This BBC Bristol production was set in the 1640s during the English Civil War and dramatised by Anthony Coburn from the book by Captain Marryat.
Colonel Beverley, the squire of Arnwood and High Keeper of the New Forest, goes off to join the King’s army and dies at the Battle of Naseby, leaving his two sons – Edward (Richard Arthure) and Humphrey (Brendan Collins) – and two daughters – Alice (Petra Markham) and Edith (Melanie Parr) – in the care of their Aunt Judith (Daphne Heard).
A troop of Parliamentary soldiers and their Leveller preacher, Abel Corbould (Philip Morant), come to Arnwood and the four orphaned Beverley children are smuggled away and taken to the home of Jacob Armitage (Norman Tyrrell) – a royalist forester – in the forest and hidden there.
The children are forced to pose as peasants and encounter various adventures, becoming involved with the family of Parliament’s new Intendant of the New Forest, Heatherstone (Bernard Archard, pictured above), and eventually joining a conspiracy to help King Charles (David Cargill), who has escaped from captivity.
There was an inferior remake in 1998.
Edward Beverley
Richard Arthure Humphrey Beverley
Brendan Collins Alice Beverley
Petra Markham Edith Beverley
Melanie Parr Jacob Armitage
Norman Tyrrell Intendant Heatherstone
Bernard Archard Patience Heatherstone
Kara Wilson Judith Villiers
Daphne Heard Abel Corbould
Philip Morant Phoebe
June Barrie Oswald Partridge
Colin Douglas Will
John Crocker Clara
Tina Dennison Benjamin
David Jackson King Charles II
David Cargill Ingram
Michael Graham Cox Chaloner
Brian Hankins
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