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THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

At First Hand

TRISTRAM HUNT

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Contents

 Introduction

    I    King Charles I: Man and Monarch

   II    Charles I and Scotland: Kingdoms in Collision

  III    King and Parliament: The Breakdown

  IV    King or Country?: Choosing Sides

   V    Country in Conflict: This War without an Enemy

  VI    A Brave, Bad Man

 VII    Saturn’s Children

VIII    Civil War to Revolution

  IX    Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer and Public Enemy

   X    A World Turned Upside Down

  XI    The Lord Protector

 Bibliography

 Index

 Follow Penguin

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR AT FIRST HAND

Tristram Hunt is one of Britain’s best known young historians. Educated at Cambridge and Chicago Universities, he is lecturer in British history at Queen Mary, University of London and author of Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City and The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels. A leading historical broadcaster, he has authored numerous series for BBC radio and television and Channel 4. He is also a regular contributor to The Times, the Guardian and the Observer.

The Lord hath done such things amongst us as have not been known in the world these thousand years

OLIVER CROMWELL, 27 January 1654

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Anthony Cheetham for suggesting the idea for this book and my editors Michele Hutchison and Ion Trewin for making it happen so calmly. At Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Roisin Heycock, Laura Searle, Alex Knights and Victoria Webb were invaluable in marshalling the vast array of documents. For his help in discovering the more obscure texts of the period and for his excellent knowledge of mid-seventeenth century literature and religious heterodoxy, my thanks to Simon Dyton. And for his intricate grasp of seventeenth-century portraiture and iconography, Tom Graves. I would also like to thank my agent, Georgina Capel; Alan Clements at WarkClements for re-igniting my interest in the war of the three kingdoms; Professor John Morrill, University of Cambridge; Professor Blair Worden, University of Sussex; Susan and Richard Griffin; the staff of the Rare Books Room, Cambridge Library; and the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge.

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