The foot soldiers laid aside their pikes and got out spades. The royal army started to dig a ring of trenches around the city. ‘They will surrender before we are more than a foot deep,’ Charles assured his commanders. ‘No need to dig the lines t … too straight or too well. If they do not surrender t … tonight, we will attack at dawn tomorrow. As long as we make a sh … show.’

As the soldiers dug their trenches, and as Charles broke his fast with some red wine and bread and cheese, a simple meal, as if he were out on a hunting trip, the great gates of Hull slowly opened.

‘Already?’ Charles laughed. ‘Well, this is gracious!’ He shaded his eyes with his hand, and then shook his head and stared harder. The bread fell from his hand, unregarded. Slowly, his laughter died.

A regular well-drilled army marched steadily out from the gates of the town towards them. The front flank kneeled down and the musketmen, steadying their weapons on the shoulders of the front rank, took aim and fired straight at the royalist army.

‘Good G … God! What are they doing?’ Charles cried.

‘To horse!’ one of the quicker courtiers shouted. ‘Get the men saddled up! We’ve been betrayed!’

‘It can’t b … be …’

‘Save the king!’ Tradescant shouted. The royal guard, recalled to their duties, dropped their dinner in the dust and threw themselves on their horses.

‘Mount! Your Highness!’

There was a dreadful scream as another volley of shots pocked the dry ground around them, and some of the musket balls found a target.

‘Retreat! Retreat!’ someone yelled.

All the orders of command were broken, as the men scattered, running like panicked sheep across the stubbly hayfields, pushing through hedges and trampling down the ripening corn. Still the defenders of Hull came forward, the first rank dropping to their knees and reloading as the second rank fired over their shoulders and then marched on. Then they too dropped down and reloaded as the men behind them fired.

It was an unstoppable progress, John thought. The king’s soldiers did not even have fire lit ready for their muskets. They had no cannon ready, they did not even have their pikes. All they had were their trenching spades, and the men who had been digging had been the first to fall, toppling down into their shallow ditches, and screaming and crawling in the dirt.

At last someone found a trumpeter and ordered him to sound the retreat, but the foot soldiers were already up and running, running from the well-disciplined lethal ranks that were pouring, like little toy soldiers, out of the gates of Hull, firing and reloading, firing and reloading, like a monstrous toy which could not be stopped or escaped.