Author(s): John Adamson

World History | Secondhand

John Adamson's book traces the careers and fortunes of the small group of English noblemen who risked their lives and fortunes to challenge the king's attempt to create an authoritarian monarchy in the Stuart kingdoms during the 1630s. Beginning with a core of little more than a dozen, this aristocratic leadership exploited a contemporary insurrection in Scotland to stage a revolt against Charles's rule in England. Successfully forcing the king to summon a Parliament against his will, they embarked, together with their English and Scottish allies, on the creation an entirely new religious and political order - one, moreover, which came to have strongly republican overtones - in mainland Britain.