My name is Phil Barham, an amateur historian with a fascination for one of the most turbulent periods in English history, the English Civil War of 1642–1651.

That fascination eventually took me off the page and onto the battlefield as a member of The Sealed Knot, Britain’s leading English Civil War re-enactment society.

Over the years, I’ve experienced something that no history book can quite reproduce. I’ve been charged by Parliamentary cavalry, shot at by ranks of musketeers, and found myself in the middle of hand-to-hand combat.

Fortunately, it was re-enactment but the experience gave me a far greater understanding of what seventeenth-century combat actually looked, sounded and felt like.

It’s that experience I bring to my talks as Captain Matthias Hawkeslade. I don’t simply tell you about the Civil War — I invite you into it.

And when I’m not charging into battle, I live near Maidstone, Kent, with my wife and an enormous Newfoundland dog, who, thankfully, has shown little interest in taking up arms for either side.