The English Civil Wars: 1640-1660

by Blair Worden

A brilliant appraisal of the Civil War and its long-term consequences, by an acclaimed historian.

The political upheaval of the mid-seventeenth century has no parallel in English history. Other events have changed the occupancy and the powers of the throne, but the conflict of 1640-60 was more the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished, to be replaced by a republic and military rule.

In this wonderfully readable account, Blair Worden explores the events of this period and their origins - the war between King and Parliament, the execution of Charles I, Cromwell's rule and the Restoration - while aiming to reveal something more the motivations of contemporaries on both sides and the concerns of later generations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, English Civil War, War, British Literature, 17th Century, Historical

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you'd asked someone in Victorian Britain what the most important century in British history was, they'd say the seventeenth - no question.

These days, we don't talk about the Civil War, or the Glorious Revolution that came after it, and I wish we did. Partly, we can't decide who to root for: it's not like the Wars of the Roses, where Henry VII was heroic and Richard III was evil (or, if you like, Henry VII was majestic and Richard III was misguided and made a series of terrible decisions). I have many thoughts about Oliver Cromwell, especially lately, and one of these days some poor sod will be stuck in a corner with me at a party and will hear all about them.

I also have a really soft spot for anything purporting to be about those weird shades of Calvinist-style Protestantism that have predestination as a fundamental tenet. Obviously the Calvinist end of things was quite Scottish (I urge you to read John Buchan's Witch Wood if you haven't - it's a hidden gem of a book), but the whole thing is so alien to me that I invariably just want to poke it with a stick.

At any rate, this is a great primer on the Civil War - very readable, if extremely brief for the sheer volume of subject matter. Blair Worden is the man on the Civil War, and he strikes an excellent balance between historical fact and motive, specific detail and broad overview. I read it on holiday, in a cottage in Skye while it pissed it down outside. That's what holidays are made for. Next stop: Antonia Fraser's doorstep of a Cromwell biography that's been sat on my shelf since Christmas.

[Heinz Reinhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A workmanlike introduction to the Civil Wars of the 17th century. As is standard with more academic in tone works, the actual 'Wars' of the English Civil Wars are only peripherally mentioned. I was also struck by the authors dearth of military knowledge when he declared that the Civil Wars offered no evolutionary advancement of the art of war.
In a major way, no, so he's partially correct. However, by the midpoint of the first War, both sides infantry were already eschewing pikes for muskets in a manner that made infantry battles in the Isles more a matter of sustained firefights, as opposed to pushes of pike on the continent. One can draw a direct line to the very British penchant for shallow depth linear tactics that put a premium on firepower as opposed to shock, most aptly displayed during the Napoleonic period. And that was itself an end result of the experiences of the Civil Wars: a very British way of warfare (one that would be culturally inherited by the Americans).
As for the political, cultural, and spiritual causes, and outcomes, of the Wars, Mr. Worden does a fine job. And, truth be told, these were the main reason I picked up this slim volume. That said, this isn't the most exciting of works, but it is substantial in the information it relays.
A good introductory work to the English Civil Wars, though don't expect much of value on the Wars themselves.

[Ed Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief, readable, beginner's introduction to the period. While the writing style isn't what you'd call exciting, Worden does a good job of simplifying (as much as that's possible) a very complex period in English history, and presenting it in a way that makes sense. Don't come to this expecting in-depth analysis of battles, or the tactics of the war - Worden is more concerned with providing information on the major players of the period (both in terms of individuals and factions), as well as explaining the differences between the various religious sects and the broader diplomatic and political background. I did find myself getting confused with the terminology used to refer to various groups, so perhaps an A-Z style appendix of factions and individuals with perhaps a brief, 2-line description of each would be of use.

[Paul McCarthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK I have a rough grasp of the subject now. My god it was hard work though. It is as if the author attempted to make the book as hard to read as possible. The number of pages I had to re-read to try and understand the point being made was very high. The length of some sentences were ridiculously long. Someone at the publisher must have thought this guy a safe pair of hands and didn't proof read it.

[Thomas Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished this book after completing a module about the Civil Wars. I did this mainly because the module didn't cover the 1650s, so now that the module is finished I decided it was time to finish this book. It gives a nice (but very brief) overview of the Civil Wars, would recommend this to anyone with a vague interest in the time period.

[Joe Maggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly fascinating and genuinely eye-opening account into what I believe is a vastly overlooked and now can say a grossly oversimplified part of British history. I was gripped by how my initial understanding of the time period came unstuck and kept engaged by having that understanding built back up page by page. I know you can’t teach everything, but I find it interesting how we often preach that Elizabeth I established a compromise between Protestant and Catholic and all lived happily ever after - when just a few decades later all hell broke loose between Protestants themselves as well as Catholics. I genuinely think anyone with even a passing interest in British history must read this - there are so many nuances and caveats and interesting details of the Civil Wars that are critical to truly understanding how Britain today came about and the simplified version that lives in public imagination is so wrong as to require immediate correction in my view.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

More 3.5. Fuck Oliver Cromwell.

[Dan Collinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

great overview of the English civil wars. Levellers 4 life.

[J. Alfred · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reads as though somebody took a reasonably clear document and started clicking the old 'thesaurus' tab on a few words randomly per page. It consequently reads like everything was stuck in jelly. The blurbs on the cover talk about how it is a 'joy to read,' which in this case means there's no accounting for taste. Here's a quote:

"Since 1653 as before it, Cromwell had striven to retain the allegiance of the two impulses which competed among England's rulers through the decade, and which under the protectorate vied with increasing acrimony inside and outside his entourage." -- sorry, he wanted the impulses' allegiance?

It also commits the more or less unforgivable sin of literary nonfiction: ending on a note saying that the previous information was unimportant. (He quotes Dryden on Cromwell, saying "Thy wars brought nothing about.") And so, the reader asks-- why did I just read this book again? Why did you write the book if you didn't think the stuff in it was worth talking about?
In a world where we have finite time for reading, let's read other things.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of information about the subject, but with the assumption that the reader already has a basic knowledge of British historical figures, modes of government, and political parties, which made for tedious, vague reading. One's efforts to plow through the mounds of names and dates is rewarded at the end by the author's conclusion that the wars actually "brought nothing about."

[Dave Hood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in explaining the religious processes at play. I didn't particularly find the book that good.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat slapdash, but a generally good introduction to the civil wars - so long as you don't need to chase down the references (which are non-existent).

[Chloe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every word a knife in my eye. Incredibly dry and poorly written, this book is suitable for my Topics in Renaissance Lit professor and literally no one else.

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a brief of English Civil War that has five chapters to reveal how the political upheavals in England that has written by the British, Blair Warden, this book described about the origins of the English Civil War, the war between King Charles I and Parliament, that's which had more proportion of causalities than World War I and how the weapons and technologies developed from that war, the execution of King Charles I and regicide set by Oliver Cromwell and Puritans, and short lived dictatorship ruled by Oliver Cromwell until his death in less than two years then his son took over his father's position then the Royalists took over back England in the Restoration era. The English Civil War was long complicated battle for about twenty years. This book applied to the United States history here.

[Michael Fowler · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

I could not muster the strength to contjnue wading through the dense and uninteresting writing that makes ascertaining the information seem like a chore.

Back to my search for a good ECW book.

[Ihsan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only 165 pages long, Blair Worden's book is undoubtedly the best short account of the English Civil War (or Revolution, as some used to call it) you will find. It avoids the grinding minutiae of the usual 800-page doorstops on the subject and has more flesh on its bones than a Wikipedia article. Truth be told, I'd have preferred a bit more flesh (why not 200 pages instead of 165?), since Worden's account is rather minimalist. A few humanizing details wouldn't have hurt--we're told of Charles II's escape from the battle of Worcester, but not that he hid in an oak tree and watched the Parliamentary soldiers searching for him.

Worden writes in a non-flamboyant, compact, and lucid style. He is one of the leading scholars of this period, having written extensively on Cromwell's rule, and it's no accident that his chapter on the Republic (something between a dictatorship and military junta) is the most detailed in the book. But while Worden holds no brief for the royalists and the politically maladroit King Charles, Worden is clear-eyed about Cromwell, who dissolved parliament whenever he felt like it and was providentially guided by "God's will," which fortunately coincided with his own.

Worden is a Revisionist, part of the still-dominant historical school that superseded the old Whig and Marxist interpretations of the Civil War by emphasizing the roles of contingency and religion. His interpretation is without presentism, sentiment, or romanticism, and is most fully explained in the final section of the book, which summarizes the changes in historical understanding of his subject. After the Restoration, the predominant attitude toward the Civil War was Royalist, exemplified in the histories of Clarendon and David Hume. Not until the early 1800s did attitudes widely shift, with Whigs applauding parliament and historians like Carlyle hero-worshiping the once-despised Cromwell. Afterward Leftist/Marxist critics decided the Civil War had been a class struggle and dusted off once-forgotten radicals like the Levelers and the Diggers, who were idealized as forerunners of modern democracy (despite their failure and prior obscurity). Even Americans got into the act and insisted the ideas unleashed during Civil War paved the way for the American Revolution (in reality more inspired by the Glorious Revolution and Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke).

As Worden suggests in his final paragraph, the sobering truth might be that the English Civil War was useless. Its historical prominence exaggerates its historical significance and legacy. After Cromwell's death the military junta fell apart--Charles II was restored to the throne and succeeded 25 years later by the absolutist James II. Parliament did not gain a real, lasting edge over the monarchy until the Glorious Revolution, when James was driven out by William III, who would make concessions to fund his wars against Louis XIV. It was the Glorious Revolution that solved the religious and political problems behind the Civil War--not a pleasing conclusion for those ideologically invested in the saga, but a more plausible one in light of all we know today about this horrific conflict.

[Plots and Points · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading non-fiction for leisure reading is a bit of a new one to me and so is reviewing it. Unable to use my elegantly forced and contrived 5 category star rating I've been forced into that old reviewer quandary, how to I quantify a qualitative opinion. With that in mind I just chose a star rating at random and reviewed it in the only way I know how.

The English Civil Wars is a spoiler. Literally on the cover I knew that from 1640-1660 there was going to be a Civil War, and it doesn't take a genius to work out from the rest of the title that they take place in England, rather than a made up fantasy country or something. I was really disappointed to find out half way through that there really was a Civil War.

The plot of this book was really confusing. There was a load of guys who didn't like the King because he kept spending loads of money on wars, so they showed him what a pillock he was being by bankrupting the realm completely by doing a war against him! Then a really stubborn load of blokes called the Rump (in a grim foreshadowing of the upcoming presidential term) ruled the country for a bit because they shouted loudly and then Cromwell came along and banned Christmas which makes him the King by default.

By the end there was a bloke called Charles on the throne but he was Charles II, not Charles I, in the first ever recorded case of the sequel being infinitely better than the original.

And let's talk about the prose on offer here. No dialogue, way too many characters with stupid names. It was just impossible to follow! There wasn't any reaching metaphors about Love and the meaning of Cough-Syrup or anything like that, just a load of names and dates and exploration of the motivations behind one of the most significant (and yet not significant at all) conflicts in British History.

Nobody even takes a selfie in it, it's crap!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

So if you have always thought, gee, I really don't know much about the English Civil Wars besides that they happened, and Charles I got his head chopped off, and I think Parliament was in charge for a while, then this is absolutely the book for you. It's not going to give you a lot of depth, it doesn't take a wide view, it doesn't tell you what was happening in the colonies or the continent or even much of what was happening in Ireland or Scotland. But it gives you the story, and it doesn't take long to read. I finished it, and thought well there. The English Civil Wars. Now I know.
There are probably some really smart arguments about what it all meant though, and this doesn't really give you any of that. It's just the basic narrative. Worden does mention the importance of the city of London to the story, specifically the people of the city, and I thought that was interesting and a good point to bring up. He writes that one of the major advantages of the Parliamentary forces was that they controlled London from the beginning of the conflict. This meant control of the goods Londoners could produce, and also, at least at first, “large and…eager forces” to man the army. Years later, when Puritan rule was failing and restoration sentiment rising, it was popular discontent in London that helped tip the balance away from Parliament and toward Charles II. I like it when historians give the rabble some agency in the story, especially a story like this that often gets reduced to Oliver Cromwell vs. Charles I.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

The English Civil Wars (2010) by Blair Warden is a crisp book that will help you delineate your Levellers from your Roundheads.
The book describes the complex, multi-conflict times between 1640 and 1660. It’s got a lot more than a Wikipedia page but isn’t a 900 page epic that requires a huge commitment. Warden is a professor who has written many books about specific aspects of the wars and clearly knows his subject in detail. The book is a little confusing, but this is because the subject is confusing. The issues that drove the war are complex and the way that the disputing parties evolved means a clear narrative is going to be an over simplification.
Worth a read.

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reading this book as research for the Lemons Family genealogy book I am writing. My immigrant ancestor was born in 1642 in the midst of the English Civil Wars and was sold as an indentured servant to a sugar cane plantation owner on Nevis Island, West Indies for 8 years. This book is very clear in its writing and tells the story of very complicated politics in an understandable way. While I am not finished with the book yet I can picture the world that my ancestor lived in and possible reasons why he might have been sold or sold himself.

[Bobo · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointingly dry account of the civil war with a lot of dense, abstract language and no attempt to paint a picture. This makes it tough for the reader to untangle the various names, factions and events that make up this complex story. If you're already familiar with the period this might provide some useful structure and analysis, but it doesn't work as an introduction to the topic.

[Matt Freestone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good summary of the conflicts, which I didn't know much about. I found the writing a bit hard to follow - the book is full of sentences that you start reading in one direction, only to find yourself backtracking as you discover the author's intention in a later clause. Still a worthwhile read though.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK...and I was hoping for so much more. A book that covers such a society-destroying, soul-searching period in English history...but it's writing style is drier than the Sahara, and it's enthusiasm is conspicuous by its absence.

[Mason Wyss · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fine as an introduction; it hits all the major events.

He is correct I think to say that class did not play a major role in the conflict as it was a conflict driven by the disputes among the aristocracy. However, I think he makes some ridiculous claims.

He writes at one point, “When the army or the levellers of the rump spoke of ‘the people’, they meant the people who agreed with them and whose judgements who had not been perverted by enemy persuasions,” but it this is plainly false of the Levellers. The army and the rump obviously subverted democracy by carrying out coups, but the Levellers can not be said to have taken any such action and consistently sought to put the government of England on a democratic basis.

Another claim which I think is not well made is that the civil war period cannot be called a revolution because it did not transform or intend to transform politics or liberty. Even though the combatants did not set out to abolish kingship, this happened and it was not certain at the moment of his execution that the protectorate would come about and resemble monarchy or that monarchy would be restored. In the early years, the republic was certainly revolutionary and charted a novel path for the government of England. Worden seems to allow for less contingency and agency than existed in this radical moment.

It’s fine if you don’t want to read a massive book and just want to get the major events, but know that Worden is in the anti-Marxist revisionist tradition and as such over-corrects in attempting to right some of the errors mid-20th century Marxists made.

[Robert Bagnall · Rating 3 out of 5]

History, it is said, doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme, and this decisive twenty years in English history puts me in mind of the post-Brexit clusterfuck we’re currently living through, given neither seemed to have a clear exit strategy, or even idea of next step, after whoever was in charge at the time said ‘sod it, let’s do it’ and lit the red, white, and blue touchpaper.

I thought I knew quite a bit about this period, but I was wrong. Worden’s account surprised me with how few pages were devoted to Edgehill, Marston Moor, Naseby, and all that, which was the bulk of what we were taught in school about the Civil War (singular). And it’s also changed my view of Cromwell, from some Darth Vader-like religious-intolerant megalomaniac to someone a bit more nuanced, who could easily have become King Oliver I and started a dynasty in much the same way as Henry Tudor did, but preferred a (marginally) more democratic way of doing things.

So thought-provoking, but what, for me, holds it down to three stars is that it lacks exactly what the book jacket blurb praises it for: readability. Throughout is garbled prose, clauses that tie the reader in knots, and even one or two garden path sentences. I read quite a lot two or even three times just to make sense of what is, admittedly, an opaque period of history. But, given I’ve just read a slightly longer book covering a couple of millennia of the Middle East’s history, boiled down by Peter Mansfield into a concentrated but easily flowing narrative jus, three’s my limit.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and informative, this book fulfilled its goals nicely -- informed this reader about the basic facts and personalities of the period of unrest (two English civil wars and a variety of related conflicts) without becoming completely incomprehensible in its account of the dominant complexities. Through this lens, the era doesn't seem so much a clear-cut conflict as a crisis that inspired numerous interests to try and exploit it for their own ends. Good thing, really, because who would want to choose between intolerant Puritans and a corrupt monarchy? Like the best history, this book goes beyond the facts of the politics, religions, and battles to talk about their meaning in the context of English, European, and colonial history and in analyzing what the civil wars have meant to subsequent generations interpreting them to their own ends. This is a great introduction to subjects I will certainly read more about.

[Bill38silver · Rating 3 out of 5]

This slim volume is written by "the pre-eminent historian in Cromwellian England"( according to BBC History Magazine). According to me this is 165 pages on tumultuous times where the author clearly knows his stuff but struggles to dumb down to readers with modest or no knowledge of the events of 1640-1660. Worden asks " Was not an intolerant Presbyterian Church as alarming a prospect as an intolerant episcopalian one? I do not know, Blair, you tell me. And using one word chapter headings -"Origins" "War" "Regicide" "Republic" "Restoration"- smacks of laziness , not clarity or "controlled economy" as per the overcooked puff of the book publisher.

There are numerous books which cover the period 1640-1660 in particular the military history (here consigned to 37 pages with passing references to battles or sieges etc). This is far from being one of the best books on the subject. Disappointing.

[Christopher Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly dry, straightforward account of the English Civil Wars, the causes leading up to the conflicts and the restoration after the regicide. There's not a great deal of character in the writing but that's not what the book sets out to do, it's an introduction into what was an insanely complex and important era for British politics and society and above all just an absolutely fascinating thing to learn about. The religious complications were often really difficult to follow but I'll certainly be extending on this book and reading up in greater detail, particularly Cromwell and certain political groups such as The Levellers. I've already picked up Dianne Purkiss's people's history of the war, which gives a far greater insight into the lives of the ordinary people at the time. Really, really interesting period of history that i'm looking forward to reading more about.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a brief overview of the events leading up to the English Civil War, the wars themselves, the regicide, republic, and restoration.

To be honest, it is too brief, and it's really difficult to see what the point of writing such a small book describing twenty years of tumultuous history might be. There's hardly any detail of the major events; mostly it is about the political and social context for these events. About the only thing that I found informative in this book was Worden's description of the battles for religious supremacy that accompanied the struggle for temporal power during that period.

For people with a real interest in the Civil War, I would recommend reading one of the countless works that deal with them in detail, and I can't really see why anybody else would want to read this at all.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Troubles in Ireland, strained relations with Europe and conflict with Scotland - it's a good thing our political masters are deft enough to ensure the contretemps of the 17th century have never repeated themselves! As someone with little more than a superficial knowledge of the English Civil Wars, the Interregnum and the Restoration, this book provided a good starting point for beginning to understand this very frenetic period of English history. Sadly, attempting to condense two of the most significant decades of English history into fewer than 200 pages is almost certainly an impossible task and as such the book can appear rushed in places. A good starting point nonetheless, but it would probably be advisable to follow up with a more comprehensive text if one wishes to gain a proper understanding of the period.