Philip Skippon was the third-most senior general in parliament’s New Model Army during the British Civil Wars. A veteran of European Protestant armies during the period of the Thirty Years’ War and long-serving commander of the London Trained Bands, no other high-ranking parliamentarian enjoyed such a long military career as Skippon. He was an author of religious books, an MP and a senior political figure in the republican and Cromwellian regimes. This is the first book to examine Skippon’s career, which is used to shed new light on historical debates surrounding the Civil Wars and understand how military events of this period impacted upon broader political, social and cultural themes.

Battle-scarred investigates the human costs of the British Civil Wars. Through a series of varied case studies it examines the wartime experience of disease, burial, surgery and wounds, medicine, hospitals, trauma, military welfare, widowhood, desertion, imprisonment and charity. The percentage population loss in these conflicts was far higher than that of the two World Wars, which renders the Civil Wars arguably the most unsettling experience the British people have ever undergone. The volume explores its themes from new angles, demonstrating how military history can broaden its perspective and reach out to new audiences.

In this compelling history of the violent struggle between the monarchy and Parliament that tore apart seventeenth-century England, a rising star among British historians sheds new light on the people who fought and died through those tumultuous years. Drawing on exciting new sources, including letters, memoirs, ballads, plays, illustrations, and even cookbooks, Diane Purkiss creates a rich and nuanced portrait of this turbulent era. The English Civil War’s dramatic consequences-rejecting the divine right monarchy in favor of parliamentary rule-continue to influence our lives, and in this colorful narrative, Purkiss vividly brings to life the history that changed the course of Western government.

When a large number of the people in Scotland rejected King Charles I's religious policy, they set in motion a train of events that resonated throughout England, Wales, and Ireland and challenged the rule of the king. Between 1637 and 1660 the British Isles were embroiled in a series of wars, rebellions, and revolutions that affected not only all the political and social institutions within them, but all of the people living there. Radical changes in the political relationships within the four nations sparked a series of wars that brought far-reaching political revolution. By spring 1649 the king had been executed, the monarchy abolished in England and Wales, and a republic established. The 1650s saw Scotland and Ireland incorporated into the republic as the wars finally ended. The republic had a brief life but by 1660 it was ended and the monarchy restored, the united nation established in 1653 was again broken into its component parts, and the old institutions seemingly returned to preeminence. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the British and Irish Civil Wars 1637-1660 contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, and military technology, as well as descriptions of the battles of the war. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this period in history.

The first book-length biography of John Cruso of Norwich (b. 1592/3), a second-generation migrant poet, translator and military author, that explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period.John Cruso of Norwich (b. 1592/3), the eldest son of Flemish migrants, was a man of many parts: Dutch and English poet, translator, military author, virtuoso networker, successful merchant and hosier, Dutch church elder and militia captain. This first book-length biography, making extensive use of archival and literary sources, reconstructs the life and work of this multi-talented, self-made man, whose literary oeuvre is marked by its polyvocality. Cruso''s poetry includes a Dutch amplificatio on Psalm 8, some 221 Dutch epigrams, and elegies (one of which frames the most important Anglo-Dutch literary moment in the seventeenth century, a collection of Dutch and Latin elegies which marked the death of the London Dutch church minister, Simeon Ruytinck, and included verses by Constantijn Huygens and Jacob Cats). As a military author, Cruso published five works, in English, including two translations from the French. These works display his knowledge of the canon of classical and Renaissance literature, which, in turn, allowed him to fashion himself as a miles doctus, a learned soldier, and make a contribution to military science in England prior to and during the English Civil Wars. In focusing on the rich and varied life and works of John Cruso, this book also explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period, as well as allowing Cruso''s life to shed further light on the migrant experience in seventeenth-century Norwich. Joby shows how a second-generation migrant could successfully integrate himself into English society, whilst continuing to engage with his Low Countries heritage.and Jacob Cats). As a military author, Cruso published five works, in English, including two translations from the French. These works display his knowledge of the canon of classical and Renaissance literature, which, in turn, allowed him to fashion himself as a miles doctus, a learned soldier, and make a contribution to military science in England prior to and during the English Civil Wars. In focusing on the rich and varied life and works of John Cruso, this book also explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period, as well as allowing Cruso''s life to shed further light on the migrant experience in seventeenth-century Norwich. Joby shows how a second-generation migrant could successfully integrate himself into English society, whilst continuing to engage with his Low Countries heritage.and Jacob Cats). As a military author, Cruso published five works, in English, including two translations from the French. These works display his knowledge of the canon of classical and Renaissance literature, which, in turn, allowed him to fashion himself as a miles doctus, a learned soldier, and make a contribution to military science in England prior to and during the English Civil Wars. In focusing on the rich and varied life and works of John Cruso, this book also explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period, as well as allowing Cruso''s life to shed further light on the migrant experience in seventeenth-century Norwich. Joby shows how a second-generation migrant could successfully integrate himself into English society, whilst continuing to engage with his Low Countries heritage.and Jacob Cats). As a military author, Cruso published five works, in English, including two translations from the French. These works display his knowledge of the canon of classical and Renaissance literature, which, in turn, allowed him to fashion himself as a miles doctus, a learned soldier, and make a contribution to military science in England prior to and during the English Civil Wars. In focusing on the rich and varied life and works of John Cruso, this book also explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period, as well as allowing Cruso''s life to shed further light on the migrant experience in seventeenth-century Norwich. Joby shows how a second-generation migrant could successfully integrate himself into English society, whilst continuing to engage with his Low Countries heritage.ance literature, which, in turn, allowed him to fashion himself as a miles doctus, a learned soldier, and make a contribution to military science in England prior to and during the English Civil Wars. In focusing on the rich and varied life and works of John Cruso, this book also explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period, as well as allowing Cruso''s life to shed further light on the migrant experience in seventeenth-century Norwich. Joby shows how a second-generation migrant could successfully integrate himself into English society, whilst continuing to engage with his Low Countries heritage.

The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political upheavals which spanned the entirety of the British Isles in the mid-seventeenth century. It was fought on a wide range of religious, political and racial issues, and succeeded in dividing the traditional loyalties of class, friendship and family ties within all four kingdoms. This unprecedented period of disruption resulted in far-reaching political revolution, the re-evaluation of political representation and social structure, and ultimately laid the foundations of the British constitution we know today. Martyn Bennett introduces the reader to the main debates surrounding the Civil War, from the St Giles riots in Edinburgh in 1637 to the restoration of Charles II on 8 May 1660, and includes biographies of the key personalities, key events, battles, military institutions of the conflict, and covers the run-up to the conflict, the wars themselves and its aftermath. This comprehensive A-Z companion to the history of the civil wars provides all the facts and figures that an armchair general would ever need.

The Londoner John Blackwell (1624-1701), shaped by his parents’ Puritanism and merchant interests of his iconoclast father, became one of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army captains. Working with his father in Parliament’s financial administration both supported the regicide and benefitted financially from the subsequent sales of land from those defeated in the civil wars. Surviving the Restoration, Blackwell pursued interests in Ireland and banking schemes in London and Massachusetts, before being governor of Pennsylvania. Blackwell worked with his son, Lambert Blackwell, who established himself as a merchant, financier and representative of the state in Italy during the wars of William III before being embroiled in the South Sea Bubble. The linked histories of the three Blackwells reinforce the importance of kinship and the development of the early modern state centred in an increasingly global London and illustrate the ownership of the memory of the civil wars, facilitated by their kin links to Cromwell and John Lambert, architect of Cromwell’s Protectorate, by those who fought against Charles I. Suitable for specialists in the area and students taking courses on early modern English, European and American history as well as those with a more general interest in the period.