English Civil War

Graham Goodlad examines differing interpretations of the part played by King Charles I in the outbreak of the civil war.

Though superb works of art in themselves, the wildlife paintings of Francis Barlow are full of rich metaphors that shed light on the anxieties and concerns of a Britain emerging from the horrors of civil war, says Nathan Flis.

Despite their mutual loathing and suspicion, James I and his parliaments needed one another, as Andrew Thrush explains. The alternative, ultimately, was civil war.

Decadent, effeminate, outdated, the image of the Cavalier remains that of his enemies, victorious in the Civil Wars. John Stubbs offers a rather more complex corrective view.

Richard Cavendish remembers the birth of Birth of the First Earl of Clarendon on February 18, 1609. 

The reasons why Charles I was executed are understood far better than the legacy of his death. Blair Worden considers the enduring and sometimes surprising consequences.

Richard Hughes shows there is more of historical interest to William Prynne than his famous auditory organs.

Graham Goodlad surveys the variety of interpretations offered by historians of Cromwellian rule in the 1650s.

Patrick Little asks why Parliament offered the infamous regicide the crown of England, to what extent he was tempted to take it – and why he finally turned it down.

History does not reveal the identity of the masked executioner who severed Charles I’s head from his body, or of his assistant who held it up to the waiting crowd. Geoffrey Robertson QC re-examines the evidence.