The Puritan Revolution (Battle Without Armor)

Everywhere on the face of the earth throughout all time men have fought either individually or in armies to merit belonging to the finest legion of the human race, the fighters for freedom of thought and conscience, for freedom of spirit and action.

This is the story of one of those legions, a legion of common men who fought and died over 300 years ago in England for the dignity of human freedom. The NBC University of the Air presents We Came This Way, a new historical series for our listeners at home and overseas.

With John W. Van der Kück as narrator, we present Chapter 8, A Story of a Battle Without Armor in We Came This Way. They called the English Civil War the Puritan Revolution. Like all great events it is infinitely complicated.

But if we could take a scalpel and cut through to the heart of English history, we would find two chambers there through which a nation's lifeblood pulsed, the palace and the house of commons. The common man of 1625 thought his civil rights had been given him by the Magna Cotta. A man of sober habits he believed in freedom of religion and popular rights.

The courtiers reviled him as a Puritan. The king found him troublesome and answered all a man's for civil liberty by making arbitrary proclamations imprisoning at pleasure dictating religion. Both the king and the common man believed they were right. In 1642 the showdown came in Civil War. Who was to ruling the king or the house of commons? A man went out to

make the answer on a battlefield in his native land. He now lies mortally wounded, dying, Well the battle goes on around. How tall a blade of grass looks when the ground is your pillow. How near the heavens.