The English Civil Wars, 1640-16602009

Nothing in English history has so imprinted itself on the nation's memory as the upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century. And nothing has so divided posterity. This short book provides a crisp and lucid narrative of the complicated events of 1640 to 1660 - not just the war between King and Parliament of 1642-46 but the second civil war, the execution of King Charles I, the Commonwealth and the rule of Cromwell, and finally the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. But it also gets behind the preoccupations of later generations and explains what contemporaries on both sides thought they were fighting for and against. Many factors played a part in these wars: the European conflicts of the time; the wars in Scotland and Ireland from which the English conflict emerged; constitutional tussles from the Tudor period; ideas of liberty and reform; the new powers of taxation acquired by parliamentarians; and the collapse of political censorship during the wars. Through it all there ran the conflict of religion. This wonderfully readable and well-informed account stresses the unpredictability not only of the military outcomes but also of the longer-term results. As the author notes, 'There is no better illustration of the law of unintended consequences than the English civil wars.'