By the Sword Divided is a British television

British television

Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...

 series produced by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 between 1983 and 1985.

The series was a historical drama set during the mid 17th century, dealing with the impact of the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

 on the fictional Lacey family, made up of both Royalist

Cavalier

Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...

 and Parliamentarian

Parliament of England

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...

 supporters.

It follows the family as it is torn apart by the conflicting and changing loyalties of the war, as families were during that time, and the defeat of the Royalist forces at the end of the First English Civil War

First English Civil War

The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...

. Series two covers the second

Second English Civil War

The Second English Civil War was the second of three wars known as the English Civil War which refers to the series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1652 and also include the First English Civil War and the...

 and third

Third English Civil War

The Third English Civil War was the last of the English Civil Wars , a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists....

 civil wars and the eventual Restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

 of the Monarchy. The last episodes sees the surviving members of the family (from both sides of the divide) witness the arrival of Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 on a visit to the ancestral Lacey home.

The cast included: Julian Glover

Julian Glover

Julian Wyatt Glover is a British actor best known for such roles as General Maximilian Veers in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, the Bond villain Aristotle Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only, and Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.-Personal life:Glover was born in...

, Sharon Mughan

Sharon Maughan

Sharon Maughan is a British actress.-Life and career:Maughan was born in Kirkby, Liverpool, one of five siblings in an Irish Catholic family...

, Gareth Thomas

Gareth Thomas (actor)

Gareth Thomas is a Welsh actor.Thomas is best known for the part of Roj Blake in the dystopian science fiction television series Blake's 7, but has taken roles in many other films and television programmes, including Adam Brake in Children of the Stones.Thomas trained at RADA and is now an...

, Judy Buxton

Judy Buxton

Judy Buxton , is an English actress.She graduated from the Rose Bruford College. She then was a regular in the television series General Hospital playing nurse Katy Shaw. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1979, where she played principal roles until 1982...

, Peter Jeffrey

Peter Jeffrey

Peter Jeffrey was a British actor with many roles in television and film.Jeffrey was born in Bristol, the son of Florence Alice and Arthur Winfred Gilbert Jeffrey. He was educated at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Cambridge but had no formal training as an actor...

, Rosalie Crutchley

Rosalie Crutchley

Rosalie Crutchley was an English actress. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music, Crutchley was best known for her television performances, but had a long and successful career in the theatre and in films, making her stage debut at least as early as 1932 and her screen debut in 1947...

, Robert Stephens

Robert Stephens

Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...

, Timothy Bentinck, Rob Edwards

Rob Edwards (actor)

Rob Edwards is a British actor.His television credits include: Doctor Who , An Englishman's Castle, Secret Army, The Fourth Arm, By the Sword Divided, The Practice, Casualty, A Touch of Frost, Dangerfield, Midsomer Murders and Dalziel and Pascoe.He attended RGS...

, Lucy Aston, Joanna McCallum

Joanna McCallum

Joanna McCallum is a British theatre, film and television actress. She is the daughter of British actress Googie Withers and Australian actor John McCallum...

, Malcolm Stoddard

Malcolm Stoddard

Malcolm Stoddard is a British actor who has appeared on television.His credits include: The Voyage of Charles Darwin, Colditz, The Brothers, The New Avengers, Blake's 7, Squadron, By the Sword Divided, Juliet Bravo, Boon, The Bill, Families, Emmerdale, The Campbells, Heartbeat and The...

, Jeremy Clyde

Jeremy Clyde

Michael Thomas Jeremy Clyde is an English actor and musician. The son of Lady Elizabeth Wellesley, he made his first public appearance as a pageboy at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom in 1953...

, David Collings

David Collings

David Collings is a British actor. He has played many different roles on various television programmes, including the leading dramatic role in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in 1964....

, Jerome Willis

Jerome Willis

Jerome Willis is a prominent British stage and screen actor with more than 100 screen credits to his name.Willis had a leading role in the ITV drama series The Sandbaggers as Matthew Peele. He also appeared in Z Cars as DCS Richards, Within These Walls as Charles Radley, and Doctor Who as...

, Charles Kay

Charles Kay

Charles Kay is an English actor.Kay was born in Coventry, West Midlands, the son of Frances and Charles Beckingham Piff....

, Simon Dutton

Simon Dutton

Simon Dutton is a British actor, best known for playing the title role of Simon Templar in a series of Australian-produced television films in 1989. In 2007, he joined the cast of British sitcom Not Going Out as recurring character Guy, but was written out at the end of season 2.Dutton was...

, Edward Peel

Edward Peel

Edward Peel is a British actor.He has mostly appeared on television, his roles include Shogun , Juliet Bravo , Cracker , Emmerdale Farm and London's Burning...

, Mark Burns

Mark Burns

Mark Burns was an English film and television actor.Burns was born in Bromsgrove in the county of Worcestershire and educated at Ampleforth College, North Yorkshire...

, Simon Treves

Simon Treves

Frederick Simon Treves, known as Simon Treves, is an English actor, director and writer probably best known for playing Harold 'Stinker' Pinker in three series of ITV's Jeeves and Wooster.-Biography:...

 and Janet Lees Price

Janet Lees Price

Janet Lees Price is a British actress with many television credits to her name, including: Emergency - Ward 10, Z-Cars, The First Lady, Softly, Softly, Dixon of Dock Green, Upstairs, Downstairs, Within These Walls, Blake's 7, By the Sword Divided, The Bill and Agatha Christie's Poirot.-Personal...

.

DVD release

By the Sword Divided is available on DVD in the UK, distributed by Acorn Media UK

Acorn Media UK

Acorn Media UK is a DVD publisher which distributes and sells home video products with a particular focus on British television.- Company history :The company was founded in 1997 when Lesley Fromant set up a branch of parent company Acorn Media in the UK....

.

Film locations

The filming for the programme took place at Rockingham Castle

Rockingham Castle

Rockingham Castle is a former royal castle and hunting lodge in Rockingham Forest a mile to the north of Corby, Northamptonshire.-History:The site on which the castle stands has been used in the Iron Age, Roman period and by the invading Saxons also used by the Normans, Tudors and also used in the...

 and Lilford Hall

Lilford Hall

Lilford Hall is a Grade 1 listed stately 100-room home having a Jacobean exterior and Georgian interior with a floor area, located in the eastern part of the County of Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom, south of Oundle and north of Thrapston. A Grade 1 listed building is considered by the UK...

 in Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

.