Civil War
Civil War

Author: Peter Ackroyd

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2014-09-25

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 144727170X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Step into the tumultuous age of Stuart England with Peter Ackroyd's enlightening Civil War. Beginning with James I, the first Scottish king of England, it tracks an era of massive upheaval, ending with the dramatic flight of his grandson, James II, into exile. Civil War transports you to the heart of the 17th-century Britain, where you meet figures like James I with his shrewd perspectives on diverse matters, and Charles I, whose inept rule ignited the flames of the English Civil War. Ackroyd offers a brilliant – warts and all – portrayal of Charles's nemesis Oliver Cromwell, Parliament's great military leader and England's only dictator, who began his career as a political liberator but ended it as much of a despot as the king he executed. Beyond this political turmoil, Ackroyd also explores the rich cultural and literary contributions of the Jacobean era. This was a world where Shakespeare's masterpieces were penned, John Donne weaved his poetry and Thomas Hobbes crafted his philosophical marvel, Leviathan. Most importantly, get a glimpse of the extraordinary lives of common English men and women, their existence seeped in constant disruption and uncertainty. Civil War is a stirring account of a pivotal epoch, making it a must-read for history enthusiasts.

War in England 1642-1649
War in England 1642-1649

Author: Barbara Donagan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-03-18

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 0199565708

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing extensively on primary sources, and with the focus on examining what the war was like to live through - for example the living conditions for soldiers, the conduct of war, etc. - this study illuminates the human cost of war and its effect on society, both in our own day as well as in the 17th century.

Cavaliers and Roundheads
Cavaliers and Roundheads

Author: Christopher Hibbert

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2010-10-07

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0007394713

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This social as well as a military history recreates the scenes of civil war in England, between 1642 and 1649.

A Military History of the English Civil War
A Military History of the English Civil War

Author: Malcolm Wanklyn

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-07-10

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1317868390

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A Military History of the English Civil War examines how the civil war was won, who fought for whom, and why it ended. With a straightforward style and clear chronology that enables readers to make their own judgements and pursue their own interests further, this original history provides a thorough critique of the reasons that have been cited for Parliament's victory and the King's defeat in 1645/46. It discusses the strategic options of the Parliamentary and Royalist commanders and councils of war and analyses the decisions they made, arguing that the King’s faulty command structure was more responsible for his defeat than Sir Thomas Fairfax's strategic flair. It also argues that the way that resources were used, rather than the resources themselves, explain why the war ended when it did.

The English Civil War
The English Civil War

Author: Nick Lipscombe

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-09-17

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1472847164

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

'The English Civil War is a joy to behold, a thing of beauty... this will be the civil war atlas against which all others will judged and the battle maps in particular will quickly become the benchmark for all future civil war maps.' -- Professor Martyn Bennett, Department of History, Languages and Global Studies, Nottingham Trent University The English Civil Wars (1638–51) comprised the deadliest conflict ever fought on British soil, in which brother took up arms against brother, father fought against son, and towns, cities and villages fortified themselves in the cause of Royalists or Parliamentarians. Although much historical attention has focused on the events in England and the key battles of Edgehill, Marston Moor and Naseby, this was a conflict that engulfed the entirety of the Three Kingdoms and led to a trial and execution that profoundly shaped the British monarchy and Parliament. This beautifully presented atlas tells the whole story of Britain's revolutionary civil war, from the earliest skirmishes of the Bishops' Wars in 1639–40 through to 1651, when Charles II's defeat at Worcester crushed the Royalist cause, leading to a decade of Stuart exile. Each map is supported by a detailed text, providing a complete explanation of the complex and fluctuating conflict that ultimately meant that the Crown would always be answerable to Parliament.

God's Fury, England's Fire
God's Fury, England's Fire

Author: Michael Braddick

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2008-02-28

Total Pages: 1093

ISBN-13: 0141926511

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A brilliantly researched and vividly written history of the English Civil Wars, from one of Britain's most prominent Civil War historians The sequence of civil wars that ripped England apart in the seventeenth century was the single most traumatic event in this country between the medieval Black Death and the two world wars. Indeed, it is likely that a greater percentage of the population were killed in the civil wars than in the First World War. This sense of overwhelming trauma gives this major new history its title: God’s Fury, England’s Fire. The name of a pamphlet written after the king’s surrender, it sums up the widespread feeling within England that the seemingly endless nightmare that had destroyed families, towns and livelihoods was ordained by a vengeful God – that the people of England had sinned and were now being punished. As with all civil wars, however, ‘God’s fury’ could support or destroy either side in the conflict. Was God angry at Charles I for failing to support the true, protestant, religion and refusing to work with Parliament? Or was God angry with those who had dared challenge His anointed Sovereign? Michael Braddick’s remarkable book gives the reader a vivid and enduring sense both of what it was like to live through events of uncontrollable violence and what really animated the different sides. God’s Fury, England’s Fire allows readers to understand once more the events that have so fundamentally marked this country and which still resonate centuries after their bloody ending.

The English Civil Wars
The English Civil Wars

Author: Blair Worden

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2009-11-19

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0297857592

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A brilliant appraisal of the Civil War and its long-term consequences, by an acclaimed historian. The political upheaval of the mid-seventeenth century has no parallel in English history. Other events have changed the occupancy and the powers of the throne, but the conflict of 1640-60 was more dramatic: the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished, to be replaced by a republic and military rule. In this wonderfully readable account, Blair Worden explores the events of this period and their origins - the war between King and Parliament, the execution of Charles I, Cromwell's rule and the Restoration - while aiming to reveal something more elusive: the motivations of contemporaries on both sides and the concerns of later generations.

Confederate Catholics at War, 1641-49
Confederate Catholics at War, 1641-49

Author: Pádraig Lenihan

Publisher: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9781859182444

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book evaluates the Confederate Catholic war effort from the preceeding phase of localized insurgency, through the formation of a national self-government in 1642, until the Confederate Catholic regime was finally subsumed in a broad pan-Royalist alliance in 1649. While this alliance held out the prospect of significant religious and constitutional concessons this achievement was nullified by the subsequent Cromwellian catastrophe: the Confederate regime failed. In attributing this failure to political factionalism, historians have neglected the potential and limitations of the Confederate war effort. This study does not substitute crude military determinism but acknowledges that political indecision and strategic incoherence inhibited the war effort at critical junctures. From the conflicting political priorities of Confederates two partially exclusive military strategies, insular, and expeditionary, can be identified. Both strategies were proactive and so demanded standing armies rather than local militia units. This book emphasizes the crucial importance of the tax gathering apparatus in fueling the incremental growth of standing armies. In the absence of large scale foreign patronage, exacting money from an agrarian economy, rather than the shortages of material, or still less, manpower representing the crucial extrinsic limit to Confederate military potential. Given these limits, it was a considerable achievement to contain two British interventions (in 1642 and 1646/7 respectively). The influence of the contemporaneous "military revolution" on the European mainland was mediated by the cadre of returned mercenary officers. Consequently, the Confederates developed a qualitative edge in fortification and siegecraft. The application of the continental model and the shift from putatively "celtic" or irregular tactics of raiding and running battles would be more problematic. This and other explanations for the poor battlefield performance of the Confederate armies are discussed.

John Poyer, the Civil Wars in Pembrokeshire and the British Revolutions
John Poyer, the Civil Wars in Pembrokeshire and the British Revolutions

Author: Lloyd Bowen

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1786836556

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first book-length treatment of the ‘turncoat’ John Poyer, the man who initiated the Second Civil War through his rebellion in south Wales in 1648. The volume charts Poyer’s rise from a humble glover in Pembroke to become parliament’s most significant supporter in Wales during the First Civil War (1642–6), and argues that he was a more complex and significant individual than most commentators have realised. Poyer’s involvement in the poisonous factional politics of the post-war period (1646–8) is examined, and newly discovered material demonstrates how his career offers fresh insights into the relationship between national and local politics in the 1640s, the use of print and publicity by provincial interest groups, and the importance of local factionalism in understanding the course of the civil war in south Wales. The volume also offers a substantial analysis of Poyer’s posthumous reputation after his execution by firing squad in April 1649.

A Brief History of the English Civil Wars
A Brief History of the English Civil Wars

Author: John Miller

Publisher: Robinson

Published: 2013-02-07

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 1472107624

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Miller provides a clear and comprehensible narrative, a coherent and accurate synthesis, intended as a guide for students and the general reader to an extremely complex period in British history. His aim is to help readers avoid getting lost in a maze of detail and rather to maintain a grasp of the big picture. Although the English Civil War is usually seen, in England at least, as a conflict between two sides, it involved the Scots, the Irish and the army and the people of England, especially London. At some points, events occurred and perspectives changed with such disorienting rapidity that even those who lived through these events were confused as to where they stood in relation to one another. As the 1640s wore on, events unfolded in ways which the participants had not expected and in many cases did not want. Hindsight might suggest that everything led logically to the trial and execution of the king, but these were in fact highly improbable outcomes. Since the 1980s, a 'three kingdoms' approach has become almost compulsory, but Miller's focus is unashamedly on England. Events in Scotland and Ireland are covered only insofar as they had an impact on events in England.