Look & Learn

I wish to thank you and your entire team for both days with the flexibility and desire to help with our professional development as warfighters. You and your team showed a passion for the battle and our nations' shared history that was infectious for our two groups. I'm looking forward to continuing to work with you and the rest of the trust to do this staff ride for the next crop of our folks.

A small group of our Sixth Form historians were lucky enough to be treated to a guided tour of the Naseby battlefield by Mark Linnell and Jon Courtney-Thompson. Without a doubt the battlefield tour provoked pupils and teachers alike to consider the battle in new ways. No longer was Naseby merely another step towards Charles’ defeat and trial. It had become to us a moment of uncertain outcome, of high drama, and of intense human cost – none of which could ever be truly understood without walking the ground in the company of experts. For all of them, the significance of Naseby was nothing new: the role of the irredeemable destruction of the king’s forces and the political significance of his captured letters were clear milestones in the path to his downfall. Yet, in many respects, the result of the battle was taken as read: after all, it is well known that the New Model Army triumphed that day. To walk the battlefield, in the company of our knowledgeable guides, was to challenge that assumption: to understand how the combination of leadership, resources and terrain came together to create that result. Across the course of our afternoon visit the day’s fighting unfolded before us, as Mark and Jon plotted troop movements across the landscape and explained the logic behind the military decisions of the battle. In doing so, the inevitably of the result dissolved in a series of demonstrations of the significance of placement, skill, and individual decision-making – further illuminated by Jon’s demonstration of the weaponry of the day. Perhaps most compelling was to trace the action through maps showing the fall of shot. Not only to plot the action across the terrain, but also to realise – with a chill – the bloody business of killing which once overtook what are now the peaceful corners of picturesque Northants fields.

Some of our children attended a (well timed!) Battle of Naseby weekend with their families which added to their enthusiasm. The children who went loved it and said they would love to go to another one in the future to learn more. We were also lucky enough to have Mark Linnell visit our school to share his wisdom and expertise in the topic. The children were captivated by the information and were excited to go out onto the field and re-enact part of the battle! Learning through actions really helped them remember all the details of the armies and the movements on the day of the Battle.

The British Army uses the Battlefield Study as a training tool where an appropriate battlefield is examined to see what lessons can be learnt for the modern army. You may think that surely a more modern battlefield, for example the breakout from Normandy in the summer of 1944, would provide more relevant lessons than a battle 350 years ago. And you would right. However, the logistical and cost implications means that a BS to Normandy is usually limited to about thirty people. Conducting a BS in the UK means that an entire battalion could, over several days, experience a BS, rather than a smaller party going overseas”. Naseby proved to be ideal for this purpose.