The English Civil War

Almost a quarter of a million lives were lost as King and Parliament battled for their religious and political ideals in the English Civil War. England was divided with Cavaliers and Roundheads engaged in bitter struggles from Preston to Lostwithiel, Pembroke to York. It was a time of enormous upheaval with armies on the march, villages decimated, and great dynasties destroyed. The civil war sees a king executed, the beginnings of sectarian divisions in Ireland, savage clan warfare in Scotland, and the roots of English socialism.

Tristram Hunt brings out the voices of the civil war generation. Those who lost sons, those who fought for an ideal. Here we see their motivations, fears, and sheer misery as the horror of war sinks in. From Cromwell’s letters to the memoirs of a Roundhead wife to the journal of a Cavalier officer, the civil war era is brought to life in all its terrible but fascinating glory.