Children's experiences in the English Civil War

Click on the (inevitable) image above to listen to this episode of the English Civil War podcast The World Turned Upside Down:

The Civil Wars changed the lives of families all across the British Isles, and inevitably children became involved not only as passive bystanders, but also as child soldiers fighting in both the Royalist and Parliamentary armies.

Civil War historian, Dr Ismini Pells, a Departmental Lecturer in Local and Social History at the University of Oxford, has uncovered some of these children’s experiences and in this programme she examines the effects of the wars, both on the children who found themselves directly in the line of fire, and on those who were orphaned or made destitute because their fathers were killed or maimed during the conflict.

As Dr Pells explains to Publisher Mike Gibbs, these stories are often difficult to piece together and frequently forgotten by history.