This collection of essays examines the struggles of the people of England with the collapse of civilization as they knew it. As the country fell into civil war and near anarchy, the people sought out in word and action how to preserve what could still be preserved or to create new political, religious and social certainties. The authors discuss individuals or groups who were soldiers, writers or statesmen of the Civil Wars or the Interregnum, people who were at the centre of power or in more humble and localized circumstances. All of the authors take their inspiration from the work of Austin Woolrych, whose own books and articles focus on these very questions. This volume is published in his honour.

This Handbook brings together leading historians of the events surrounding the English revolution, exploring how the events of the revolution grew out of, and resonated, in the politics and interactions of the each of the Three Kingdoms - England, Scotland, and Ireland. It captures a shared British and Irish history, comparing the significance of events and outcomes across the Three Kingdoms. In doing so, the Handbook offers a broader context for the history of the Scottish Covenanters, the Irish Rising of 1641, and the government of Confederate Ireland, as well as the British and Irish perspective on the English civil wars, the English revolution, the Regicide, and Cromwellian period. The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution explores the significance of these events on a much broader front than conventional studies. The events are approached not simply as political, economic, and social crises, but as challenges to the predominant forms of religious and political thought, social relations, and standard forms of cultural expression. The contributors provide up-to-date analysis of the political happenings, considering the structures of social and political life that shaped and were re-shaped by the crisis. The Handbook goes on to explore the long-term legacies of the crisis in the Three Kingdoms and their impact in a wider European context.

Ian Gentles provides a riveting, in-depth analysis of the battles and sieges, as well as the political and religious struggles that underpinned them. Based on extensive archival and secondary research he undertakes the first sustained attempt to arrive at global estimates of the human and economic cost of the wars. The many actors in the drama are appraised with subtlety. Charles I, while partly the author of his own misfortune, is shown to have been at moments an inspirational leader. The English Revolution and the Wars in the Three Kingdoms is a sophisticated, comprehensive, exciting account of the sixteen years that were the hinge of British and Irish history. It encompasses politics and war, personalities and ideas, embedding them all in a coherent and absorbing narrative.

The English Civil Wars and Revolution remain controversial. This book develops the theme that the Revolution, arising from the three separate rebellions, was an English phenomenon exported to Ireland and then to Scotland. Dr Kennedy examines the widespread effects of years of bloody and unnatural civil wars upon the British Isles. He also explores the symbolism of Charles I's execution, the 'great debates' about the proper limits of the King's authority and the 'great divide' in English politics which makes neutral writing about this period impossible. Taking into account the radical exigencies and expectations of war and peace-making, the discordant testimonies from battlefield and bargaining table, Parliament, press and pulpit, Dr Kennedy provides a full analysis of the English experience of revolution.

Turncoats and Renegadoes is the first dedicated study of the practice of changing sides during the English Civil Wars. It examines the extent and significance of side-changing in England and Wales but also includes comparative material from Scotland and Ireland. The first half identifies side-changers among peers, MPs, army officers, and common soldiers, before reconstructing the chronological and regional patterns to their defections. The second half delivers a cultural history of treachery, by adopting a thematic approach to explore the social and cultural implications of defections, and demonstrating how notions of what constituted a turncoat were culturally constructed. Side-changing came to dominate strategy on both sides at the highest levels. Both sides reviled, yet sought to take advantage of the practice, whilst allegations of treachery came to dominate the internal politics of royalists and parliamentarians alike. The language applied to 'turncoats and renegadoes' in contemporary print is discussed and contrasted with the self-justifications of the side-changers themselves as they sought to shape an honourable self-image for their families and posterity. Andrew Hopper investigates the implementation of military justice, along with the theatre of retribution surrounding the trial and execution of turncoats. He concludes by arguing that, far from side-changing being the dubious practice of a handful of aberrant individuals, it became a necessary survival strategy for thousands as they navigated their way through such rapidly changing events. He reveals how side-changing shaped the course of the English Revolution, even contributing to the regicide itself, and remained an important political legacy to the English speaking peoples thereafter.

Perspectives on English Revolutionary Republicanism takes stock of developments in the scholarship of seventeenth-century English republicanism by looking at the movements and schools of thought that have shaped the field over the decades: the linguistic turn, the cultural turn and the religious turn. While scholars of seventeenth-century republicanism share their enthusiasm for their field, they have approached their subject in diverse ways. The contributors to the present volume have taken the opportunity to bring these approaches together in a number of case studies covering republican language, republican literary and political culture, and republican religion, to paint a lively picture of the state of the art in republican scholarship. The volume begins with three chapters influenced by the theory and methodology of the linguistic turn, before moving on to address cultural history approaches to English republicanism, including both literary culture and (practical) political culture. The final section of the volume looks at how religion intersected with ideas of republican thought. Taken together the essays demonstrate the vitality and diversity of what was once regarded as a narrow topic of political research.

This interdisciplinary volume of essays brings together a team of leading early modern historians and literary scholars in order to examine the changing conceptions, character, and condemnation of 'heresy' in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Definitions of 'heresy' and 'heretics' were the subject of heated controversies in England from the English Reformation to the end of the seventeenth century. These essays illuminate the significant literary issues involved in both defending and demonising heretical beliefs, including the contested hermeneutic strategies applied to the interpretation of the Bible, and they examine how debates over heresy stimulated the increasing articulation of arguments for religious toleration in England. Offering fresh perspectives on John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and others, this volume should be of interest to all literary, religious and political historians working on early modern English culture.

This book explores the content of The Moderate, a radical newspaper of the British Civil Wars published in the pivotal years 1648-9. This newsbook, as newspapers were then known, is commonly associated with the Leveller movement, a radical political group that promoted a democratic form of government. While valuable studies have been published on the history of seventeenth-century English periodicals, as well as on the interaction between these newspapers and print culture at large, very little has been written on individual newspapers. This book fills a void: it provides an in-depth investigation of the news printed in The Moderate, with reference to other newspapers and to the larger historical context, and captures the essence of this periodical, seen both as a political publication and a commercial product. This book will be of interest to early-modern historians and literary scholars.

Britain has not been successfully invaded since 1066; nor, in nearly 1,000 years has it known a true revolution – one that brings radical, systemic and enduring change. The contrast with Britain’s European neighbours, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Russia, is dramatic – all have been convulsed by external warfare, revolution and civil war and experienced fundamental change to their ruling elites or social and economic structures. Frank McLynn takes seven occasions when Britain came closest to revolution: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; the Jack Cade rebellion of 1450; the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536; the English Civil Wars of the 1640s; the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6; the Chartist Movement of 1838-48; and the General Strike of 1926. Why, at these dramatic turning points, did history finally fail to turn? McLynn examines Britain’s history and themes of social, religious and political change to explain why social turbulence stopped short of revolution on so many occasions.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of European history and culture between the 14th and 17th centuries. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibliographies.com.