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TOP TEN CIVIL WAR DISGUISESDuring research, I've come across a few instances when disguises have been used during the British Civil War to achieve (or try to achieve!) an objective. I think the details really bring the civil war alive!
Each day I'll list the top ten ...
- LORD GEORGE DIGBY1642. Being a wanted man, Digby fled to Holland. Later visited the King at York disguised as a Frenchman. Captured on the return voyage to Holland and taken to Hull where he revealed his identity and sweet-talked Sir John Hotham into letting him go.
- GEORGE BOOTH1659. Led an uprising against Cromwell's Protectorate in the NW & Wales. After defeat, he dressed as a woman to flee the country, but in Newport Parnell a keen-eyed innkeeper called the authorities after Booth purchased a razor!
Portrayed after Restoration
- DR MICHAEL HUDSON1648. The King's "plain-speaking chaplain" had been arrested after acting as a royalist agent & incarcerated in the Tower. He escaped dressed as a porter with a basket of apples on his head!
Brutally killed while defending Woodcroft House, Cambridgeshire.
- KING CHARLES I1646. The King trimmed his hair and donned a false beard. Dressed as a servant called Harry, he headed for Scottish army HQ with 2 companions.
Along the way they tried to cut each other's hair with knives, then sent for a barber. Arrived at Newark on 6 May.
- COLONEL JOHN BIRCH1645. Hereford's royalist governor employs men to break the ice on moat. Birch disguises 6 of his parliamentarians as labourers with pickaxes & spades and a fake constable leads them to town. The gate opens & 150 of his firelocks rush in and take Hereford.
- KING CHARLES II1651. Had his black hair cut short & dressed in a green coat and grey breeches, with shoes that made his 'enormous' feet sore all over. Posing as Will Jones, servant to Jane Lane, a colonel's daughter, he escaped parliamentarian patrols and made it to France.
- PRINCE JAMES1648. After 20 months in Parliament's custody, escaped St. James's Palace during a game of hide & seek. Dressed as a girl, & despite a tailor's suspicions over his proportions & then plucking at his leg in an 'unwomanish manner' the 14-year-old reached Holland.
