Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of England, episode 386, The Swelling

of Violence.

Well gentlemen, I hope you are happy. Over the last two episodes, we have at last got

all fighting. Although last time the Battle for London wasn't much in terms of glorious

war found heroism, though of course I also gave in to my base instincts and in addition

to the threat of violence at least, I gave you a full frontal of the sight of the people

of London pulling together to face down the threat to their liberty. But the point is that

Charles had missed an apparent chance to end the war quickly. To be fair to the lad, how

significant that chance was is a little bit moot. There's the small issue that he was

outnumbered twicefold, and although his army was more professional probably he was fighting

in a landscape which didn't favour his strong point, his cavalry. Quite apart from that,

it's worth noting that throughout England and Wales, local armies were already springing

up like mushrooms, so that even if he had captured London, he'd have had his work cut

out. But anyway, if wishes were also as beggars would ride, he didn't. He went instead

to his new home in Oxford. This time in this episode then we should do

a bit of cleaning around the house of 1642, a bit of a spring clean, so that the house

of history is nice and tidy and ready for the new year which I can reveal will be 1643.

So maybe today we'll talk about military strategy and stuff, a bit about the court life

in Oxford, but before any of that happens I need to go back, and I need to cover what

I passed over for the purposes of narrative. This concerns Scotland and Ireland. Because

as you know anyone foolish enough to talk about the English Civil War will immediately

be thrown into the darkest dungeon of historical shame which is reserved for those guilty

...