Civil War: The History Of England Volume III The History Of England

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In Civil War Peter Ackroyd continues his dazzling account of England's history beginning with the progress south of the Scottish king James VI who on the death of Elizabeth I became the first Stuart king of England and ends with the deposition and flight into exile of his grandson James II. The Stuart dynasty brought together the two nations of England and Scotland into one realm albeit a realm still marked by political divisions that echo to this day. More importantly perhaps the Stuart era was marked by the cruel depredations of civil war and the killing of a king. Ackroyd paints a vivid portrait of James I and his heirs. Shrewd and opinionated the new King was eloquent on matters as diverse as theology witchcraft and the abuses of tobacco but his attitude to the English parliament sowed the seeds of the division that would split the country in the reign of his hapless heir Charles I. Ackroyd offers a brilliant - warts and all - portrayal of Charles's nemesis Oliver Cromwell Parliament's great military leader and England's only dictator who began his career as a political liberator but ended it as much of a despot as 'that man of blood' the king he executed. England's turbulent seventeenth century is vividly laid out before us but so too is the cultural and social life of the period notable for its extraordinarily rich literature including Shakespeare's late masterpieces Jacobean tragedy the poetry of John Donne and Milton and Thomas Hobbes' great philosophical treatise Leviathan. Civil War also gives us a very real sense of the lives of ordinary English men and women lived out against a backdrop of constant disruption and uncertainty.