On a cold day on the thirtieth of January 1649 in London, an anonymous executioner severed the head of King Charles I of England. The watching crowds had very mixed feelings about this regicide, but Oliver Cromwell's troops kept order, and eventually the crowd dispersed, stunned by this momentous event in English history, which left the country in turmoil.

Amongst the crowd that day were a father of fifty-nine years and his three sons. This moment in history was to change their lives. Who were this family? Where had they come from? What would become of them?

The answer to these questions would lead us back to King Robert the Bruce of Scotland, forward to our own Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, and would also greatly influence much of American history.