After 'the brother-killing days' of the First Civil War, the years 1647-1648 witnessed a recrudescence of the fratricidal conflict. This 'return to the sword' proved particularly sharp and painful in East Anglia. The first rumblings of discontent occurred during the New Model Army's occupation of Saffron Walden in Essex in the spring and early summer of 1647: the militancy of its troops and their 'free quarter' on the local inhabitants leading to outright rebellion the following year.

It was during this formative period that Saffron Walden became, in effect, 'the cradle of the English Revolution' thanks to the radical ideas that were first articulated in a dramatic series of debates between Cromwell and the New Model Army's elected representatives in St. Mary’s church, a theme which was investigated at length by Martyn Everett.

In early June 1648 there was an outright military challenge to the Long Parliament in the form of the Linton rising which, though quickly suppressed, garnered considerable support in the Saffron Walden area. In a joint-presentation Dr Susan Sadler and John Sutton explored the role of two key figures in the royalist insurrection, with the former concentrating on Dr Michael Hudson and the latter on Colonel Eusebius Andrews.

As is well-known, Charles I was a political prisoner during these momentous events, spending part of his captivity in eastern England during the early summer of 1647 and already fashioning himself as the martyr-king, a subject which formed the basis of Dr Andrew Lacey's paper. The Dayschool concluded with a lecture by Professor John Walter who examined the turbulent 1640s through an in-depth case-study of the Essex community of Radwinter.

Please note:
(1) The organisers reserved the right to change the programme without prior warning
(2) The cost of admission included tea and coffee but did not include lunch

Martyn Everett is the author of a short account of Saffron Walden and the English Civil War (1994) and is co-author of Saffron Walden: A Pictorial History (1998) and The Buildings of Saffron Walden (2004).

Dr. Sue Sadler is a former graduate of Anglia Ruskin University where she obtained her doctorate, an in-depth study of Cambridgeshire during the First and Second Civil Wars. She now lectures part-time for ARU, principally at Huntingdon Regional College. She is the author of A Royal Entertainment? Huntingdon August 1645 (1995).

John Sutton was formerly Senior Lecturer in history at Anglia Ruskin University. He is the author of the Anglia Television series A War in the Kingdom screened in 1984. During the course of 1999 he organised a series of large conferences to commemorate the trial and execution of Charles I and the quarter centenary of the birth of Oliver Cromwell. He also wrote the entry on the Linton rising in An Atlas of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire History (2000).

Dr Andrew Lacey was formerly the head librarian of the University of Leicester and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He has recently published his doctorate: The Cult of King Charles the Martyr (2003). He is a regular contributor to weekend courses and summer school programmes for Cambridge University’s Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall.

Professor John Walter was formerly Reader in history and Director of the Local History Centre at the University of Essex. He was co-editor of Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society (1989) and the author of Understanding popular Violence in the English Revolution: The Colchester Plunderers (1999). He is currently writing a book on the Protestation returns of 1641-2.

Robert Ashton: Counter Revolution: the Second Civil War and its Origins 1646-8 (Yale, 1994)

Martyn Everett: Saffron Walden and the English Civil War (Ragged Robin Press, 1994) (A new and expanded edition due for publication 2007)

Andrew Lacey: The Cult of King Charles the Martyr (Boydell Press, 2003)

John Sutton: The Linton Rising (entry in An Atlas of Cambridgeshire History, Centre for Regional Studies, APU 2000)

Tickets were available from the Tourist Information Centre, 1 Market Place, Saffron Walden CB10 1HR (Tel: 01799 510444) or you could order them by post by downloading an application form