Following the 1649 execution of his father, 21-year-old Charles sailed from exile in France to Scotland, where he was crowned King Charles II at Scone, on January 1, 1650. Later that year, Oliver Cromwell led the New Model Army into Scotland, where, on September 3, he crushed a much larger Scottish army at Dunbar. Cromwell reported that "by the Lord of Hosts, they were made as stubble to our swords".

Raising a new royalist Scottish army, Charles marched south into England, heading for the West Midlands, previously a royalist stronghold. He expected that he would find many loyal Englishmen here willing to join his cause. However, Charles's arrival was seen in England as an invasion by the hated Scots, who had not been forgiven for a previous invasion, in 1648. There was no uprising by English royalists.

Charles was pursued to Worcester by OIiver Cromwell, at the head of the New Model Army, now almost twice the size of the Scottish force. The Royalists fortified Worcester and awaited the attack, which came on September 3 - chosen by Cromwell as the anniversary of his great victory at Dunbar. This was another decisive defeat for Charles, and the last battle of the Civil Wars.

On the run

The King spent the next six weeks on the run, with a reward of £1,000 offered for his capture. At Boscobel Hall, he was sheltered by five Catholic brothers, called Pendrell. They cut the King's distinctive long hair, and disguised him as a woodsman, in rough clothes. Charles then tried to escape to Wales, but found the Severn closely guarded.

Charles returned to Boscobel Hall, where he was joined by a royalist officer, William Carlis. On September 6, Charles and Carlis spent a whole day concealed in the branches of an oak tree. Charles would never forget the day he had spent hiding up a tree. Years later, he described it to Samuel Pepys:

"(Carlis) told me that it would be very dangerous for me either to stay in that house or go into the wood... that he knew but one way how to pass the next day, and that was to get up into a great oak, in a pretty plain place where we might see round about us, for the enemy would certainly search at the wood for people that had made their escape. Of which proposition I approving, we went and carried up with us some victuals for the whole day, viz., bread, cheese, small beer, and nothing else, and got up into a great oak that had been lopped some three or four years before, and being grown out again very bushy and thick, could not be seen through, and here we stayed all the day... While we were in this tree we saw soldiers going up and down in the thicket of the wood, searching for persons escaped, we seeing them, now and then, peeping out of the wood."

After further narrow escapes, Charles made his way to Shoreham, on the Sussex coast, and, on September 16, he sailed to safety in France.

Oak Apple Day

Following Cromwell's death, Charles was invited back to England, entering London on May 29, 1660 - his 30th birthday. Four years later, Parliament declared that this anniversary should be "forever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny and the King's return to his Government." (Samuel Pepys). For the next 200 years, on May 29, royalists would wear sprigs of oak or oak apples (galls produced in oak buds by wasps). The commemoration became known as Oak Apple Day.

Although the public holiday was abolished in 1859, Oak Apple Day continued to be celebrated in parts of England until recent times by children, most of whom had no idea of its origin. On May 29, they would challenge each other to show their oak sprigs or apples, and those not wearing one would have their bottoms pinched. The day was also known as "Pinch-Bum-Day". The children also chanted a rhyme, "The 29th of May is Oak Apple Day. If you don't give us a holiday, we'll all run away."

The fate of the tree

Following Charles's restoration, the tree at Boscobel Hall became famous as the Royal Oak. As a result, by the early 1700s, it had been killed by souvenir hunters hacking branches off to take away. Yet a younger tree grew up beside it from one of its acorns, and this became the Royal Oak which can still be seen today -  known as "Son of Royal Oak".

The original Royal Oak now has a grandson. In 2001, Prince Charles planted a sapling nearby, grown from one of the second tree's acorns, to mark the 350th anniversary of his famous namesake's escape.