Royal oaks replanted to tell tale of Charles II’S great escape
WOODLAND that hid the future Charles II is being replanted by English Heritage to help confused visitors imagine how he evaded capture after the Civil War.
The fugitive prince was a young man when he fled to avoid the grisly fate his father suffered at the hands of victorious Parliamentarians.
While militiamen searched for the wily prince in 1651, he hid in an oak tree at Boscobel Wood in Shropshire before slipping away to the continent.
The towering tree known as the Royal Oak now stands in solitude, however, leading visitors to question how a witless militia could possibly have missed the hiding prince.
English Heritage is now replanting the mighty oaks that protected Charles and played a dramatic role in Britain’s future constitutional monarchy
Beginning another noble lineage, gardeners at Boscobel House will use acorns and shoots from the centuriesold Royal Oak – a descendant of the original – to make the restored wood.
“We want to help people who come to Boscobel to imagine how it was that Charles managed to evade capture by hiding in a tree,” said Andrew Degg, English Heritage’s garden supervisor.
“It’s hard to picture it now as the Royal Oak is so exposed, but during the Civil War the whole field would have been populated by large oak trees.”
Charles I had been beheaded in 1649 following the defeat of the Royalist cause. His son returned from exile to attempt to seize his kingdom at the head of an army of loyal Scots, who had crowned him king at Scone, but was beaten in the Battle of Worcester.
Despite a £1,000 price on his head, he managed to escape and was restored to the crown in 1660.
His reign was marked by liberality in the arts and society and helped to lay the foundations of the UK’S constitutional monarchy.