Richard Rombold had never forgotten just how close England had come to liberty.

At 1641, at the age of just 19, he'd run away and he'd joined up to fight for the good old cause,

and over the next 30 years had given his life to it.

He'd given his eye, too, lost in battle, which earned in the nickname

of Hannibal. He joined the new model, he worshipped with other radical Baptists he found in their

ranks. He'd had the honour to be chosen to stand in the guard around the scaffold of the traitor

and tyrant Charles I in the first year of our liberty 1649, as MP

Henry Martin had put it on new coins. It worked with John Wildman, the most radical political activists,

and with the other levellers, to promote the cause of the ordinary people, and he'd fought for the protectorate, rising to become a captain in the Lord Protector's

personal guard. Through the long years of the restoration, he'd put his disappointment

to the back of his mind and just got on with life. He settled down, built a good business with his wife as a

mulster, and set himself up at a nice place called Rye House in Hertfordshire, where he was known

by the locals as a honest, bluff military type. But in his heart, he'd never forgotten the glory

days. He still carried a candle for the good old cause

and kept in touch with all his old friends.

And then recently, John Wildman had got in touch,

and he brought him into contact with a group of other like-minded radicals,

the earls of Shaftesbury and Essex,

Algernon-Sidney, William Russell, John Hamden,

son of the great patriot who had shed his blood and died on Chawdrove Field in 1644,

and it was rumoured, connected even with royalty, the Duke of Monmouth.

Which was why he was, at this very moment in 1683, preparing once more for the killing of a king.

...