It was ironic. Nathan Rawson had been hanged for fighting against a royal army that was led, in part, by the very man whom his son now served. Daniel saw no betrayal in that. John, Lord Churchill, as he had been at the time, had earned his respect by condemning the sergeant who had tried to rape Daniel's mother and by presenting the boy with the sword he had used to kill the man. Three short years after the battle, Daniel had returned to England as a drummer boy in a Dutch army led by William of Orange. King James II had been deposed in a bloodless revolution and Churchill, having fought in the royal army at Sedgemoor, had adroitly changed his allegiance.

Daniel had come to see it as a clever tactical move rather than the action of a traitor. Survival was all. Like any good commander, Churchill had known which way the wind was blowing. In fact, his military career had later stalled under William and Mary, only to be revived in spectacular fashion when Queen Anne came to the throne. As the Duke of Marlborough, he was now captain-general of the forces of the Grand Alliance, fighting against the very army in which he had once served. In waging a war against France, Marlborough could put into practice all he had learnt from his mentor, the great Marshal Turenne, during the war in the Netherlands. At his disposal were soldiers, like Daniel Rawson, drilled to a high standard and honed into professional warriors.

The journey stirred many memories for Daniel, his bitterness softened by nostalgia, his sadness lightened by the fact that he had been able to carry on from his father and achieve, in the army that had ousted the Stuart dynasty without firing a shot, what Nathan Rawson and his fellow-rebels had failed to do. Dedicating himself to military life, Daniel had now risen to the rank that his father had held at his death. One Captain Rawson had been succeeded by another.

Riding south, he soon came to the village of Durston, a small community nestling around an old parish church.