Frederick Marryat 
Children of the New Forest 

This children’s classic, set in the period of civil unrest that shook England to its core in the seventeenth century, follows the travails that befall a group of children after their father, an officer, is slain in battle. When the family home is burned to the ground by enemy soldiers, the children escape to the modest forest cottage of a local gamekeeper and set about the task of putting their lives back together.