The World Turned Upside Down - The British Civil Wars 1638-1651

After years of tension between a king and his people, in 1641 England reaches a semblance of peace. Armies have disbanded, legislation has passed to ensure Parliament will continue to sit, and the people are tentatively optimistic. Radical politicians congratulate themselves on a stunning political victory. Royal servants are coming to accept an altered future. ... Read more

The early Quaker movement was remarkable for its prolific use of print to spread its messages throughout Britain. Indeed, print was critically important in the successful proselytizing of the Quaker message across the country in these early days. It was through its pamphlets that Quaker thinking and arguments became so powerful so rapidly in revolutionary ... Read more

Recent research, particularly by members of the Civil War Petitions Project, has shown how the experiences of the wounded and widowed are central to understanding the conflict’s impact on British society. In this talk by the Project’s Principal Investigator, Professor Andrew Hopper, we glimpse the dramatic extent of the War’s destructive effects upon the people of Yorkshire. Large sums of money were raised for military welfare, indicating the consent and commitment of ... Read more

From the 1990s, the approaches of revisionist historians to the Civil Wars did much to recast the series of conflicts as ‘the Wars of the Three Kingdoms’. These historians stressed the importance of events in Scotland and Ireland in bringing about the eventual outbreak of Civil War in England. But the Civil Wars were not ... Read more

In this programme, Vanessa Emmett, a doctoral student in English Local History at Kellogg College at the University of Oxford, discusses the contribution of Oxford’s citizens to the Royalist war effort between 1642 and 1646. When King Charles I and his court arrived in Oxford to take up residence in November 1642, he was welcomed by ... Read more