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The Blazing World A New History of Revolutionary England
The seventeenth century was a revolutionary age for the English. It started as they suddenly found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and it ended in the shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, England suffered terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide. For a short time—for the only time in history—England was a republic. There were bitter struggles over faith and Parliament asserted itself like never before. There were no boundaries to politics. In fiery, plague-ridden London, in coffee shops and alehouses, new ideas were forged that were angry, populist, and almost impossible for monarchs to control.
But the story of this century is less well known than it should be. Myths have grown around key figures. People may know about the Gunpowder Plot and the Great Fire of London, but the Civil War is a half-remembered mystery to many. And yet the seventeenth century has never seemed more relevant. The British constitution is once again being bent and contorted, and there is a clash of ideologies reminiscent of when Roundhead fought Cavalier.
The Blazing World is the story of this strange, twisting, fascinating century. It shows a society in sparkling detail. It was a new world of wealth, creativity, and daring curiosity, but also of greed, pugnacious arrogance, and colonial violence.
But the story of this century is less well known than it should be. Myths have grown around key figures. People may know about the Gunpowder Plot and the Great Fire of London, but the Civil War is a half-remembered mystery to many. And yet the seventeenth century has never seemed more relevant. The British constitution is once again being bent and contorted, and there is a clash of ideologies reminiscent of when Roundhead fought Cavalier.
The Blazing World is the story of this strange, twisting, fascinating century. It shows a society in sparkling detail. It was a new world of wealth, creativity, and daring curiosity, but also of greed, pugnacious arrogance, and colonial violence.
512 pages, Paperback
First published February 2, 2023
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March 18, 2024The country is trapped in a culture war, with some arguing for a return to the Good Old Days and others arguing for greater personal freedom and less enforcement of religious and moral laws. The 'sides' are fluid, but each group uses new technology to rapidly share its ideas with likeminded individuals, creating echo chambers that highlight only the news they want to hear while distorting news that would contradict their worldview. The groups jeer at each other -- calling their political opponents 'cuckholds,' 'idiots,' 'traitors,' and worse. Chaos increases, leading to violent confrontations between angry mobs on the street. Everything becomes 'political,' from church to entertainment to schools. Eventually, the country slides into a civil war that nobody really thought would happen, and that would tear the country apart.
I'm taking about England in the 1600s. But if it sounds like this could be a scenario playing out today, well . . . that's why I think history is so valuable. As it says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. People are people, and what happened over four centuries ago is still echoing through the world in 2024.
The Blazing World is probably not a read for everyone. It is thorough, comprehensive in scope, and juggles a cast of hundreds of characters. Nevertheless, if you're a history nerd like me, Revolutionary England is a fascinating time period to read about, and one that I only knew about superficially before this. What struck me as most relevant and scary: The people of the time had no idea what direction things would go, and events moved at such a whiplash pace that they were quickly plunged into situations that would've been unthinkable only a few years before. For the first time in memory, a king was beheaded by his own people. The English were faced with a clean slate and a chance to completely remake their society. Utopian ideas flourished (briefly). England could be a communist collective with no property ownership. Or a Republic. Or a Theocracy. Or a kingdom without a king. In the end, the country swung between extremes, back and forth, looking to a dictator (Oliver Cromwell) to stabilize the nation and save them from anarchy, only to eventually decide that maybe the old king and country idea wasn't so bad after all (with a few new checks and balances). My other major takeaway was the effect of the printing press and the increase in literacy rates, especially in London, which meant that for the first time, the common folk, the 'blue collar workers,' were reading and discussing political ideas, becoming a force unto themselves -- a powerful counterweight to the crown and to landed aristocracy. There are differences compared to the rise of social media, yes, but the disruptive potential of new communication media is a factor today, just as it was then.
All in all, a fascinating book about a different time that echoes our own, though I want to be mindful of Healey's warning -- the people in the past were not us, and they could not have existed or acted as they did in any other time period. Still, yikes! The 1600s in England are what it looks like when social and political polarization run amok, and the results are not pretty.
I'm taking about England in the 1600s. But if it sounds like this could be a scenario playing out today, well . . . that's why I think history is so valuable. As it says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. People are people, and what happened over four centuries ago is still echoing through the world in 2024.
The Blazing World is probably not a read for everyone. It is thorough, comprehensive in scope, and juggles a cast of hundreds of characters. Nevertheless, if you're a history nerd like me, Revolutionary England is a fascinating time period to read about, and one that I only knew about superficially before this. What struck me as most relevant and scary: The people of the time had no idea what direction things would go, and events moved at such a whiplash pace that they were quickly plunged into situations that would've been unthinkable only a few years before. For the first time in memory, a king was beheaded by his own people. The English were faced with a clean slate and a chance to completely remake their society. Utopian ideas flourished (briefly). England could be a communist collective with no property ownership. Or a Republic. Or a Theocracy. Or a kingdom without a king. In the end, the country swung between extremes, back and forth, looking to a dictator (Oliver Cromwell) to stabilize the nation and save them from anarchy, only to eventually decide that maybe the old king and country idea wasn't so bad after all (with a few new checks and balances). My other major takeaway was the effect of the printing press and the increase in literacy rates, especially in London, which meant that for the first time, the common folk, the 'blue collar workers,' were reading and discussing political ideas, becoming a force unto themselves -- a powerful counterweight to the crown and to landed aristocracy. There are differences compared to the rise of social media, yes, but the disruptive potential of new communication media is a factor today, just as it was then.
All in all, a fascinating book about a different time that echoes our own, though I want to be mindful of Healey's warning -- the people in the past were not us, and they could not have existed or acted as they did in any other time period. Still, yikes! The 1600s in England are what it looks like when social and political polarization run amok, and the results are not pretty.
April 25, 2023
A very readable, comprehensible, and always engrossing account of the monumental seventeenth Century in England – one which is ideal for (and I think aimed at) the interested amateur historian/reader rather than the academic/expert.
It provides a narrative based history which proceeds at pace through the period from the ascension of King James I (of England) to the Proclamation of William and Mary as King and Queen, taking in all of the major events of the era (from Gunpowder plot, to Charles I ascension, the Civil Wars, the King’s execution, the Republic and the Restoration and the brief reign of James II culminating in the Glorious Revolution).
Many other books I have read concentrate on only one of these events/periods – or often even only certain aspects/sub-periods of them – so where this book really works is in bring the whole period into one cohesive account.
As an Epilogue demonstrates the author shows how the events of the 17th Century were Revolutionary in both the 17th Century sense (of a revolution of a wheel – with the ideas of changes in fortunes but also of restorations back to the “normal state of affairs) and in the modern sense (of a “fundamental alteration”).
I also enjoyed the way in which the traditions of Skimmingtons (which I have to say was entirely new to me despite being part of the name of a well known local pub - one which I pass when accompanying hacks and which actually dates from the 17th Century) bookends the book as well as being featured throughout.
Overall and for someone who has already read about much of the period this functions as a really excellent summary and reminder.
It provides a narrative based history which proceeds at pace through the period from the ascension of King James I (of England) to the Proclamation of William and Mary as King and Queen, taking in all of the major events of the era (from Gunpowder plot, to Charles I ascension, the Civil Wars, the King’s execution, the Republic and the Restoration and the brief reign of James II culminating in the Glorious Revolution).
Many other books I have read concentrate on only one of these events/periods – or often even only certain aspects/sub-periods of them – so where this book really works is in bring the whole period into one cohesive account.
As an Epilogue demonstrates the author shows how the events of the 17th Century were Revolutionary in both the 17th Century sense (of a revolution of a wheel – with the ideas of changes in fortunes but also of restorations back to the “normal state of affairs) and in the modern sense (of a “fundamental alteration”).
I also enjoyed the way in which the traditions of Skimmingtons (which I have to say was entirely new to me despite being part of the name of a well known local pub - one which I pass when accompanying hacks and which actually dates from the 17th Century) bookends the book as well as being featured throughout.
Overall and for someone who has already read about much of the period this functions as a really excellent summary and reminder.
February 21, 2023
Too short. Would have happily read on to Culodden.
The best thing about this book is that it really draws attention to the way careers spanned from the 1620s through the 1690s and that many of the people who made the Commonwealth, also made the Restoration.
I am also glad to see more and more historians drawing attention to what a nasty, repressive, cruel regime the Restoration was. Most of what we were taught in school was essentially Royalist propaganda.
Listened to on audible. An excellent reading.
The best thing about this book is that it really draws attention to the way careers spanned from the 1620s through the 1690s and that many of the people who made the Commonwealth, also made the Restoration.
I am also glad to see more and more historians drawing attention to what a nasty, repressive, cruel regime the Restoration was. Most of what we were taught in school was essentially Royalist propaganda.
Listened to on audible. An excellent reading.
December 31, 2023
The Blazing World covers Britain's political, religious, and social evolution throughout the tumultuous 1600s. This vast scope is both the book's greatest strength and its chief weakness. On the one hand, Healey writes about many momentous happenings such as the Gunpowder Plot, Civil War, Restoration, and Glorious Revolution. On the other hand, the work's vast breadth requires the reader to be assaulted with so many facts and names that it all passes by in a blur. While I admire the author's ambition and goal, I am not sure such summary treatment of events is of much use.
May 12, 2023
The 17th Century in England was a jolly time of incident, no doubt about it. Queen Elizabeth went away, King James arrived to confuse undergraduates as Jacobean and rule as an individual backed up by God, a provenance to which King Charles stubbornly clung until his head got cut off. Now Cromwell! The Puritans! Until, oops! Back to kings again, and it was OK to be Roman Catholic, more or less, and rock and roll. Until it wasn't, and Englishmen figured they really felt better about representation, and proclaimed a Glorious Revolution, and a new king from the Netherlands who didn't even speak English. All this set against a backdrop of a backdrop in a world i n a w o r l d ! of horror-movie radical change. Yes, but if they wanted representation so much, how come 76 years later they gave the American colonies the finger? I mean, really? They learned nothing from their own mistakes?
But that's another book.
Now in the case of Professor Healey's rendering of this exciting century, well, I may guardedly say that as a reader, disappointment set in immediately. Of the forest he gives no account, he is concerned only with trees. A thicket of one-sentence research tidbits. Small type. An academic fascination with the obscure and specific, with lists and minor figures, as if a jigsaw puzzle dumped for the reader to put together. In a century rich with individuals he brings none of them to life, even Cromwell. He seems incapable or uninterested in people, even kings, or the living breath they breathed, or in any sense telling a story. As a scholarly work, well--is it scholarly to prove complication? I would rather think that both popular history and lunch at the dons' table at Oxford have theme and humor, and as their goal communication of the spirit and incident of a time. Maybe the second 200 pages are better. I never got there. I suppose that to be the author's fault, not mine.
But that's another book.
Now in the case of Professor Healey's rendering of this exciting century, well, I may guardedly say that as a reader, disappointment set in immediately. Of the forest he gives no account, he is concerned only with trees. A thicket of one-sentence research tidbits. Small type. An academic fascination with the obscure and specific, with lists and minor figures, as if a jigsaw puzzle dumped for the reader to put together. In a century rich with individuals he brings none of them to life, even Cromwell. He seems incapable or uninterested in people, even kings, or the living breath they breathed, or in any sense telling a story. As a scholarly work, well--is it scholarly to prove complication? I would rather think that both popular history and lunch at the dons' table at Oxford have theme and humor, and as their goal communication of the spirit and incident of a time. Maybe the second 200 pages are better. I never got there. I suppose that to be the author's fault, not mine.
August 15, 2022
I like narrative history and I like concrete examples to illustrate and amplify the broad story being told. This excellent history of seventeenth century England reads easily, with this from the introduction:
So this book is about raw politics, but it is also about the social change that conditioned those politics. It is narrative history, and for this it makes no apologies, but it’s also about how those two forces combined to create nearly a hundred years of turbulence, out of which arose a remarkable new world, one which – for better or worse – was blazing a path towards our own.
As has been said, “history is just one damn thing after another”, but I begin to understand how true this is for the English Civil War, which forms the central section of this book. Although the events cover many years, with unexpected twists and turns, Healey helped me follow the important changes, and the accidents that create historical turning points, and as importantly, when they do not.
The book is split into twenty chapters and for my own reference I have made well over a hundred notes.
There is one chapter (17) which felt out of place, perhaps because I have already read detailed histories of this period, 1665 and 1666, discussing the Dutch naval wars, the Plague and the Great Fire of London.
It also includes rather a lot about Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, which although interesting, read as though inserted to introduce a female voice. Cavendish’s achievements were considerable, including a early work of speculative/utopian fiction, The Blazing World and Other Writings, and being the first female inducted into the Royal Society (discussed natural philosophy, which is the contemporary description of scientific knowledge). However, Cavendish comes across as very much unique because of her social position, ahead of her time, and not part of some larger feminist movement.
To cover such a long period I am sure that Healey has had to make many choices over what to emphasise and what to omit, but for me as a lay reader, the book gives a wonderful understanding of a complex period. There are many detours that can be taken into the various Protestant religious sects (Quakers, Socinians, Muggletonians, Seekers etc) and political groups (Levellers, Diggers etc), which are mentioned sufficiently, but which don’t lose the overall narrative drive of the book. I really enjoyed this and highly recommend it to the interested reader of popular history.
I received a Netgalley copy of this book, but this review is my honest opinion.
So this book is about raw politics, but it is also about the social change that conditioned those politics. It is narrative history, and for this it makes no apologies, but it’s also about how those two forces combined to create nearly a hundred years of turbulence, out of which arose a remarkable new world, one which – for better or worse – was blazing a path towards our own.
As has been said, “history is just one damn thing after another”, but I begin to understand how true this is for the English Civil War, which forms the central section of this book. Although the events cover many years, with unexpected twists and turns, Healey helped me follow the important changes, and the accidents that create historical turning points, and as importantly, when they do not.
The book is split into twenty chapters and for my own reference I have made well over a hundred notes.
There is one chapter (17) which felt out of place, perhaps because I have already read detailed histories of this period, 1665 and 1666, discussing the Dutch naval wars, the Plague and the Great Fire of London.
It also includes rather a lot about Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, which although interesting, read as though inserted to introduce a female voice. Cavendish’s achievements were considerable, including a early work of speculative/utopian fiction, The Blazing World and Other Writings, and being the first female inducted into the Royal Society (discussed natural philosophy, which is the contemporary description of scientific knowledge). However, Cavendish comes across as very much unique because of her social position, ahead of her time, and not part of some larger feminist movement.
To cover such a long period I am sure that Healey has had to make many choices over what to emphasise and what to omit, but for me as a lay reader, the book gives a wonderful understanding of a complex period. There are many detours that can be taken into the various Protestant religious sects (Quakers, Socinians, Muggletonians, Seekers etc) and political groups (Levellers, Diggers etc), which are mentioned sufficiently, but which don’t lose the overall narrative drive of the book. I really enjoyed this and highly recommend it to the interested reader of popular history.
I received a Netgalley copy of this book, but this review is my honest opinion.
Did Not Finish
April 22, 2024Read through page 110 and maybe I’ll return to it someday, but right now I’m not feeling it. It’s long and slightly dense and the deckle edge pages don’t help. Mostly it’s a detailed play-by-play of 17th century English politics, and there are certainly interesting tidbits although it’s not my era of greatest interest. But then there are paragraphs like this:
Beyond London, a postal system was created to connect the country and an attempt was made to standardize the grammar taught in schools. [King Charles I] tried to discourage people from taking tobacco, because it led them to drink and to the “depraving of their manners.” He issued a proclamation ordering the enforcement of the 1624 statute against swearing (although at least one individual had to be prosecuted because he said he didn’t care a fart for it). He went after those who depopulated the land through enclosures, with rather overblown claims made that some 2,000 farms had reopened, even while Charles himself allowed enclosures on his own estates. He also tried, as his father had, to get the landed elites to leave London and to tend to their affairs in the country. Unlike his father, though, he backed proclamations with actual enforcement, and in the process caused some irritation. Simonds D’Ewes, peeved at having to leave Islington for the sticks, complained that the policy “took away men’s liberties at one blow,” though he was being rather dramatic. Some, indeed, took a more positive view. A report in 1632 claimed that in the countryside “more chimneys are likely to smoke this Christmas than have been seen many years before.” In the bleak winter, the presence of landed families in their country homes was supposed to bring warm hospitality to their poorer neighbors.
Which leaves out all the detail that would make this most interesting! How did this 17th century postal system work? What were the discrepancies in grammar being taught and how did they go about deciding the winner? What did the king do to try to make people stop taking tobacco, let alone to force all these rich people to change their residences? (And is it really that dramatic to complain about loss of liberty when someone else is dictating where you live? We are talking privileged people who likely restricted the liberties of those beneath them far more severely, but it’s not a mandate many of us today would think much of either.) Was the 1632 report the product of a different faction of landowners who supported the country living edict, or the government? What kind of punishments were visited upon people who swore, or who enclosed land? These are the details that really make history fascinating to me, and I wasn’t getting them here.
Beyond London, a postal system was created to connect the country and an attempt was made to standardize the grammar taught in schools. [King Charles I] tried to discourage people from taking tobacco, because it led them to drink and to the “depraving of their manners.” He issued a proclamation ordering the enforcement of the 1624 statute against swearing (although at least one individual had to be prosecuted because he said he didn’t care a fart for it). He went after those who depopulated the land through enclosures, with rather overblown claims made that some 2,000 farms had reopened, even while Charles himself allowed enclosures on his own estates. He also tried, as his father had, to get the landed elites to leave London and to tend to their affairs in the country. Unlike his father, though, he backed proclamations with actual enforcement, and in the process caused some irritation. Simonds D’Ewes, peeved at having to leave Islington for the sticks, complained that the policy “took away men’s liberties at one blow,” though he was being rather dramatic. Some, indeed, took a more positive view. A report in 1632 claimed that in the countryside “more chimneys are likely to smoke this Christmas than have been seen many years before.” In the bleak winter, the presence of landed families in their country homes was supposed to bring warm hospitality to their poorer neighbors.
Which leaves out all the detail that would make this most interesting! How did this 17th century postal system work? What were the discrepancies in grammar being taught and how did they go about deciding the winner? What did the king do to try to make people stop taking tobacco, let alone to force all these rich people to change their residences? (And is it really that dramatic to complain about loss of liberty when someone else is dictating where you live? We are talking privileged people who likely restricted the liberties of those beneath them far more severely, but it’s not a mandate many of us today would think much of either.) Was the 1632 report the product of a different faction of landowners who supported the country living edict, or the government? What kind of punishments were visited upon people who swore, or who enclosed land? These are the details that really make history fascinating to me, and I wasn’t getting them here.
February 6, 2023
Anyone who is slightly aware of English history will know that the seventeenth century is the century of English revolution, civil war and the death of the English monarch accused of treason. The author compares this period of devastating upheaval to where England is now: facing the birth of a new world.
The introduction explains how the seventeenth century was a bad time for everyone throughout the world, with dynasties collapsing and colonialism expanding. It was a time of turbulence with the Gunpowder Plot hoping to blow up the Houses of Parliament, religious issues and riots caused by the Puritans banning all the fun, such as football and Christmas. As if that didn't put a dampener on things, there was famine, the Great Plague, witchcraft, war with Scotland and the king being replaced with William of Orange from Holland. Oh, and the weather was very bad and taxes rose.
But what is best about this book is that there is a focus on the common people who normally don't get a shout in comparison to the leaders. Enclosure was the fencing off of common land and caused many riots as did the exporting of grain for profit, leading to many taking the grain back. These stories are relayed through individuals and there is a feel of reading a novel. With the rise of literacy more records of ordinary people were recorded and the author has researched them very well.
This is a solid, unbiased piece of research that covers the revolutions in great detail whilst always being immensely readable. Healey notes that this was the century of change and the start of modernity that includes power, industrial, welfare and economic progress. After all this revolution England was becoming more tolerant. Maybe. A great read, accessible to all and highly recommended.
The introduction explains how the seventeenth century was a bad time for everyone throughout the world, with dynasties collapsing and colonialism expanding. It was a time of turbulence with the Gunpowder Plot hoping to blow up the Houses of Parliament, religious issues and riots caused by the Puritans banning all the fun, such as football and Christmas. As if that didn't put a dampener on things, there was famine, the Great Plague, witchcraft, war with Scotland and the king being replaced with William of Orange from Holland. Oh, and the weather was very bad and taxes rose.
But what is best about this book is that there is a focus on the common people who normally don't get a shout in comparison to the leaders. Enclosure was the fencing off of common land and caused many riots as did the exporting of grain for profit, leading to many taking the grain back. These stories are relayed through individuals and there is a feel of reading a novel. With the rise of literacy more records of ordinary people were recorded and the author has researched them very well.
This is a solid, unbiased piece of research that covers the revolutions in great detail whilst always being immensely readable. Healey notes that this was the century of change and the start of modernity that includes power, industrial, welfare and economic progress. After all this revolution England was becoming more tolerant. Maybe. A great read, accessible to all and highly recommended.
July 22, 2023
Comprehensive Review of A Truly Tumultuous Period
After living in England for 6 years and developing a consuming interest in British history from the Celts and Romans to Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, and spanning the Plantagenet, Tudor, and Stuart dynasties, I've learned that the further you dig, the more you discover and want to understand. It's a never-ending process, so you have to keep some kind of focus or you'll be forever going down different rabbit holes on Wikipedia, from one page and link to the next.
So I won't attempt a proper review of this book. Suffice to say I was inspired to specifically seek out something on this period after stopping in the Nottinghamshire cathedral town of Southwell, and having dinner at The Saracen's Head, a coaching inn dating back to the 14th century, that had pictures of Charles I featured prominently, with this explanation:
"The unfortunate King Charles I entertained the Scottish Commissioners for dinner at the Saracens Head the night before surrendering to the Commissioners at Newark Castle. Charles believed he had secured sanctuary from Cromwell and the Parliamentarians. The Scottish Commissioners betrayed the King and handed him over to the Parliamentarians for a substantial fee."
After living in England for 6 years and developing a consuming interest in British history from the Celts and Romans to Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, and spanning the Plantagenet, Tudor, and Stuart dynasties, I've learned that the further you dig, the more you discover and want to understand. It's a never-ending process, so you have to keep some kind of focus or you'll be forever going down different rabbit holes on Wikipedia, from one page and link to the next.
So I won't attempt a proper review of this book. Suffice to say I was inspired to specifically seek out something on this period after stopping in the Nottinghamshire cathedral town of Southwell, and having dinner at The Saracen's Head, a coaching inn dating back to the 14th century, that had pictures of Charles I featured prominently, with this explanation:
"The unfortunate King Charles I entertained the Scottish Commissioners for dinner at the Saracens Head the night before surrendering to the Commissioners at Newark Castle. Charles believed he had secured sanctuary from Cromwell and the Parliamentarians. The Scottish Commissioners betrayed the King and handed him over to the Parliamentarians for a substantial fee."
May 3, 2023
Interesting and detailed look at 17th century England with the end of tudor rule to the stuarts of Scotland and changes overall in society and gradual unrest changing viewpoints and civil war
March 12, 2026
This was excellent and by far the best of the now three general overviews of seventeenth century England I have read. Of the previous two, Barry Coward's 'The Stuart Age' is a very good student primer that provides a neat and detailed introduction to key themes and historiographical debates. However, it is necessarily lacking in any overall vision of the period and can feel at times piecemeal and disconnected. The other book, Mark Kishlanksky's 'A Monarchy Transformed' is part of the Penguin History of England series and was rather disappointing, especially as the previous volume in the series I'd read (David Cannadine's 'Victorious Century') was outstanding. I felt like it failed to capture the dynamism of Stuart England through its narrow focus on the high politics of the court, with little said about broader socioeconomic developments.
Kishlansky's work was the culmination of late twentieth century revisionist approaches to the period that turned away from the moyenne and longue durées and towards the short term 'world of events'. Historians like Kishlansky and Conrad Russell contended that all major events and developments could be explained by contingency, personality, and circumstance rather than any structural or more deeply embedded causes. In doing so they limited themselves not just chronologically but sociologically and thematically, not looking much beyond the bounds of Westminster and narrative history. Russell's contention that 'the man Charles I' was the prime place to look to explain the English Civil War was exemplary of this approach. Any notion of a society dealing with major tensions around religion, political and constitutional ideology, or the strains of economic change was neatly discarded.
These views were developed in response to the sweeping grand narratives of the period espoused by Whig and Marxist historians of an earlier age. The former saw the seventeenth century as the crucial turning point in the inevitable (and for early Whigs providential) rise of liberal parliamentary democracy in England. The latter found in the period the shift from feudalism to capitalism, with 1688 representing the bourgeois triumph over the old aristocratic order. In fairness, revisionism effectively dethroned these two teleologies and much useful empiric research was put into doing so. However, what was left to replace the old hegemonies in terms of causal explanation was vapid, uninspiring and most importantly unconvincing.
Since then historians have built on the empirical work of the revisionists and headed their call to widen our understanding of the period beyond the headline events of civil war and glorious revolution. This has involved much pioneering cross-disciplinary work in fields too numerous to name. The likes of Steve Pincus and Peter Lake have backdated the Habermassian public sphere to the Elizabethan age through demonstrating how manuscript circulation and a burgeoning print culture created an increasingly popular stage for political discussion. This has been complemented by work on the crowd by Tim Harris and others, who have decimated the notion of a riotous and illiterate mob and replaced it with one of crowds of the age as cogent and coherent political actors. These trends coincide with the identification the growing influence of contested and competing notions of political ideology such as the 'ancient constitution', divine right, and classical republicanism. Add to this works emphasizing the ceaseless religious controversy generated by the Reformation and its concomitant cultural tensions around ritual and tradition; the inherent instability of the composite 'Three Kingdoms' of the Stuarts; and finally the quickening pace of socioeconomic change implicit in inflationary pressure, a crisis of public finance, a rising 'middling sort', enclosures, and the projecting and improving spirit. Seventeenth century England is suddenly looking less consensual, stable and unchanging than the revisionists claimed; longer term, more structural causation (minus the teleological flavour) appears to be back. To take just one example the period of Charles I's personal rule naturally looked harmonious to those focusing on the world of the court; those that looked beyond it to localities and print politics derived a very different picture.
This brings us the Jonathan Healey's 'The Blazing World', which is (to my own limited knowledge) the first overview account of the seventeenth century to unite these more recent historiographical developments for the general reader. Healey's work meets all my complaints about the older two accounts and exceeds itself in doing so. It is a relatively short book and I find myself amazed at the amount he manages to convey in its pages. His style is lively, engaging and does much to bring the period to life.
He deftly integrates many of the historiographical insights outlined above; one gets a real sense of penetration of politics across all levels of society, from Whitehall to parish alehouses. Key events and issues reverberate across these different contexts and elicit responses from obscure petitioners, London crowds, and parish priests, as well as the monarchs, nobles and merchants of traditional accounts. Further, contingency and narrative history are almost imperceptibly combined with wider structural issues when explaining causation; one still gets a sense of paths not taken, and Healey does not go back to the sins of his Whig and Marxist predecessors. Key moments when the decisions of those such as Charles I, George Moncke, and John Churchill have decisive impacts are underlined. But there is still a sense of deeper change moving society; we read about the economic pressures of population growth and enclosure, the financial crisis of the crown, and the impact of new forms of media and political discourse.
Diverse voices and characters are represented here in a glorious cacophony that feels neither desperately inchoate nor artificially melded together for the sake of an overarching narrative. We hear of the experiences of London women in the civil war, protesting a belligerent and uncompromising Rump parliament sending their husbands to die. We hear of rituals of Skimmington in parish of Cartmel. Levellers, Quakers, and Muggletonians make their due appearance but are given a social and ideological grounding older overviews have denied them. We hear of Margaret Cavendish and her tense relations with the royal society; of uprisings in the Midlands over enclosure and land tenure reform. Political ideology, religious division, and parochial controversy over Maypoles meld.
Healey has the requisite sympathy of the historicist and seeks to understand his full cast of characters on their own terms. Very few come across as entirely villainous or without explicable motive, yet neither are the more iniquitous developments of the period (such as the increasing integration of the Atlantic Slave trade into the English economy), let slip by unnoticed. As an example John Locke is portrayed in some ways as a sympathetic figure who formed part of a radical movement against what he perceived as tyrannical absolutism in the name of the liberty of the individual. He he is fully historicised with his now famous philosophical arguments being grounded in the hangover of civil war, and more immediate context of the Exclusion Crisis. Yet his ownership of stocks in the Royal Africa Company and his role in forming the otherwise progressive charter for the colony of Carolina, that re-inforced the slaveowners rights over their 'property' is duly acknowledged, as is the obvious contradiction with his arguments for personal liberty. The last we see of him though he is an old man, replicating royal society experiments in the name of societal improvement and requesting his friends drag his wheelchair out so he can see the sunset. These are all human voices which Healey translates for us across time; he avoids the oversimplification of many popular narratives that delve into a period without due respect for its difference, but also eschews the technical, over-theorising tone academic history sometimes takes, which can dehumanise the past.
A key feature is that in integrating voices of the marginalised and dispossessed Healey does not eschew or show contempt for the importance of high politics. Due time is spent on Westminster and the Court, indeed I learnt much that I did not previously know about the Stuart monarchs and their world (even after much reading of histories exclusively focused on them!). The import of this will become clear when I review Audrey Truschke's overview History of India; like Healey she seeks to provide voices to those ignored by history, yet her near contempt for traditional political narrative harms her project. The risk of letting disagreement with older forms of historical explanation grow into contempt for any of its insights is all too easy, and is something Healey admirably avoids.
In terms of criticisms those I have are fairly muted. First is that Healey largely avoids the 'British-Atlantic' context that frames the civil war as a 'War of Three Kingdoms' and pits the instability of composite monarchies as a key cause. Much work has been done on the interconnectedness of events in Scotland and Ireland with those in England, and I feel more could have been said on this. That being said, the work is explicitly about revolutionary England and I do agree with Healey's unstated argument that there was something distinctive about the English Civil War (in terms of a culture war encompassing political ideology, religion, and forms of civic life) that separates it from the conflicts in, and with, Scotland and Ireland. Perhaps I wish this argument was more clearly laid out, a point which leads to my second (again rather muted) criticism, which is that most of Healey's historiographical debate is implicit rather than explicit. This has the not inconsiderable benefit keeping the text light and brief, avoiding bogging itself down in pages defending its decisions on terminology, chronology, and other arcane technical definitions. But it also means one doesn't get a sense (at least without preexisting historiographical knowledge) of where Healey is breaking new ground.
A final criticism is more of a wish that the book gave more treatment to the post-1688 period. Treatment of this period is confined to a summary of the key aspects of the post-revolutionary settlement with little said about the wider narrative of events or more detailed analysis of developments of the period. I suspect this is due to Healey's increased familiarity with the earlier period, and to an extent can be justified by subtitle 'Revolutionary England' rather than 'Seventeenth Century England' or 'Stuart England'. The pedant in me would like to make the case that 'revolution' 1688 represents was arguably not over until the early eighteenth century and so this period deserves as much coverage as the 1640s or 1670s. Indeed such a chronological bridge would do much to separate the temporal chasm that separates seventeenth and eighteenth century English historiography. However, I have read many histories where the author succumbs to scope creep and extends themselves beyond their knowledge and abilities, and so a part of me respects Healey for his restraint. Further , I am aware that there are many respectable accounts accounts of this period to sate my thirst; Tim Harris's two volumes on the Restoration and Glorious Revolution have been staring provocatively at me from the bookshelf for quite some time.
Overall an absolute banger of a history book, easy 5*.
Kishlansky's work was the culmination of late twentieth century revisionist approaches to the period that turned away from the moyenne and longue durées and towards the short term 'world of events'. Historians like Kishlansky and Conrad Russell contended that all major events and developments could be explained by contingency, personality, and circumstance rather than any structural or more deeply embedded causes. In doing so they limited themselves not just chronologically but sociologically and thematically, not looking much beyond the bounds of Westminster and narrative history. Russell's contention that 'the man Charles I' was the prime place to look to explain the English Civil War was exemplary of this approach. Any notion of a society dealing with major tensions around religion, political and constitutional ideology, or the strains of economic change was neatly discarded.
These views were developed in response to the sweeping grand narratives of the period espoused by Whig and Marxist historians of an earlier age. The former saw the seventeenth century as the crucial turning point in the inevitable (and for early Whigs providential) rise of liberal parliamentary democracy in England. The latter found in the period the shift from feudalism to capitalism, with 1688 representing the bourgeois triumph over the old aristocratic order. In fairness, revisionism effectively dethroned these two teleologies and much useful empiric research was put into doing so. However, what was left to replace the old hegemonies in terms of causal explanation was vapid, uninspiring and most importantly unconvincing.
Since then historians have built on the empirical work of the revisionists and headed their call to widen our understanding of the period beyond the headline events of civil war and glorious revolution. This has involved much pioneering cross-disciplinary work in fields too numerous to name. The likes of Steve Pincus and Peter Lake have backdated the Habermassian public sphere to the Elizabethan age through demonstrating how manuscript circulation and a burgeoning print culture created an increasingly popular stage for political discussion. This has been complemented by work on the crowd by Tim Harris and others, who have decimated the notion of a riotous and illiterate mob and replaced it with one of crowds of the age as cogent and coherent political actors. These trends coincide with the identification the growing influence of contested and competing notions of political ideology such as the 'ancient constitution', divine right, and classical republicanism. Add to this works emphasizing the ceaseless religious controversy generated by the Reformation and its concomitant cultural tensions around ritual and tradition; the inherent instability of the composite 'Three Kingdoms' of the Stuarts; and finally the quickening pace of socioeconomic change implicit in inflationary pressure, a crisis of public finance, a rising 'middling sort', enclosures, and the projecting and improving spirit. Seventeenth century England is suddenly looking less consensual, stable and unchanging than the revisionists claimed; longer term, more structural causation (minus the teleological flavour) appears to be back. To take just one example the period of Charles I's personal rule naturally looked harmonious to those focusing on the world of the court; those that looked beyond it to localities and print politics derived a very different picture.
This brings us the Jonathan Healey's 'The Blazing World', which is (to my own limited knowledge) the first overview account of the seventeenth century to unite these more recent historiographical developments for the general reader. Healey's work meets all my complaints about the older two accounts and exceeds itself in doing so. It is a relatively short book and I find myself amazed at the amount he manages to convey in its pages. His style is lively, engaging and does much to bring the period to life.
He deftly integrates many of the historiographical insights outlined above; one gets a real sense of penetration of politics across all levels of society, from Whitehall to parish alehouses. Key events and issues reverberate across these different contexts and elicit responses from obscure petitioners, London crowds, and parish priests, as well as the monarchs, nobles and merchants of traditional accounts. Further, contingency and narrative history are almost imperceptibly combined with wider structural issues when explaining causation; one still gets a sense of paths not taken, and Healey does not go back to the sins of his Whig and Marxist predecessors. Key moments when the decisions of those such as Charles I, George Moncke, and John Churchill have decisive impacts are underlined. But there is still a sense of deeper change moving society; we read about the economic pressures of population growth and enclosure, the financial crisis of the crown, and the impact of new forms of media and political discourse.
Diverse voices and characters are represented here in a glorious cacophony that feels neither desperately inchoate nor artificially melded together for the sake of an overarching narrative. We hear of the experiences of London women in the civil war, protesting a belligerent and uncompromising Rump parliament sending their husbands to die. We hear of rituals of Skimmington in parish of Cartmel. Levellers, Quakers, and Muggletonians make their due appearance but are given a social and ideological grounding older overviews have denied them. We hear of Margaret Cavendish and her tense relations with the royal society; of uprisings in the Midlands over enclosure and land tenure reform. Political ideology, religious division, and parochial controversy over Maypoles meld.
Healey has the requisite sympathy of the historicist and seeks to understand his full cast of characters on their own terms. Very few come across as entirely villainous or without explicable motive, yet neither are the more iniquitous developments of the period (such as the increasing integration of the Atlantic Slave trade into the English economy), let slip by unnoticed. As an example John Locke is portrayed in some ways as a sympathetic figure who formed part of a radical movement against what he perceived as tyrannical absolutism in the name of the liberty of the individual. He he is fully historicised with his now famous philosophical arguments being grounded in the hangover of civil war, and more immediate context of the Exclusion Crisis. Yet his ownership of stocks in the Royal Africa Company and his role in forming the otherwise progressive charter for the colony of Carolina, that re-inforced the slaveowners rights over their 'property' is duly acknowledged, as is the obvious contradiction with his arguments for personal liberty. The last we see of him though he is an old man, replicating royal society experiments in the name of societal improvement and requesting his friends drag his wheelchair out so he can see the sunset. These are all human voices which Healey translates for us across time; he avoids the oversimplification of many popular narratives that delve into a period without due respect for its difference, but also eschews the technical, over-theorising tone academic history sometimes takes, which can dehumanise the past.
A key feature is that in integrating voices of the marginalised and dispossessed Healey does not eschew or show contempt for the importance of high politics. Due time is spent on Westminster and the Court, indeed I learnt much that I did not previously know about the Stuart monarchs and their world (even after much reading of histories exclusively focused on them!). The import of this will become clear when I review Audrey Truschke's overview History of India; like Healey she seeks to provide voices to those ignored by history, yet her near contempt for traditional political narrative harms her project. The risk of letting disagreement with older forms of historical explanation grow into contempt for any of its insights is all too easy, and is something Healey admirably avoids.
In terms of criticisms those I have are fairly muted. First is that Healey largely avoids the 'British-Atlantic' context that frames the civil war as a 'War of Three Kingdoms' and pits the instability of composite monarchies as a key cause. Much work has been done on the interconnectedness of events in Scotland and Ireland with those in England, and I feel more could have been said on this. That being said, the work is explicitly about revolutionary England and I do agree with Healey's unstated argument that there was something distinctive about the English Civil War (in terms of a culture war encompassing political ideology, religion, and forms of civic life) that separates it from the conflicts in, and with, Scotland and Ireland. Perhaps I wish this argument was more clearly laid out, a point which leads to my second (again rather muted) criticism, which is that most of Healey's historiographical debate is implicit rather than explicit. This has the not inconsiderable benefit keeping the text light and brief, avoiding bogging itself down in pages defending its decisions on terminology, chronology, and other arcane technical definitions. But it also means one doesn't get a sense (at least without preexisting historiographical knowledge) of where Healey is breaking new ground.
A final criticism is more of a wish that the book gave more treatment to the post-1688 period. Treatment of this period is confined to a summary of the key aspects of the post-revolutionary settlement with little said about the wider narrative of events or more detailed analysis of developments of the period. I suspect this is due to Healey's increased familiarity with the earlier period, and to an extent can be justified by subtitle 'Revolutionary England' rather than 'Seventeenth Century England' or 'Stuart England'. The pedant in me would like to make the case that 'revolution' 1688 represents was arguably not over until the early eighteenth century and so this period deserves as much coverage as the 1640s or 1670s. Indeed such a chronological bridge would do much to separate the temporal chasm that separates seventeenth and eighteenth century English historiography. However, I have read many histories where the author succumbs to scope creep and extends themselves beyond their knowledge and abilities, and so a part of me respects Healey for his restraint. Further , I am aware that there are many respectable accounts accounts of this period to sate my thirst; Tim Harris's two volumes on the Restoration and Glorious Revolution have been staring provocatively at me from the bookshelf for quite some time.
Overall an absolute banger of a history book, easy 5*.
October 9, 2025
This is by no means an easy-to-read, tertiary history. It’s a bit of an awkward middle between that and a secondary academic text; it has the feel of a expanded Ph.D. thesis.
That is no bad thing. Though hard work at times, it’s extremely rewarding to this American reader, who had no reason to learn this in school. I assume it would be second nature across the pond.
Some advice: don’t bother reading the footnotes, which are uninteresting. I’m one of those people who compulsively inhales footnotes—but it’s pointless here, save for references to other books I would like to read.
Also, the book is chock-a-block with statistics. Interesting ones. Increases in wealth; increases in poverty; decreases in capital punishment, etc. It is helpful to learn how rapidly Britain became literate, for example, because it meant literate commoners could be (and were) swayed by newspapers and books. Yet, some of the stats aren’t actually connected to the text (in one section, after explaining the reduction in crime and punishment after 1660, the author details the cruelties of James II in locking up the Anglican establishment, not to mention the Whig opponents).
Then there’s James I’s sexual preference, a subject I never dreamed of knowing. He made an especially handsome catamite named George Villiers into the Marquees of Buckingham (1618), and then Lord High Admiral (1619). Then he “even had the honor of having a ship named for him, ‘Buckingham’s Entrance’, though the name was hastily changed for fairly obvious reasons.”
All kidding aside, there are entirely too many “fairly”s in this book. Fairly is a word like ‘very’—acceptable in oral communication, but never to be written. This author should have had an editor.
The most interesting aspect of this book is its suggestion that Cromwell wasn’t sufficiently radical, which stayed his hand. The author is not asserting that because he’s a dedicated republican. Rather, he’s saying the Commonwealth was, if you will, half slave and half free, and so couldn’t survive. Either it had to have expanded the franchise (as it was during the late Victorian era), or should have found an alternative to the Stuarts. The author highlights some Cromwellians who had they lived, the author suggests, might have made a better (and longer lasting) head of state.
There is much to like about Charles I (who was pious and neither rake nor dandy, and still had his head separated from his body), less so about Charles II (good governor, but a rake), and nothing at all good to say about James II (terrible judgment, who thought he could convert all Britain to his not-so-secret Catholicism). Somewhat surprisingly, the Glorious Revolution (when the Protestant William of Orange lands in the South of England, and most of the army, including its best tactician, John Churchill, defect to William (and Mary) forcing James II to flee, and turning Churchill into the Duke of Marlborough). At least as I was taught, this is the cherry on top of the sundae, but politically less complicated, so perhaps not worth explaining to a British audience. (The author spends more time on John Locke than on William of Orange.)
But the constant thread is the rise of Parliamentary power, if not popular sovereignty itself (viz. Locke). Secondarily, it’s about the parish vs. gathered church—and if parish, whether it’s to Rome or to whichever druid now is the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Quakers get a surprising amount of pages; surprising because they have little or no effect on this story.
My point is: this is a damn good book, if not the easiest to read. It gets a few things wrong (Newton did NOT believe that his explanation of gravity meant there was a “clockwork God” who set up the laws of the universe, then walked away—although many of Newton’s contemporaries believed that’s what Newton implied). But it’s not very often I’ve learned this much in 400 pages.
That is no bad thing. Though hard work at times, it’s extremely rewarding to this American reader, who had no reason to learn this in school. I assume it would be second nature across the pond.
Some advice: don’t bother reading the footnotes, which are uninteresting. I’m one of those people who compulsively inhales footnotes—but it’s pointless here, save for references to other books I would like to read.
Also, the book is chock-a-block with statistics. Interesting ones. Increases in wealth; increases in poverty; decreases in capital punishment, etc. It is helpful to learn how rapidly Britain became literate, for example, because it meant literate commoners could be (and were) swayed by newspapers and books. Yet, some of the stats aren’t actually connected to the text (in one section, after explaining the reduction in crime and punishment after 1660, the author details the cruelties of James II in locking up the Anglican establishment, not to mention the Whig opponents).
Then there’s James I’s sexual preference, a subject I never dreamed of knowing. He made an especially handsome catamite named George Villiers into the Marquees of Buckingham (1618), and then Lord High Admiral (1619). Then he “even had the honor of having a ship named for him, ‘Buckingham’s Entrance’, though the name was hastily changed for fairly obvious reasons.”
All kidding aside, there are entirely too many “fairly”s in this book. Fairly is a word like ‘very’—acceptable in oral communication, but never to be written. This author should have had an editor.
The most interesting aspect of this book is its suggestion that Cromwell wasn’t sufficiently radical, which stayed his hand. The author is not asserting that because he’s a dedicated republican. Rather, he’s saying the Commonwealth was, if you will, half slave and half free, and so couldn’t survive. Either it had to have expanded the franchise (as it was during the late Victorian era), or should have found an alternative to the Stuarts. The author highlights some Cromwellians who had they lived, the author suggests, might have made a better (and longer lasting) head of state.
There is much to like about Charles I (who was pious and neither rake nor dandy, and still had his head separated from his body), less so about Charles II (good governor, but a rake), and nothing at all good to say about James II (terrible judgment, who thought he could convert all Britain to his not-so-secret Catholicism). Somewhat surprisingly, the Glorious Revolution (when the Protestant William of Orange lands in the South of England, and most of the army, including its best tactician, John Churchill, defect to William (and Mary) forcing James II to flee, and turning Churchill into the Duke of Marlborough). At least as I was taught, this is the cherry on top of the sundae, but politically less complicated, so perhaps not worth explaining to a British audience. (The author spends more time on John Locke than on William of Orange.)
But the constant thread is the rise of Parliamentary power, if not popular sovereignty itself (viz. Locke). Secondarily, it’s about the parish vs. gathered church—and if parish, whether it’s to Rome or to whichever druid now is the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Quakers get a surprising amount of pages; surprising because they have little or no effect on this story.
My point is: this is a damn good book, if not the easiest to read. It gets a few things wrong (Newton did NOT believe that his explanation of gravity meant there was a “clockwork God” who set up the laws of the universe, then walked away—although many of Newton’s contemporaries believed that’s what Newton implied). But it’s not very often I’ve learned this much in 400 pages.
April 3, 2025
CW: war, religious bigotry, antisemitism, sexism/misogyny, death, murder, islamophobia
Actual rating: 4.5 stars
A fascinating history of a turbulent time. Many of the government policy changes enacted during these revolutions have made a clear impact on the world today and the way both the US and UK governments run.
I have been lucky enough to engage with some lesser-known fiction media based on or inspired by this period of time that I'd like to recommend if this point in time is of interest to you.
Fly by Night and Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge are two favorites of mine. (Fly by Night has been my favorite book since I read it at 9 years old.) Set in a fictional period inspired by the religious and political fracturing of the English revolutionary period, down to the banished royalty, the religious social control, and the banning of printing.
The Conquerer Worm or Witchfinder General (both titles are used), a 1968 film starring Vincent Price and based on/inspired by Matthew Hopkirk.
Actual rating: 4.5 stars
A fascinating history of a turbulent time. Many of the government policy changes enacted during these revolutions have made a clear impact on the world today and the way both the US and UK governments run.
I have been lucky enough to engage with some lesser-known fiction media based on or inspired by this period of time that I'd like to recommend if this point in time is of interest to you.
Fly by Night and Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge are two favorites of mine. (Fly by Night has been my favorite book since I read it at 9 years old.) Set in a fictional period inspired by the religious and political fracturing of the English revolutionary period, down to the banished royalty, the religious social control, and the banning of printing.
The Conquerer Worm or Witchfinder General (both titles are used), a 1968 film starring Vincent Price and based on/inspired by Matthew Hopkirk.
December 25, 2024
Uncontroversial Waterstones front table stuff. Doesn’t just cover the “revolutionary period” as Marxist historians would understand it (1640s-50s) but stretches from the crowning of James I & VI up to the Glorious Revolution of 1689, which is useful. It allows the reader to be guided through the full revolution (to use the literal meaning) that took place in the 17th century; a society ran by and for a basically absolute monarch to a society ran by and for mercantile interests with a royal figurehead. Of course, none of this would’ve been possible without the financial and religio-political innovations of the time. Charles I was a man behind the times who couldn’t grasp what was going on around him, Cromwell effectively overshot the runway of what was possible; but William, tempered by his experience in the Dutch republic, was able to fill the role the “middling sort” of Britain required of him as the coagulating form of empire took shape.
February 8, 2024
Jonathan Healey’s work is no doubt well-researched and that research is laboriously, meticulously, and throughly written throughout the text. The book itself, however, is dry and does not offer much in the way of a comprehensive argument nor is it thematically coherent. Healey attempts a “narrative history” but leaves the reader with a disembodied set of dry facts and dates.
June 13, 2024
The 17th century in England was a time of change, conflict and confusion. New radical thought was discussed, scientific discoveries made and society was changed from the top down. Healey's book on this period is accessible and eminently readable as he takes us from the accession of James I to the Glorious Revolution.
December 4, 2023
I read this due to a recommendation from Al Mohler's 2023 summer reading list and because I enjoy learning more about the 17th century due to the context of the Puritan movement. This book focuses more on the political and military history of the period, and only lightly touches on the religious history of the time. Healey tends to misunderstand the Puritan movement (as most modern writers), along with the Calvinistic belief on predestination. He does rightly class early Anglicanism as Calvinistic though, and adds that Arminiansim was a latter movement of this century. Recommended to those who enjoy history, particularly English history.
April 5, 2023
I found this book fascinating and at times quite moving. It was a great insight into how society shaped democracy as we know it today. It documents the struggles for democracy and the many attempted forms of this. And makes very clear that absolute power corrupts absolutely, whether monarchy or republic. It sets out the twists and turns of history and the impact they made.
It was interesting to see the rise and fall of the aristocracy as well. A man could come from relatively humble beginnings and become a Duke in one lifetime. And lose their titles, lands (and heads) even faster.
This book details many such changes in fortunes and makes clear that most modern aristocrats wouldn’t have managed to hang on to their titles over the last few centuries without the peace and stability of democracy. An irony if ever there was one.
It definitely confirmed to me that hereditary titles above Baron (which can be earned in the UK) should be abolished, if you can’t “earn” a title like you could when they were relevant, then you shouldn’t be able to pass them on either!
The book was at times slightly hard going with a lot of characters and documents popping up that weren’t re-explained, so a bit easy to get lost if you’d put it down for a while. It would have been good to have an index of characters and key laws/treaties. But I soldiered on through and got the main thrust of it.
The most interesting parts to me were the glimpses of the impact on every day people, and I do wish that we had learnt a bit more about what the government of the day was doing outside of the various plots to get either Protestants or Catholics in power - e.g how was healthcare provided, how was literacy going? Etc… but maybe that would have made it a ridiculously long book.
Although it finished on a nice note, I could have read on! I would have loved to see the impact of the French Revolution on the UK.
As a Londoner, my favourite bit was learning about the crucial role the citizens of London played in the revolutions that eventually resulted in the democracy we enjoy today. Power to the people!
It was interesting to see the rise and fall of the aristocracy as well. A man could come from relatively humble beginnings and become a Duke in one lifetime. And lose their titles, lands (and heads) even faster.
This book details many such changes in fortunes and makes clear that most modern aristocrats wouldn’t have managed to hang on to their titles over the last few centuries without the peace and stability of democracy. An irony if ever there was one.
It definitely confirmed to me that hereditary titles above Baron (which can be earned in the UK) should be abolished, if you can’t “earn” a title like you could when they were relevant, then you shouldn’t be able to pass them on either!
The book was at times slightly hard going with a lot of characters and documents popping up that weren’t re-explained, so a bit easy to get lost if you’d put it down for a while. It would have been good to have an index of characters and key laws/treaties. But I soldiered on through and got the main thrust of it.
The most interesting parts to me were the glimpses of the impact on every day people, and I do wish that we had learnt a bit more about what the government of the day was doing outside of the various plots to get either Protestants or Catholics in power - e.g how was healthcare provided, how was literacy going? Etc… but maybe that would have made it a ridiculously long book.
Although it finished on a nice note, I could have read on! I would have loved to see the impact of the French Revolution on the UK.
As a Londoner, my favourite bit was learning about the crucial role the citizens of London played in the revolutions that eventually resulted in the democracy we enjoy today. Power to the people!
February 14, 2026
This is one of those history books which perfectly strikes the balance between engaging writing and rich detail. There were some really fascinating anecdotes sprinkled throughout (one of my particular favourites being the story of the student at the Inns of court who painted over all the road signs in the centre of London one evening, causing great confusion the next day - you could never get away with that now!) but there was also plenty of argument and analysis which really grappled with the challenges posed by the period. The importance of religion can perhaps make this period feel very alien to some, but in many ways the polemic caused by the circulation of so many contrasting ideas feels similar in many ways to our own time (without trying to draw direct comparisons, because, of course, the 17th century is still its own time). This was such an interesting period to look at - it presents so many questions about the nature of government and monarchy, not to mention questions of religious doctrine. It's especially interesting when looking back with the knowledge of late 18th and early 19th century British politics, as a lot of the questions posed by the 17th century are still being smuggled with then.
November 8, 2024
A great scholarly read on how England grew and developed as a world power in the 1600s. While England's prosperity grew it battled political balancing between Parliament and the monarchy, battle religion pluralism and plays for supremacy, and laid the background for many of the civil structures present in today's England and in the U.S.. The foundations of the monarchy in the houses of on again/off again Stuarts and then the Hanovers, the Tories, Quakers (named because they 'quaked' when they prayed, Presbyterians & Episcopalians, and Whigs all were laid in the 1600s. The title was brought in several times during the book and provided a common link to the great London fires, important books of the age, and traditions. Highly recommended.
August 23, 2023
Healey provides a comprehensive view of a near century of turmoil and the changes in politics, religion, and thought in a country seeking to understand what it means to govern and to be governed.
July 16, 2025
Great stuff: this is the big story of the 17th century, the 1600s, in England and environs, with Civil Wars and more progress, too. In many ways, I absorb the chaos from this era as it affects our own.
Recommended.
Recommended.
November 9, 2024
This is a fantastic book. It is a must-have for anyone interested in 17th-century history, from King James VI of Scotland's accession as James I to the Hanoverian succession.
It provides an alternative view of the Stuart Era. It helps explain how Britain became a constitutional monarchy after the Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, and its effect on society today.
It provides an alternative view of the Stuart Era. It helps explain how Britain became a constitutional monarchy after the Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, and its effect on society today.
March 23, 2025
This the overlooked revolution. Healey’s coherent thesis-wise. If I could have kept track of any of the names, this would easily be 4 stars.
“At the sound of a screaming newborn, the European balance of power was overturned.”
Just such a different world
“At the sound of a screaming newborn, the European balance of power was overturned.”
Just such a different world
March 20, 2025
Great book.
Highly enjoyable.
Please read.
Highly enjoyable.
Please read.
May 17, 2023
So, if you followed the recent developments with the British royals, you know that Queen Elizabeth II died after a long reign and was succeeded by King Charles III.
Did you ever wonder what happened after Queen Elizabeth I died after a long reign but did not have an heir? Did you ever wonder what happened to King Charles I and King Charles II? If you have wondered about these questions, then this book is for you. Jonathan Healey has written a one volume history of England from the coming of King James I, who succeeded Elizabeth I, through the Civil War and the execution of Charles I. There followed the Commonwealth under Cromwell and the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. The history concludes with the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, with the ouster of James II out of concerns regarding absolutism and the reestablishment of Catholicism, and the subsequent establishment of William and Mary on the throne.
There is a lot going on here. The huge value of Healey’s book is to tie together a story that begins with the choice of James, the Scottish King, to replace Elizabeth, and then follows through the consequences of that succession that spread across the seventeenth century. What could happen? The most engaging part of the book for me was the story of how the disagreements between Charles and the Parliament gradually grew into the huge and calamitous English Civil War. The timeline is clear and the players are all well identified, although it is hard to keep track of who does what when. There are some convenient overlaps in the Restoration, at least in overlaps with the accounts of Samuel Pepys and his diaries.
There is a temptation to look for parallels between what happened during this really chaotic century and current political and economic situations, and Healey writes so that those wishing to draw connections (or at least note similarities) are able to do so. He makes it clear, however, the the century was its own time and that the people who starred in it would be more out of place in other eras. So the links to modern Britain can be considered, although circumstances as well as long term trends determined much of what eventually happened.
This is a satisfying history.
Did you ever wonder what happened after Queen Elizabeth I died after a long reign but did not have an heir? Did you ever wonder what happened to King Charles I and King Charles II? If you have wondered about these questions, then this book is for you. Jonathan Healey has written a one volume history of England from the coming of King James I, who succeeded Elizabeth I, through the Civil War and the execution of Charles I. There followed the Commonwealth under Cromwell and the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. The history concludes with the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, with the ouster of James II out of concerns regarding absolutism and the reestablishment of Catholicism, and the subsequent establishment of William and Mary on the throne.
There is a lot going on here. The huge value of Healey’s book is to tie together a story that begins with the choice of James, the Scottish King, to replace Elizabeth, and then follows through the consequences of that succession that spread across the seventeenth century. What could happen? The most engaging part of the book for me was the story of how the disagreements between Charles and the Parliament gradually grew into the huge and calamitous English Civil War. The timeline is clear and the players are all well identified, although it is hard to keep track of who does what when. There are some convenient overlaps in the Restoration, at least in overlaps with the accounts of Samuel Pepys and his diaries.
There is a temptation to look for parallels between what happened during this really chaotic century and current political and economic situations, and Healey writes so that those wishing to draw connections (or at least note similarities) are able to do so. He makes it clear, however, the the century was its own time and that the people who starred in it would be more out of place in other eras. So the links to modern Britain can be considered, although circumstances as well as long term trends determined much of what eventually happened.
This is a satisfying history.
July 14, 2023
A great narrative history of England from the accession of James I to the Glorious Revolution (note this is a history of England, not the Isles). The focus is on interesting characters, various factions and religious movements, with the occasional breath to take a step back and going over English society broadly. This is a social history not a military history - battles and even wars are summarised in a sentence or two - and by breezing through the military aspects of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms the book is all the better. I think this book is great for people who know of one or two parts of this era, but not the others - I knew a lot about James I-Charles I, but little about the Commonwealth and nothing about the restoration or the really super interesting reign of James II who some thought designed to turn England Papist again. It’s also great for people looking for an introduction to the period, or a refresher.
The focus on religious and political movements is really interesting, but alas it could always be more in depth. But that’s not the aim of this book - it’s wide, not deep.
The focus on religious and political movements is really interesting, but alas it could always be more in depth. But that’s not the aim of this book - it’s wide, not deep.
August 15, 2024
This is a solid but zippy primer on the 17th Century. Loads of detail and anecdote, but nothing ponderous or irrelevant. Maybe it slightly runs out of steam in the 1680s, or should have been a separate book, so the overall analysis of the century was a little lacking, but that’s for a longer or different book. Overall, I recommend it if you want to get a handle on how the English Civil War started, finished and what happened next.
February 16, 2026
I initially sought this out to gain an overview of the 17th century in England, since I had very little knowledge of the monarchs we were studying (at home) during this time period pre American revolution.
At times I wished I had chosen more straight forward biographies of each king, because this volume covered 6 reigns (if you include the commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell), and there were many many names included which at times were hard to keep up with. In the end, I ended up appreciating this overview because what I gained instead was a very thematic understanding of this century and the changing political landscape that transitioned England from the Middle Ages to modern times.
The book begins with the death of childless and unmarried Elizabeth I, which led to the crown going to James I of Scotland (son of Mary queen of Scots) who then united england and Scotland and officially began the Stuart reign. He was a promiscuous king in every sense of the word, and left his country in great national debt at his death. But he published the King James Bible, so there’s that. 🤷🏽♀️
His son, Charles I was a bit of a religious fanatic. We began to see the beginnings of free thinking during James I reign, which really was the fertile soil that eventually paved the way for the plan to overthrow the king. Charles I was eventually executed, his children and wife went into exile, and so began the period of the commonwealth ruled by Oliver Cromwell.
Turned out the people didn’t like him very much either, and in some ways, though he touted religious freedom, he was just a little bit opinionated on the way people should carry on in their personal lives. He was able to “rule” until his death, but there were already stirrings about bringing back the stability of a monarchy.
His death allowed a natural opportunity to bring back a king, as the commonwealth had not clarified how they would bring about a successor. Would they vote? Would it be hereditary? They attempted rule by succession by giving the job to his son Richard Cromwell, but he was not cut out for the job.
This enabled Charles II to return to the throne from exile. Here’s where it gets a little funny to me. It turned out he was worse than his dad.
Fortunately, he came to the throne at an old age, and he didn’t live long, so the throne went to his brother James II. But James II was, a catholic! He tried to show that he wanted religious freedoms for Catholics and Protestants, but he was also putting lots of Catholics in power, and the people had so much religious trauma from the last few kings that they weren’t having it. And by now, the English people realized there was actually power in numbers and they could do something about it. So they called in William of Orange, who was James II SON IN LAW, to replace him! So began the rule of William and Mary, known as the glorious revolution. They didn’t kill James II, but he was exiled, by his own daughter.
Thematically, this time period is so interesting.
You see direct traces of thought that brought England out of the Middle Ages and towards “enlightenment.”
You see the people becoming more literate, having philosophical discussions, but you also see the pushback of this new way of thinking. John Milton was imprisoned for his radical views, like free speech! However, a few decades later, philosopher John Locke was welcomed for his views on limited government, etc. Older ways of punishment, like beheadings, and drawing and quartering, were being left behind. You see big links between immigration, forced or otherwise (many religious refugees from the continent as well as slave labor) leading to a newer, more diverse culture in London particularly. I loved the direct quotes about coffee and coffeehouses during the reign of Charles I, from that scandalous foreign drink, to the prevalence of coffeehouses and philosophical discussions occurring regularly by the time William and Mary were on the throne. Slave labor also enabled the growing middle class more time to devote to free time spent in such discussions. Science and scientific thinking was also slowly entering the main stream, though many were still skeptical of it, as they worried that it challenged their religious beliefs.
You can tell that the ideas being birthed here were headed somewhere, but England would ultimately not be the final place of rest for the revolutionary ideas. Though the government did shift to more power being given to parliament, ultimately the birth of a new nation seemed inevitable.
Another big takeaway was that though this century was home to significant culture and religious wars, the camps were not easily drawn. Many on the same sides agreed and disagreed both in beliefs and how much power the government should have. Ultimately, what seemed to have grown out of this period was the belief that an individual could think for themselves and disagree with the government.
At times I wished I had chosen more straight forward biographies of each king, because this volume covered 6 reigns (if you include the commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell), and there were many many names included which at times were hard to keep up with. In the end, I ended up appreciating this overview because what I gained instead was a very thematic understanding of this century and the changing political landscape that transitioned England from the Middle Ages to modern times.
The book begins with the death of childless and unmarried Elizabeth I, which led to the crown going to James I of Scotland (son of Mary queen of Scots) who then united england and Scotland and officially began the Stuart reign. He was a promiscuous king in every sense of the word, and left his country in great national debt at his death. But he published the King James Bible, so there’s that. 🤷🏽♀️
His son, Charles I was a bit of a religious fanatic. We began to see the beginnings of free thinking during James I reign, which really was the fertile soil that eventually paved the way for the plan to overthrow the king. Charles I was eventually executed, his children and wife went into exile, and so began the period of the commonwealth ruled by Oliver Cromwell.
Turned out the people didn’t like him very much either, and in some ways, though he touted religious freedom, he was just a little bit opinionated on the way people should carry on in their personal lives. He was able to “rule” until his death, but there were already stirrings about bringing back the stability of a monarchy.
His death allowed a natural opportunity to bring back a king, as the commonwealth had not clarified how they would bring about a successor. Would they vote? Would it be hereditary? They attempted rule by succession by giving the job to his son Richard Cromwell, but he was not cut out for the job.
This enabled Charles II to return to the throne from exile. Here’s where it gets a little funny to me. It turned out he was worse than his dad.
Fortunately, he came to the throne at an old age, and he didn’t live long, so the throne went to his brother James II. But James II was, a catholic! He tried to show that he wanted religious freedoms for Catholics and Protestants, but he was also putting lots of Catholics in power, and the people had so much religious trauma from the last few kings that they weren’t having it. And by now, the English people realized there was actually power in numbers and they could do something about it. So they called in William of Orange, who was James II SON IN LAW, to replace him! So began the rule of William and Mary, known as the glorious revolution. They didn’t kill James II, but he was exiled, by his own daughter.
Thematically, this time period is so interesting.
You see direct traces of thought that brought England out of the Middle Ages and towards “enlightenment.”
You see the people becoming more literate, having philosophical discussions, but you also see the pushback of this new way of thinking. John Milton was imprisoned for his radical views, like free speech! However, a few decades later, philosopher John Locke was welcomed for his views on limited government, etc. Older ways of punishment, like beheadings, and drawing and quartering, were being left behind. You see big links between immigration, forced or otherwise (many religious refugees from the continent as well as slave labor) leading to a newer, more diverse culture in London particularly. I loved the direct quotes about coffee and coffeehouses during the reign of Charles I, from that scandalous foreign drink, to the prevalence of coffeehouses and philosophical discussions occurring regularly by the time William and Mary were on the throne. Slave labor also enabled the growing middle class more time to devote to free time spent in such discussions. Science and scientific thinking was also slowly entering the main stream, though many were still skeptical of it, as they worried that it challenged their religious beliefs.
You can tell that the ideas being birthed here were headed somewhere, but England would ultimately not be the final place of rest for the revolutionary ideas. Though the government did shift to more power being given to parliament, ultimately the birth of a new nation seemed inevitable.
Another big takeaway was that though this century was home to significant culture and religious wars, the camps were not easily drawn. Many on the same sides agreed and disagreed both in beliefs and how much power the government should have. Ultimately, what seemed to have grown out of this period was the belief that an individual could think for themselves and disagree with the government.
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