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

Pantomime villains, box office gold and famous (or infamous) shadowy figures of fiction and non-fiction, pirates are familiar stereotypes in popular media. But these common images hide a critically important group of men (and occasionally women) who were socially, economically and politically significant in shaping the European maritime empires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. ... Read more

The inseparable intimate relationship between politics, production and trade in the years preceding the Civil Wars has often been underplayed or even ignored. However, historians now increasingly recognise that the links between occupation and religious beliefs were fundamentally important in nurturing opposition to the King and his government in the years prior to the Civil ... Read more

Major-General Thomas Harrison (1616 – 1660) is one of the most complex figures to emerge during Interregnum. He was promoted through the ranks of the Parliamentary Army, starting as a trooper at the Battle of Powick Bridge, one of the first engagements of the war in September 1642. He rose to command the Army in Wales, and then in England in 1651 while Cromwell was in Scotland. Unsurprisingly as a ... Read more

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