It's the early hours of 15 October 1651, and most of the residents of the West Sussex town of Shoreham-by-Sea are asleep In their beds. But not all of them. Two men walk silently across a beach and board a boat. A couple of hours later, before the Sun has crept above the horizon, the vessel slips out to sea. And barely anyone has even noticed.
As turning points in English history go, the duo's departure from made for a fairly unremarkable scene. Yet a turning point it undoubtedly was. One of the men was, in fact, the future King Charles II. And he was fleeing for his life.
A few months earlier, Charles had launched a bid to win back the kingdoms that Oliver Cromwell's forces had seized from his father, Charles I, in the Civil Wars that raged across the British Isles. That bid had ended in defeat and so the younger Charles was forced to beat a silent retreat back across the Channel – accompanied by his close friend, Lord Wilmot – before Cromwell's
