The World Turned Upside Down is criticized for not being historical and factual enough, but it is informative and fascinating and shows a great strength in English thinking and a strong, zealous revolutionary spirit. It’s a petition from a group of widows in Liverpool, and it gives us a sense of the devastating impact of the war on whole communities. It talks about the effects on, “the many hundreds of widows and fatherless children, whose husbands and fathers lost their lives and estates”.

Knowing that Charles was in desperate need of money to fight Scotland, Parliament placed heavy demands on him in return for their support. Parliament demanded the arrival of two of Charles’ most trusted advisors, Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford. But what about the soldiers themselves, and the people caught in the firing line? I’m here at the National Archives in Kew to find out more about what sources can tell us about them. The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill is an interesting account of the radical groups and their beliefs who were prevalent during this time, groups such as the Ranters, the Levellers, the Fifth Monarchists, The Familists, the Diggers, and many others.How such thoughts could even have passed through these minds, let alone be expressed and accepted even by only a few. Many were atheists, or pantheists, or deists. There was a growing movement of such thinkers being impressed by rational science which they then made into another God. Class War

In this regard The English Civil War is not exactly a history book, but is a collection of accounts from original documents written by people who were involved in these events. Some of the writers of these accounts were very important, others not at all, and this adds to the book’s richness. The Parliamentarians , or ‘Roundheads’. They were given this name because they had much shorter haircuts compared to the long, curly wigs worn by Charles and his supporters. Amid the political upheaval in London, the Catholic majority in Ireland rebelled, massacring hundreds of Protestants there in October 1641. Tales of the violence inflamed tensions in England, as Charles and Parliament disagreed on how to respond. In January 1642, the king tried and failed to arrest five members of Parliament who opposed him. Fearing for his own safety, Charles fled London for northern England, where he called on his supporters to prepare for war. Diane Purkiss in The English Civil War gathers together and weaves beautifully letters, plays, ballads and memoirs of actual participants of events during this time. She focuses on the relationship between Oliver Cromwell and Charles I, using eyewitness accounts to tell her story. The Civil Wars of the 1640s were perhaps the most violent and destructive episodes in British history. This was a struggle between King Charles I and Parliament over how, and in whose interests, the country should be governed.The sources we’ve looked at take us beyond the textbooks and their usual focus on leaders like Oliver Cromwell. The story of war is the story of how it affected ordinary men, women and children, people like Nehemiah Wharton, who described his experiences as a soldier. Or Mary Baker, who pleaded for compensation after her property and possessions were plundered. Or the Liverpool widows, whose lives were devastated by the conflict. In December 1641, Parliament narrowly voted in favour of the Grand Remonstrance . This was a list of demands for Charles to make further reforms. Even some MPs felt this went too far. Charles refused to agree to the Grand Remonstrance. The Cavaliers and the king were forced to surrender. The victors agreed that the imprisoned king should have limited powers, but still be on the throne. But there were many different groups now competing for political control of the country. Charles took advantage and made an agreement with Scotland to help him regain his old powers. After Fairfax, Cromwell and the New Model Army easily crushed the Royalist uprisings, hard-line opponents of the king took charge of a smaller Parliament. Concluding that peace could not be reached while Charles was still alive, they set up a high court and put the king on trial for treason. Charles was found guilty and executed by beheading on January 30, 1649 at Whitehall. Third English Civil War (1649-51) We could dismiss this source as being biased towards the Parliamentary side of the argument, but all sources are biased in their own way. It does tell us about the effects of the war upon civilians. The first source is a soldier’s observations of the scale of human suffering, but what about those people on the receiving end?

Charles had some success in the first two years of the war, but the momentum changed when Parliament decided to form a more professional army. Thomas Fairfax became commander-in-chief of the troops and Cromwell was in charge of the cavalry . The groups were engulfed by a gushing creativity, the iconoclasts, the witch hunters, the Levellers, so many of them, and all sought with fervent passion to try to create a better way to live and think and view life, and in all walks of life, especially in religion and politics. Not for Beginners By interweaving the personal and the political she brings to life this time in history and the reader feels for the lives and views and feelings of the participants, from foot soldiers and widows to witchfinders and all the many actors in this huge, complex story. Collection of Accounts The petition blames the Royalist army for the carnage and plunder. And in this source, they’re saying to Parliament, “we supported you, we made sacrifices and now we want compensation for this”.These best books on the English Civil Wars take on different focuses which bring to light different aspects of this history. The saddest aspect to these most difficult times, with too many deaths and too much devastation to the country, is that the authors show how revolutions often don’t work: the revolutionaries didn’t get what they wanted, and in many ways everything reverted to the way it was: an entrenched monarchy, an entrenched political system, and an entrenched religion. Little Marjorie's Secret - G. Norway (1898?; same characters as The Heroine of the Fire ... both published by the Religious Tract Society) Prior to the English Civil War of the 17th century, several other English conflicts were termed "civil wars", including The Anarchy (1135–54) and the Wa The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") in the Kingdom of England over, principally, the manner of its government. Conflict also took place in Scotland and Ireland at this time. The war ended with the execution of Charles I and the replacement of English monarchy with the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell's rule.