Derek Lester

The author’s understanding of the English Civil War was learned leading re-enactors of John Hampden’s ‘Greencoat’ Regiment onto famous English Civil War battlefields. He successfully challenged English Heritage to have the encounter at Chalgrove on its Register as a Battle. He wrote The Controversy of John Hampden’s Death (2000), which exposed the facts about John Hampden’s supposed exhumation. Oxoniensia published the author’s research (2015), which was subsequently accepted by the Victoria County History. The author discovered Clarendon’s private journal, which revealed the celebrated The History of the Rebellion (1702) to be fiction. The Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research published his article ‘Clarendon and History’ in 2021.