King Charles the Second told this tale to all with whom he spoke
How he escaped a terrible fate by hiding in an oak
After the Battle of Worcester King Charles, who lost, had fled
Pursued by Cromwell's soldiers with a price upon his head
With his royal manor it was feared his foes would recognise him
And so his loyal followers thought they needed to disguise him
They found a coat, a hat and shoes that were rough and unpleasant
To give Charles the appearance of a poor and lowly peasant
But King Charles still looked too regal; his skin was soft and fair
So they rubbed his face with walnut oil and cut the royal hair!
Near Boscobel House there stood an oak with leaves and branches thick
King Charles was taken to the tree and told to climb up quick
As Cromwell's soldiers swarmed about, still searching for their prey
They did not notice that King Charles was only feet away...
[dramatic music]
King Charles escaped to exile 'til he was restored to glory
And the legend of the Royal Oak was one of his favourite stories
Boscobel House is a mansion in Shropshire with a very significant oak tree growing in
a field nearby. That oak tree is the descendant of the one in which King Charles II hid and
so saved his life when he was being chased by his enemies after losing a battle.
In 1651 the young King Charles invaded England with a Scottish army. It was intended to avenge
his father who'd been executed by English revolutionaries two years before. Instead
it was destroyed at the Battle of Worcester and the king had to escape.
The king escaped because he fell into the hands of Roman Catholics, people practicing
a forbidden religion who were used to hiding their priests. They owned a house at Boscobel
and when the house itself became too dangerous they put the king into an old oak tree nearby
in a field and he was able to hide there through the day.
The Boscobel story is odd among legends in that it's actually real history but it has
these mythological overtones. Associating the king with spirits of nature, with the
tree that is the king of the wood, rooting him literally in the English landscape for
all time and providing monarchists with an actual physical object which represents the
survival of monarchy against all odds. In that sense it has all the classic trappings
of a legend.
The sources for the Boscobel Royal Oak story are Charles himself who kept on retelling
the story to sometimes wearying extent after he was restored as king, but everybody else
involved in his escape also wrote their own accounts which got published. And of course
there's the tree itself and the house which remain today in the same places and in much
like the same condition. When the original tree died a sapling was planted from it and
so that's the tree we see today.
The moral of the Boscobel story is not to give up hope when the whole world seems against
you, it's to trust the natural world when civilisation lets you down and it's that when
the world seems to be your enemy a few faithful friends can see you through.