This important collection of essays, based on extensive original research, presents a vigorous critique of ` revisionist' analyses of the period, and reasserts the importance of long term ideological and social developments in causing the outbreak of the civil war.

This wide-ranging volume goes to the heart of the revisionist debate about the crisis of government that led to the English Civil War. The author tackles questions about the patronage that structured early modern society, arguing that the increase in royal bounty in the early seventeenth century redefined the corrupt practices that characterized early modern administration.

Highlights the breadth of surviving material for seventeenth century Parliaments in England.

Parliamentary Selection examines how members of Parliament were chosen from 1558-1702.

An investigation into the 'Constitutional royalists' and their role in the English Revolution.