The King's Peace, 1637-41

The Great Rebellion #1

by C.V. Wedgwood

The King's Peace 1637-1641

Day by day, almost hour by hour, C V Wedgwood describes the four uneasy years that were to explode into civil war - a devastation that cost King Charles his life and won the rebels their revolution. Conveying the bewildering momentum of events as the King's peace is overtaken by suspicion, disorder and the sword, she writes history, said The Times, 'in the only way taht matters, as a living re-creation of the past'.

'A superb book, beautifully written. I have no doubt at all that she makes the onset of the Civil War more intelligible than any historian before her' - A L Rowse

The King's War 1641-1647 and The Trial of Charles I are also published by Penguin

Genres: History, Nonfiction, English Civil War, European History, 17th Century, Biography, Civil War

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Dame (Cicely) Veronica Wedgwood OM DBE was an English historian who published under the name C. V. Wedgwood. Specializing in the history of 17th-century England and Continental Europe, her biographies and narrative histories "provided a clear, entertaining middle ground between popular and scholarly works."

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intentions often go bad. That is perhaps the great moral of Wedgwood's history of the years when Charles I lost control of his three kingdoms. I'm still reading it in what seems to be part of some bizarre subconscious syllabus of books that Ward Cleaver might have read (if you can imagine him ever reading anything but the newspaper). Nevertheless, below are a few stray thoughts on the work and the author.

Wedgwood has wrongly suffered academic scorn as a "popularizer." If anything she was a high-brow popularizer, living in her subjects' worlds, and writing in a style echoing the greatest English historians and that was still very much her own. As to her argument, it is actually somewhat compelling and has found echoes in recent historiography.

Charles I, Wedgwood argues, was a well-meaning man but with only the barest grasp on the real situation of his kingdoms. He lived life in a court where he controlled the minutest details of protocol, surrounding him in the illusion of mastery, an illusion he thought applied outside of Whitehall. He understood politics through ideals. Court masques where virtues crushed vices were accurate reflections of how Charles I viewed politics and the kingly office. Despite what Wedgwood describes as his allegorical turn of mind, the king had some decided policies.

Charles was a militant for moderation. Wedgwood never uses such a paradoxical or ready term but that is the gist of her analysis. She dwells, for instance, on the king's schemes to reunite Christendom under a reformed Catholicism for which the Church of England would have provided the model. To this end he was in general lenient toward Roman Catholics and punished Calvinists. Of course, Star Chamber often handed down sentences on both but any tolerance of Catholics always received far greater attention in England. He held back from the Thirty Years' War, though his neutrality was paid for in part by Spanish silver from Peru, shipped through England and minted there before heading to the Netherlands to pay Catholic armies. He kept England out of a continental war he lamented as disastrous and unnecessary. Even the plight of his sister, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, darling of the "Protestant Cause," did not alter his course.

What made sense to the king perplexed and outraged his subjects. They doubted his intentions and misinterpreted his policies, says Wedgwood. Moreover, Charles suffered from a dearth of able councilors. Thomas Wentworth and Archbishop Laud come in for surprising praise from Wedgwood--surprising to this reader, anyway. The author, after all, wrote an admiring biography of Strafford. Her attitudes changed over time but in general he and Laud come across in this volume as some of the only people who truly recognized the dangers of the king's situation in the late 1630s.

Lastly, Wedgwood has something to say about religious fanaticism. To borrow from another work of English history, it was A Very Bad Thing. For instance, Lord Warriston, a leading Scottish Covenanter, receives a heap of (amusing) scorn for what Wedgwood concludes was his mistaken conviction that he conversed with and enjoyed the approval of God Almighty Himself. In another case, Wedgwood writes dismissively of a "prophetess" who shows up in Edinburgh convulsing and decreeing that God had damned the King's alternative to the Covenant. Elsewhere, Wedgwood sneers at the popular outbursts against the established religion. In general, she asserts that the crowds causing all the ruckus over the Scottish Prayer Book were not acting of their own volition, but by direction from a few at the top--and you may judge the motives of these leading men as you will.

One would be tempted to say that Wedgwood's problem with popular activism is that she has no room for it in her "Great Man" theory of history--and a "Great Man" history largely from the royalist perspective to boot. I think this would be a mistake. What really seems to bother he is the abuse of belief. She is convinced that the real passions of the people over religion were being exploited by ambitious men who should have known better. This seems to be about more than her commitment to the individual as the real mover of history. This counts for a great deal, too, but may risk overshadowing a deep skepticism about revealed religion and its place in the politics of the time.

[Karen Floyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a complex period, with so much going on all over Europe and in the new colonies as well as in Britain, and with so many, many players on the stage. CV Wedgewood is a good writer and storyteller, and makes the events of the time as coherent as any such troubled period could be. Nothing happens in a vacuum and none of the actors are without their flaws. King Charles had this awful knack for saying and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, which made him look more devious than he actually was. He consistently appointed incompetent and self-serving advisors, and did things to please his temperamental, conspiracy-loving Catholic wife. I kept wanting to shake him and shout, "Wake up!" But he never saw the reality of how his people felt until it was too late, and lived in an imagined England of his own.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dame Cicely Veronica Wedgwood on the fatal flaw of King Charles I:

"He was of the intractable stuff of which martyrs are made - not the swift, ecstatic martyrs who run upon death in a high impulsive fervour, but the sad, thoughtful martyrs who follow over long, patient years some logical sequence of thought and action which always may, and sometimes must, bring them to disaster."

On the political situation at the opening of the Long Parliament, November 1640:

"Neither Bedford, Pym nor any of them harboured a thought so shocking as the removal of the King; but they did envisage of a policy by which his theoretical power and his actual power should be brought into line with each other and properly defined. Otherwise they might risk the continuance of the present intolerable situation in which the King directed policy without power to execute it, and they, with power to prevent and obstruct policy, had none to direct it."

[Lauren Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good, very detailed account of 4 years in the reign of King Charles I. It manages not to bore while going into what, in other books, might be excruciating detail. Wedgwood really helped me to better understand what happened to Charles as well as how and why.

[Andrew Canfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

The King's Peace: 1637-1641 is the brilliant first book in a trilogy by British historian C.V. Wedgwood.

She attempts to tell the story of the English Civil War in these three parts, beginning with this book's explanation of the lead up to that mid-seventeenth century conflict. The pro-Royalist side of King Charles I is her primary locus, and setting it from this perspective allows much that unfolds to occur within a discernible framework.

The King's Peace: 1637-1641 is not a biography of King Charles per se. It picks up with, as the title indicates, an explanation of where things stood in the twenty-second year of his reign (1637) in his kingdom. The first chapter, which becomes somewhat of a drag to read, goes into granular detail about the social and economic state of things in the early to mid 1600s Britain (Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are not overlooked).

Early on, the book describes Charles as "admired by some and feared by many, he was not greatly loved." It paints a picture of the monarch as a man lacking in much practical experience when it came to engaging with others and confronting danger; he is instead presented as bit shy but insistent of formality to a fault. (This was little surprise, given that his father was King James I.)

Wedgwood expertly explains how Charles's commitment to Anglicanism and the Church of England helped to jumpstart the civil war. She described him as hesitant when it came to decision-making with the exception of his stance toward the Church; he had contempt toward the growing Puritanism sweeping England and Scotland.

It was not of little significance that he was the first British monarch who, from the time he was a child, had grown up a Church of England member. He was native to this belief system and had the upholding of its formalities against Puritanism's passions in his DNA.

An example of how the author describes his character is her description of Charles I as comprised "of the intractable stuff of which martyrs are made-not the swift, ecstatic martyrs who run upon death in a high impulsive fervour, but the sad, thoughtful martyrs who follow over long, patient years some logical sequence of thought and action which always may, and sometimes must, bring them to disaster."

It would be, she says, "impossible to do justice to the situation which developed in England unless this particular quality of King Charles is seen from the outset as an integral part of it."

Along with Archbishop Laud and Queen Henrietta Maria, the king is presented early on as a man viewed with deep suspicion by his subjects for supposedly harboring sympathy for the Catholic Church. His wife's origins as a French princess and her willingness to surround herself with Catholic suitors in particular gave rise to these rumors and perceptions.

The king's early religious reforms seemed largely innocuous.

Churches had fallen into disrepair and become neglected as the 1640s were entered into, a state many attributed to Puritans' seeming disinterest in the physical trappings of religion vis a vis the more spiritual.

The king and Archbishop Laud sought to move communion tables' location in chapels and put one yard high rails around them, require bowing at the name of Jesus during services, and no longer allowed the Puritans' special ringing of church bells to distinguish between a service with a sermon from one without one.

These became greatly resented as intrusions into the Puritan's worship, particularly when Bishop Matthew Wren, a strict enforcer of the king's vision, was appointed to the see of Norwich (a stronghold of Puritan thought and sensibilities). The persecution of those like St. Matthew's, Friday Street preacher Dr. Henry Burton and author William Prynne who spoke out against the king's policies only led to further resentment.

On top of this, the ongoing Thirty Years' War was still raging, and Charles had done little to nothing to aid the Protestant cause. On top of that, he seemingly had a backdoor alliance with Catholic Spain, a decision which angered his subjects and caused suspicions to grow even stronger. He failed to offer much in the way of help for the Elector Palatine, a fighter in the Protestant cause who happened to be his own nephew.

Demands for ship-money taxes and questionable City of London land allocation would even cost Charles domestic support from less religious members of the London merchant community.

Charles would also force through a new Prayer Book in 1637, and this caused a backlash not just in England but Scotland as well. In Edinburgh, its introduction was met with rioting by angry Protestants. This would eventually cause Charles to "come to admit that the Scottish business presented real difficulties in itself and was likely to become dangerously associated with the widespread Puritan opposition in England...both the King and the Archbishop believed that severity alone would serve their purpose."

His botching of this was in line with the king's frequent misreading of the political tea leaves. Lord Warwick and Scottish theologians David Dickson and Alexander Henderson would reach back to a 1580 Calvinist Confession of Faith subscribed to by King James VI to form the Scottish Covenanter movement that would cause the king so many headaches.

The efforts by James, Marquis of Hamilton to ensure this growing rebellion played out in the king's favor (it did not, and he suffered a terrible loss of face in Scotland) are detailed nicely by Wedgwood. The November 1638 Glasgow Assembly, which Hamilton walked out of, represented a major victory for the anti-Charles Protestant forces in Scotland and a significant boost to the Earl of Argyll's profile in the burgeoning Covenenator movement.

Wedgwood does an excellent job laying out this setup to the Scottish rebellion and the English Civil War which would break out soon afterward. The defeat of the king's forces in Scotland, which Conventator officer Alexander Leslie did so much to bring about, were explained with the same level of detailed skill the book employed throughout.

It refuses to belabor points and manages to distill a wide cast of characters into a coherent narrative which rarely, if ever, loses momentum throughout the book's 492 pages.

The strongest portions of The King's Peace show up when House of Commons leader John Pym-described by Wedgwood as "one of the most indicant single figures and one of the most remarkable intellects in the constitutional history of England"-spearheads the Puritans in England in their effort to gain the upperhand over King Charles. The book lays out how both sides (Royals and pro-Commons Puritans) sought to play for time and extend fig leaves to one another merely to buy time for when a possible conflict erupted.

The signs of growing tension in London were obvious.

On May Day 1640, "The rumbling discontent of London, the great, angry, Protestant seaport, burst into a roar of rage. Apprentices, effervescence with May Day humour joined the mariners and dock hands, a whole angry, young, vehement population, indignant that their merchant ships were held up, their trade hampered, their once glorious fleet an object of scorn, their favourite preachers imprisoned, Papists and Spaniards encouraged everywhere, Parliament turned out of doors because it had complained of their grievances, and the old sea-dog Warwick, whom the mariners loved, shut up in the Tower."

The rabble went on to attack Archbishop Laud's palace and the ringleaders were even broken out of jail once detained.

Leominster, Derbyshire, Oxford, Cambridge, and Marlborough became racked with spasms of violence as well. Bonfires were made out of Communion rails and, in Wakefield, prisoners were set free from prison during the unrest.

Charles went on to hang and quarter and display the severed head of London of Thomas Bensted, a nineteen-year-old seaman who had used a crowbar on the Archbishop's door. Needless to say, this high-handed action did little to quell the growing frustration over his policies and seeming intoxication with severity toward those who disagreed. "No concessions and no retreat" was how Wedgwood described the king and Archbishop's policy.

Within this context there is a harrowing retelling of the Earl of Strafford Thomas Wentworth's May 1641 execution. This loyal ally of King Charles was thrown under the bus by a monarch he had done so much to remain by the side of, and this portion of the book demonstrates the willingness of the king to betray even his closest allies.

The calling of the Long and Short Parliaments were all analyzed well by the author. Even at the time of the Long Parliament's beginning in 1640, "Neither Bedford, Pym, nor any of (the House of Commons Parliamentarians) harboured a thought so shocking as the removal of the King; but they did envisage of a policy by which his theoretical power and his actual power should be brought into line with each other and properly defined. Otherwise they might rise the continuance of the present intolerable situation in which the King directed policy without power to execute it, and they, with power to prevent and obstruct policy, had none to direct it. It was a natural outcome of all this....that the House of Commons within a few weeks of its assembling, assumed the practice of sending out its own orders and instructions on public affairs to justices of the peace throughout the realm."

This Long Parliament would strike at the whole idea of a king of England's sovereignty, and as time went on the king increasingly came to pin his hopes on the more conservative House of Lords becoming wary of the revolutionary-like nature of John Pym's acolytes in the Commons. They pushed through a Remonstrance recounting all of the king's shortcomings and pushed through a series of decrees removing images from churches, banning the playing of games on the Sabbath, and such scintillating pronouncements as moving the Communion table from its Popish position on the eastern side of the sanctuary to the middle of the room.

The seeds of the civil war were now beyond clear. Contours were being created whereby two different segments of society, one suspicious of royal authority and the other growing concerned about Parliamentary excesses, were increasingly likely to come into violent conflict.

There is even an explanation late in the book of the original usages of Roundheads for the pro-Puritan/Parliament side (so called because of the shaved, round heads of the rioting London area apprentices) and royalist Cavaliers (called this from the Spanish word "caballero", or horseman gentleman). Including facts like this within the overall storyline is a skill which Wedgwood apparently possessed in spades.

Many rank-and-file Protestants who had disliked King Charles I's high-handedness were increasingly coming around to his view that the Parliamentarians were going too far in overthrowing his royal authority. The breakout of a violent rebellion in Ireland in 1641 was also giving rise to wariness; there was a tug-of-war between Charles and the Parliament over just who would control the force sent over to put it down, and rumors were rampant (pushed by some of the Irish rebels themselves) that the supposedly pro-Catholic Charles was pulling the strings behind the uprising itself.

Any force put together to tamp down the Irish uprising could, the Puritans feared, actually be used against their fellow travelers in England and their allies, the Covenanters, in Scotland. The Catholic nature of Ireland made things all the more trying due to the widely held suspicions that it was with this branch of Christianity that the sympathies of the king and his wife true sympathies truly lay.

Despite recent compromises made by King Charles in vain attempts to persuade the pro-Pym and pro-Viscount Mandeville forces in Parliament that he was backing off his harsh policies, there was rampant concern that Irish officers of the Catholic persuasion who had formerly been in cahoots with Charles were still very much in his camp.

With a lost war in Scotland having just concluded, with Puritan riots rocking towns all over England (including London itself), bands of the O'Neills sacking Ulster and wreaking havoc in Ireland, and Charles having made a series of power-yielding compromises which only caused him to look weak and as if he were on his back foot, book one concludes with King Charles's rule in terrible shape.

His efforts at controlling and shaping one situation after another had fallen to pieces and were, as the book winds down, producing a situation bordering on anarchy in both England and Ireland.

The King's Peace is a fabulous first entry in what promises to be an excellent trilogy. The backstory of the English Civil War is fleshed out nicely, and the book certainly merits four going on five stars. Its pacing is nearly flawless and the buildup to the war is handled about as well as it could be.

C.V. Wedgwood's retelling of the four years leading up to the breakout of the conflict between the Royalist and Puritan forces is masterful and an example of how to craft an enjoyable work of nonfiction.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This account of the last few years of the personal rule of Charles I begins with Charles as, apparently, "the happiest King in Christendom" and ends with the king on the road to London, heading for confrontation with the Long Parliament. It's a brilliant frame for a complex narrative that takes in Ship Money, the Bishops' Wars, the fall of Wentworth and Laud, and the Irish Rebellion, and that involves a huge cast of characters in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Despite the complexity, Wedgwood's control of the flow of events is hugely impressive (even, at times, thrilling, especially in the build-up to the execution of Strafford), her writing crystal clear, and her willingness to make judgements, especially about people, stimulating: Charles I and Hamilton come out of it badly, Strafford and Laud surprisingly well. I found it both enjoyable and informative, although it occurs to me that I might be the ideal reader for this book, having enough basic knowledge of the political history of the 1630s to keep my head above water, and insufficient expertise in the historiography of the period to judge whether Wedgwood's analysis (more than 60 years old now) has stood the test of time. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The King's Peace" is the first volume of a trilogy that tells the story from the perspective of Charles I the Great Rebellion which saw the overthrow of a Royal Regime, the execution of the monarch and the inauguration of a Republic in the British Isles. It brilliantly begins the series and ultimately stands as the best work of the three.
When it was first published in 1955, "The King's Peace" was a conventional work of narrative history horribly old-fashioned as it rejected every tendency that was popular in the historical profession for that era. Wedgwood in her introduction acknowledges that she is ignoring the fashionable theories of her era. Rather than assume that the contemporaries of the events misinterpreted them, she chooses to give full value to the "admitted motives" (p. 16)of the men who participated in the actions. Her trilogy contains no Marxist or psychological analysis. She sees no pre-determined outcomes and does not present the overthrow of the legitimate monarch as a necessary step in the long process of creating the modern democracy of England. Today in the 21st Century, Wedgwood's choice appears perfectly correct as Marxism, economic determinism, sociology, and psychology have all been discredited to a greater or lesser extent as tools of historical analysis.
The two great strengths of Wedgwood's trilogy are her limpid style and the great depth of her research. The narrative flows magnificently. Every participant and every event have been exhaustively studied.
The weakness of the trilogy resides in Wedgwood's decision to tell the story of how Charles I lost not how Cromwell won. Wedgwood's choice was reasonable because, as she points out in her introduction, other good historians have chosen to present the other side. The problem is that the culture and mentalities of the enemies of Charles I are not treated with the same insight as are the failures of the various factions on the Royalist side.
"The King's Peace" begins with two lengthy and fascinating chapters on English society on the eve of the civil war. There was no true road system. Access to the interior was via the rivers. Agriculture dominated the economy but half of the farm workers had to supplement their income through fishing. Mining was beginning but the industrial era was far away. The gentry controlled the population outside of the cities. Country lads enjoyed cock-fights and bear-baiting while country lasses like picnics.
The problem for Charles was that he was totally out of touch with this world. He bought paintings by Italian and Flemish masters, organized masques in the style of Versailles for his court and had a Spanish-Catholic wife. He ignored the Puritans who wanted him to vigorously persecute Catholics in his realm and disapproved of his siding with his wife's country Spain in its war against Protestant Holland.
Politically, Charles I believed absolutely in his divine right to rule and resented having to ask Parliament to vote taxes for his projects. Consequently he stopped calling Parliament in 1629. To raise funds for his navy he then resurrected an archaic impost referred to as "Ships' Money". Charles believed that he has the right to use his army to wage war on his own subjects . Between 1638 and 1639 he conducted an expensive war with the Scottish covenanters that forced him to call another Parliament that in 1641.
The newly-elected Parliament had no intention of voting Charles I the money that he wanted and was determined to wrest from him control of his army. Wedgwood ends her first volume at this point England is drifting towards a civil war that will break out a year later in 1642.

[Geoff Boxell · Rating 5 out of 5]

My third read through the whole book.
My first read was when I lived in Earlsfield, London when I was 20: I was starting my long love of the period of King v Parliament. The library at Earlsfield was extensive and had a brilliant selection of books and, if they didn't hold a book I wanted, they could easily get it for me. I got a big shock when I came to live in NZ: small libraries and they charged! The result was I had to start buying my own reference books as I could no longer just pop into my local library and borrow what I needed for my research and education. This book was my first purchase (in fact I had to get my Mum to buy it and bring it out with her when she came to NZ for a holiday).
I re-read it this time as in recent years my reading has mainly been Medieval as I re-enact three persona: 4th C mercenary Saxon, 11thC English displaced thane and 14thC English archer. Something came up recently to make me think I needed to refresh my knowledge of The War of the Three Kingdoms (English Civil War) and Cromwell's Protectorate.
Well, this book, an overview of the period of King Charles I's reign that preceded his war with his Parliament, the Scots and the rebellious Irish, re-enforced my feelings of dislike for the King. Charles' was duplicitous, always untrustworthy, always willing to deceive and lie to get his own way in religion, power, and overthrow any thing or one who would challenge his "Divine Right" - he was even willing to send his only effective minister, the Earl of Straford, to the scaffold to buy time for him to plot against the leaders of his English Parliament. Charles I was an incompetent King with a dysfunctional, corrupt and incompetent Court.
Whilst giving advice to his main man in Scotland when said Scots were in open revolt against Charles' attempt to impose an Anglican Prayer Book on the Calvinist Scotish Kirk he wrote "I expect not anything can reduce that people but only force ... I give you leave to flatter them with what hopes you please ... till I be ready to supress them ... I will rather die than yield to these impertinent and damnable demands." All this whilst being smarmy to the Scottish leaders and suggesting that he was willing to listen to their concerns. At the time he was not even informing his own Council of what his plans were.
Near the end of the period covered by the book Archbishop Laud, who with Charles has been the cause of much of the religious strife, was imprisoned in The Tower of London - another of Charles' ministers the King was willing to sacrifice. Laud on hearing that the King had betrayed Straford wrote in his diary "he knew not how to be or to be made great".

[Joshua Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

The King's Peace is the story of the four years leading up to the English Civil War: starting with a general overview of the fundamental policies that fractured the kingdom, it moves month by month to examine the movements and disagreements of the principal architects of the war - King Charles, John Pym, the Earl of Strafford - and ends with Charles returning to London, as Ireland erupts into anarchy and the battle for control of the army begins.

As excellent as CV Wedgwood's book on the 30 Years' War was, The King's Peace infinitely supercedes it, cementing her as my absolute favourite historian to read. Her rigour and meticulous research are amazing, but it is absolutely her attention to character, to understanding the overarching meanings of tiny details in the research, and the composition of a gripping narrative that make her so readable. A book I absolutely couldn't put down, I was amazed at how Wedgwood manages to take complex legal arguments and positions and make them both easy-to-understand while also retaining their brilliance: they are no drier for being so reduced. She is a level-handed, fair writer, though a slight bias towards the royalists and particularly Strafford is obvious.

Overall, incredible - a gripping account of the time. I cannot wait to read the next in the series.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part 1 of CV Wedgwood's detailed chronicle of England's civil war. Not a particularly easy read--the political situation is immensely complicated, and really involves disparate civil wars in Ireland, Scotland, and England, religious disputes involving many factions and subfactions, jostling of economic interests among different classes of people, and as always, European grand politics. Wedgwood goes deep on all of it and covers the events on an almost daily basis, explaining as best she can what everyone was thinking at the time they did it. The book therefore does not offer broad arguments for historical causes and effects that are best supported by linking key events whose significance can only be seen in retrospect. On the other hand, this approach helps the reader appreciate how one event can almost inevitably lead to another, even if nobody wished it at the time. I particularly enjoy Wedgwood's subtle and penetrating sketches of the key figures, which is what makes her "character as destiny" style of historical analysis compelling. This book filled in a lot of blanks for me as to how it all came about, and I'm looking forward to reading part 2 (The King's War).

[Alex Putnam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very, very good history with a very large caveat. The opening is brilliant - an eagle eyed survey of the Isles that is absolutely masterful. But then the eye falls to a narrative weighed down by the detail. An incredibly detailed detail, it is one without an introduction, one that thrusts the reader back into 1637 without an overlay of 1636 or any year precedent. Characters are introduced without introduction, major events occur without warning. Do not come to this book without a knowledge of the history it tells or it will mercilessly show you the exit. It will entertain the reader’s basic understanding of the events with moments of brilliance (see for example the fall of Strafford) but will leave that reader begging for an intermediary source the majority of the time. Perhaps there is more hope for the advanced reader but alas this reviewer is not one.

[Dean Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book covering the period 1637 to 1641 in the reign of King Charles I. Wedgwood offers a richly detailed account of this pivotal and turbulent time, capturing the complexity of events and personalities with clarity and depth. Focusing tightly on these four years allows the author to explore the interwoven claims, counterclaims, and motivations of the key players in great detail. While this volume stops short of the outbreak of civil war, it serves as a compelling foundation. I’d recommend reading it alongside broader works on the English Civil War to gain a fuller perspective on the unfolding crisis.

[Lord Bathcanoe of Snark · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of the years leading to the disastrous English Civil War. The book paints a picture of Charles I as a duplicitous dictator whose refusal to compromise brought about his own well deserved downfall.
And so to the next chapter The Kings War. This tells how Charlie's privileged stupidity led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Britons.
England became a republic because of this nit wit. Unfortunately we brought the nit wits back.
The idiocy of religious ideology also plays a major role in this tragic story.
A must read for republicans and atheists like me..

[Chaston Kome · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opening section is peak Wedgwood - beautiful and incredible descriptions of what life was like in the early 17th Century. As with many of her histories, it can be hard to follow the cast of characters, though that seems to speak more to the times than her ability to tell a story - as always she has such a clear insight into all of these figures.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the struggles that led to the English Civil War. Wedgwood does an excellent job of guiding the reader through the 3 kingdoms and the problems that led to inevitable war. Although at times bogged down with detail, I particularly enjoyed the antidotal stories. They helped the reader understand the events at a personal level.

[Judith]

I have come to the conclusion that this is too complicated for someone (i.e. me) who ‘just’ wanted to learn a bit about the Civil War. I have also abandoned the idea of following this up with The Kings Peace.

[Chance Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

C.V. Wedgewood's first installment of her trilogy "The Great Rebellion" didn't disappoint. While the series is dated now since it's publishing in the 1950's and 60's, I still believe it's a very valuable and detailed resource on the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the British Isles.

[Enrique Wedgwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

good introduction to the period immediately preceding the English civil war.
challenging without at some contextual understanding of the period

[Adam]

It's good!

[Elizabeth S]

mentioned in Left-Handed Booksellers of London

[Tim Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and very engaging history.

[George Melhuish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting civil war stuff

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding the history of the government of the British Government is kind of like understanding the rules of Cricket-it doesn't appear to be possible. At the time of history that covers this book, King Charles I was king of three nations, not yet united. His rule of England was absolute, but not absolute. His rule of Scotland was basically in name only and his rule of Ireland was remote. On top of that, England was still in the midst of major religious turmoil as the Puritans were out to kill and destroy anyone and anything that was not Puritan, the Scots who were trying to not let the Church of England nor the Catholic church into Scotland, and Ireland that was trying to regain their Catholic base. Add on top of this the Parliament that was either in session or disbanded. When the King needed more money to invade Scotland, he recalled Parliament to raise taxes. When he recalled the Parliament, the House of Commons quickly went about to bring to court for treason as many of the King's advisors as they could, which led to beheadings. War with Scotland, war with Ireland, internal wars, war with the Natherlands....all before the first Civil War which ended with the beheading of the King. So, which is easier to understand-Cricket or the English government?

[Bea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite a scholarly book, since it is more focussed on description of what was happening, and people involved, than on analysis, but it isn't easy reading either. It has made me much more interested in the Stewarts; and the chaos of those times in that country remind me of some things happening in my country, now.

[Darrick Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good account of the events leading up to the civil wars of the 1640s in England. And as a book, the Folio Society's edition is physically beautiful, and wonderful book to possess by that measure alone.

[Julaine]

Source: The Strand

[Rob]

recommended by Dan Savage

[Joseph Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Especially good on the politics of Parliament trying to gain the ascendancy.