two miles from the battlefield as we have known it -

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made one ask some questions about the interpretation of the battle.

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It's made me look back at the documentary evidence -

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the accounts of the battle and the topography of the landscape.

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And those accounts can be tied into this archaeological evidence,

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suggesting the retreat was over two miles back to Wadborough Hill

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and it's on that hill that the King's old infantry were destroyed.

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The King himself perhaps stood even here, with his cavalry, watching that destruction,

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- wondering how he would follow on.
- And knowing that it was the end of the war as far as he was concerned?

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That really was the end of the war.

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Although he was able to pull together most of his cavalry,

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although they got back to Leicester from here in dribs and drabs,

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the loss of his old Infantry on that hill was the end of the war.

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The pursuing Parliamentarians weren't simply intent on plunder.

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Hereabouts, they found some women from the Royalist baggage train.

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Contemporaries called them "Irish women, wives of the bloody rebels in Ireland" and "common rabble."

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Some carried long knives and spoke a language that the Parliamentarians couldn't understand.

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About a hundred were killed,

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and the rest marked as whores by having their faces slashed or their noses slit.

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It's almost certain that the women were neither Irish nor whores,

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but the wives of the King's Welsh Infantry.

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There were fewer killed than we might expect for such a hard-fought battle, perhaps 1,500 in all.

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Naseby destroyed the King's last good army.

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Though the war went on, its issue was never again in doubt.

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Almost as damaging was the capture of all Charles's private papers.

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Amongst them was a letter to the Queen in which he describes a plan

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to bring the Irish to fight for him.

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It was damning evidence used against him at his trial.

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After the war it was Cromwell, not Fairfax, who dominated the political scene.

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But a long-term settlement eluded him

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and in 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne.

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Yet it wasn't his father's throne, built on divine right -

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but a throne resting firmly on Parliament.

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Naseby, in its way, had changed history.

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Subtitles by Anne Morgan BBC Scotland 1997