BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

Roundheads, Cavaliers and the Execution of the King, this outstanding short history of the mid-17th century Civil Wars is both detailed and highly readable. The author makes the point that the revolutionaries did not foresee the execution of the king, but events unrolled in unexpected and unwanted ways. The riots that led to Charles and his family leaving Whitehall in 1642, and the civil wars that followed, had their origins in resentment at the dominance of the landed aristocracy and the punitive fines and taxes they and the king were able to raise. When war was declared, the earl of Northumberland could no longer rely on his tenantry to take up arms in support of the Royalist cause, and they blockaded him in Alnwick Castle. The established church was increasingly suspected of popery, with archbishop Laud restoring ceremonies and feast days to the fury of the Puritans who did not even celebrate Christmas. Religion became a key to unrest, with constant demands for the freedom to preach and publish dissenting religious opinions. The military role of the nobility was now limited, and the author provides a fascinating account of the impeachment and execution of the earl of Strafford, who proposed to raise an Irish army to quell the rebellion. Parliament's 19 propositions of June 1642 precipitated the country into the first civil war, and although people soon began to see parliament as a tyranny, Charles's intransigent refusal to accept their demands finally led to his death in 1649. A well written and gripping narrative. 230pp, paperback.