While most people associate the Sealed Knot with massed battles, we also spend a lot of time looking into and reenacting the lives of ordinary people from the 17th Century. Our living history encampments are an ideal opportunity to practice traditional crafts such as sewing, weaving, leather-working, woodturning and many more, jobs that weren’t necessarily…
On the cold morning of 21st December 1643, a group of men marched into the ornate chapel of Peterhouse, the oldest university college in Cambridge. In the presence of the college’s president, fellows and other dignitaries, they began to smash, pull down, and deface religious imagery on the walls and pews. Statues of two…
The Treaty Against a King: The 1643 Solemn League and Covenant What was the document, signed on 25 September 1643, that brought two nations together in arms against their shared king? The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between Parliament and the Scots to unite in opposition to King Charles I during the First English Civil…
‘Where England’s sorrows began’: The Battle of Powick Bridge A daring raid on a convoy laden with treasure, a dashing young prince charging to the rescue, the opening salvo of a war between King and Parliament that would end on virtually the same ground – what was the Battle of Powick Bridge? While the Battle of…
Reenactment isn’t just about battling in fields and cosy camp fires, you can also get to take part in unusual and unexpected events that help bring Britain’s civil war alive. The Levellers are one of the most important and well-known groups from the English Civil War, a radical grass roots political movement that, in 1647,…
Sieging and besieged: who were the soldiers who fought to control Pontefract Castle? This weekend Pontefract Castle will once again echo with the sound of cannons and muskets as we take it back to the English Civil War for a fascinating weekend of reenactment – all free for visitors! On 1st and 2nd June, the castle…
Siege warfare in the English Civil Wars “If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.” – Sun Tzu Contrary to popular notions of set piece clashes filled with dashing cavalry charges and tens of thousands of soldiers, sieges were “every bit as important as battle in the Civil Wars … holding…
Besieged: The Battle For Pontefract Castle 1644-5 The first great chronicler of the English Civil War, The Earl of Clarendon, described the location of Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire as “very strong, no part whereof was commanded by any other ground” and said “the house was very large, with all offices suitable to a Princely seat,…
‘The Key to the North’: Pontefract Castle’s place in the English Civil War “[Pontefract Castle is] well watered; situated on rock in every part of it; and therefore difficult to mine. The walls are very thick and high, with strong towers; and if battered, very difficult to access, by reason of the depth and…
In 1644, the ancient city of Lincoln was on the front line of the English Civil War. With its lofty castle and commanding views of the surrounding countryside, Lincoln sits the frontier between East Anglia, the North, and the Midlands. And during the first English Civil War, it was a point over which the tide…