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English Civil War Archive
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Ideas of Civil War in Seventeenth-Century England
Posted on January 24, 2013 | No CommentsIt would take the shock of the French Revolution for the term 'English Revolution' to be used to describe the mid-century upheavals. -
Cromwell, Charles II and the Naseby: Ship of State
Posted on January 8, 2013 | No CommentsThe fortunes of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II and the regard in which their successive regimes came to be held were mirrored in the fate of one of their mightiest naval vessels, as Patrick Little explains. -
Turncoats and Renegadoes: Treachery and Traitors during the English Civil Wars
Posted on January 4, 2013 | No CommentsThe practice does much to illuminate 17th-century perceptions of honour whilst the justifications employed by the turncoats themselves reveal how they sought to defend their reputations with their contemporaries or for posterity. -
It Isn’t About Duck Hunting: The British Origins of the Right to Arms
Posted on December 16, 2012 | No CommentsWho, if any, of these American analysts has found the truth? Does the story of the British right to arms offer anything of value to the modern American gun debate? The academic literature has heretofore been sparse. My two books on gun control in Great Britain both focused mainly on twentieth-century gun policy, rather than the story of the 1689 Bill of Rights and its right to arms. -
How Cromwell tried to cancel Christmas
Posted on December 2, 2012 | No CommentsA wave of religious reform that swept across England during the English Civil War could have permanently changed the way Christmas is celebrated today. -
Hot Holiday Reads!
Posted on November 23, 2012 | No CommentsGreat reads & holiday ideas! -
The Speeches and Self-Fashioning of King James VI and I to the English Parliament, 1604-1624
Posted on October 11, 2012 | No CommentsAccording to Kevin Sharpe, historians “have long cited James’s speeches to his parliaments.” While it is true that historians have cited James’s speeches, they have not actually scrutinized them. -
Oliver Cromwell : Man of Force
Posted on October 5, 2012 | No CommentsThere is no denying the fact that in many instances, Oliver Cromwell was in the right place at the most opportune time and that events often seemed to work in his favor through sheer luck, assuming that he had no hand in them. -
Provincial preaching on the eve of the Civil War: some West Riding fast sermons Religion, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Honour of Patrick Collinson, edited by Anthony Fletcher
Posted on September 24, 2012 | No CommentsThese were hardly words which Charles wished to hear from his loyal subjects, and the king's displeasure was widely reported. The mayor's speech was not the only public pronouncement in the city on that day, however, and it may be that Charles' subsequent irritation arose more from knowledge of the other public criticism being voiced by the civic preachers. -
‘The Summe of all Intelligence’: Pamphlets and Newsbooks of the English Civil War
Posted on July 29, 2012 | No CommentsPamphlets evolved into newsbooks, the forerunners of newspapers. The first English newsbook was published in November 1641 and was simply a record of parliamentary proceedings -
Oh, what a lovely war? War, taxation, and public opinion in England, 1624-29
Posted on July 17, 2012 | No CommentsWhy did Charles I encounter such difficulties in funding his war? One factor was perhaps the financial illiteracy of a political elite which failed to comprehend the cost of warfare in an age of military revolution. -
The English Civil War in the American Colonies
Posted on July 15, 2012 | No CommentsAlthough Privateers claiming to support the King operated out of Wexford and Waterford in Ireland as well as Dunkirk, it was not until the Royalists took Bristol, Exeter and Dartmouth in 1643 that they had major anchorages in mainland Britain from which to import arms, conduct trade and launch maritime operations. -
Civil Wars in Britain, 1640-1646: military revolution on campaign
Posted on July 6, 2012 | No CommentsThe wars in Scotland and England between 1640 and 1646 were complex affairs that defy ready categorization. They were also remarkably destructive. The Second Bishops’ War of 1640 caused relatively few casualties because one side, the Scots, soundly defeated the English in a rare and extraordinary example of a decisive battle. The English Civil War of 1642 -1646 that pitted Parliamentarians (and Scots for awhile) against the royalist supporters of King Charles I was far bloodier. -
Sir Henry Vane, 1613-1662: America’s First Revolutionary
Posted on April 22, 2012 | No CommentsIt was the 14th of June, 1662. Tower Hill in London was set up for an execution. -
Riotous or Revolutionary: The Clubmen during the English Civil Wars
Posted on April 3, 2012 | No CommentsIn the English Civil Wars, which pitted the supporters of the King (Royalists, or Cavaliers) against the Roundhead Parliamentarians, some might point to the rise of the 1644 Clubmen in the countryside as just such a lower class, agrarian revolutionary moment. -
Ballads, Culture and Performance in England 1640-1660
Posted on March 27, 2012 | No CommentsThis study argues that ballads were a uniquely potent cultural medium. Because ballads were used for popular entertainment, the discourses about contemporary political and religious controversies contained in them pervaded culture more so than messages contained in other kinds of print. -
I, Easy Philosopher: Who is Andrew Marvell’s Upon Appleton House Really About?
Posted on March 11, 2012 | No CommentsIt is generally assumed that the poem is a tribute to General Fairfax and his house and family. While these are important to the poem, as well as weighty political and religious considerations of the time, I wish to argüe that it is primarily about the poet himself. -
London and the English Civil War
Posted on February 19, 2012 | No CommentsWhy did London not collapse into an anarchy of disorder, why did the capital not fall apart under the impact of the Civil War, why did the capital’s social, economic, political, religious and governmental structures survive the massive stresses and divisions brought about by the war, as they clearly did? -
Beliefs and Approaches to Death and Dying in Late Seventeenth-Century England
Posted on January 27, 2012 | No CommentsThis study evaluates beliefs and practices of death and dying among Puritans and Arminians in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, from the English Civil War era through the Glorious Revolution. -
Writing and Re-writing the English Civil War
Posted on January 15, 2012 | No CommentsAlthough not ‘total war’ in the modern sense in which that term has come to be understood – Royalists and Parliamentarians were militant minorities, fighting was seasonal, and some parts of the land were relatively unaffected – the English Civil Wars hit this country with devastating impact. -
Literature, war and politics, 1642-1668
Posted on January 3, 2012 | No CommentsWhat the two poems could not register (beyond a loaded remark in the Epilogue to the effect that if the play had offended the prince then ‘we’ve now / Three hours done treason here’) was the full extent of the political crisis then unfolding. -
`The counterfeit silly curr`: money, politics and the forging of royalist newspapers in the English civil war
Posted on December 13, 2011 | No CommentsConsidering visual,textual,and contextual evidence, as well as literary style and substantive content,I develop in this article methods for distinguishing rivals of Pragmaticus. -
Signs and Wonders and the English Civil War
Posted on November 29, 2011 | No CommentsChris Durston records how the monstrous and the supernatural were seized on by political and religious factions in seventeenth century England as signs of judgment. -
Why did Charles I fight the Civil War?
Posted on November 29, 2011 | No CommentsConrad Russell finds that it is easier to understand why sheer frustration may have driven Charles to fight than to understand why the English gentry might have wanted to make a revolution against him. -
Who was afraid of Prince Rupert’s dog?: The enduring power of seventeenth-century propaganda
Posted on October 27, 2011 | No CommentsPopular histories of the English Civil War of 1642-46 - fought between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians - make frequent reference to a dog named 'Boy', which belonged to King Charles I's nephew Prince Rupert. -
The Role of Charles I in the Evolution of Taste and Collecting in England
Posted on October 16, 2011 | No CommentsCharles and his courtiers brought to England, for the first time, the awareness of taste and the development of collecting habits similar to those in continental Europe. -
The Muse of Mount Orgueil: a reading of William Prynne’s poetry
Posted on May 5, 2010 | No CommentsThe Muse of Mount Orgueil: a reading of William Prynne’s poetry Green, Paul D. Early Modern Literary Studies 10.2 (September, 2004) Abstract The author of Histriomastix, the mortal enemy of... -
“That vain Animal”: Rochester’s Satyr and the Theriophilic Paradox
Posted on April 24, 2010 | No Comments"That vain Animal": Rochester's Satyr and the Theriophilic Paradox Rosenfeld, Nancy Early Modern Literary Studies 9.2 (September 2003) Abstract The Satyr against Reason and Mankind by John Wilmot, second Earl... -
Oliver Cromwell – The Mark Steel Lectures
Posted on March 10, 2010 | No CommentsMark Steel, a British comedian, presents a look at the life and importance of Oliver Cromwell, the 17th century English leader who led a republican government from 1653 to 1658.... -
The English Civil War
Posted on March 10, 2010 | No CommentsFrom the BBC Learning Zone: This video examines the English Civil War. The first part covers the background to the war including Charles I's character, and ends at Edgehill. The...