The World Turned Upside Down - The British Civil Wars 1638-1651

New research now published by the Royal Historical Society reveals for the first time how Lord and Lady Brooke and their household made Warwick Castle a strategic stronghold for Parliament and withstood a Royalist siege. In this podcast, the authors of the book explore the lives of these men and women revealed in the household accounts of ... Read more

To mark Women’s History Month we invited distinguished historian Jackie Eales, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at Canterbury Christ Church University, to explore the role of women in the civil wars – a topic largely ignored in earlier studies of the period. She concludes that overall changes in the social status of women were limited and ... Read more

Following the execution of Charles I on 30th January 1649, the Republic’s government faced a dilemma: How should recent events be remembered and how, if at all, should they be commemorated? In the decade between the Regicide and the Restoration, authorities and individuals who had fought on both sides of the recent bloody conflict struggled to ... Read more

The Saffron Walden debates In June 1646 as the First Civil War ended, there was an ever-widening gulf between the New Model Army and Parliament which would eventually split the two pillars of what later became Britain’s only experiment with a republican constitution. By the end of the year the pay of the New Model ... Read more

While the attention paid to the naval history of the British and Irish Civil Wars has increased in recent years, the parts played by women have often been ignored. In this programme, Dr. Elaine Murphy, Associate Professor in History at the University of Plymouth, reveals how more and more women engaged with Parliament’s navy in ... Read more

The histories of the British and Irish civil wars of the mid-Seventeenth century are usually written from the perspective of the conflict fought on land while the strategic importance of the war at sea which contributed so much to Parliament’s eventual victory, is often ignored or only mentioned in passing. But these maritime  engagements were ... Read more

As civil war raged in Britain, the heart of Europe was being torn apart by a bitter conflict which lasted from 1618 to 1648. These three decades became a byword for the horrors of war unsurpassed until the world wars of the 20th century. Every European power apart from Russia, was sucked into the fighting as ... Read more

The Sealed Knot was the most important, and certainly the most famous, royalist organization to emerge in England during the Protectorate. At its heart was a group of second sons of Royalist families in East Anglia, each of whom had fought for the King in the Civil War. Their experiences left them suspicious of reckless ... Read more

For the first time the role played by women in the espionage networks of both sides in the Civil Wars is being recovered through the pioneering research conducted by Nadine Akkerman, Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Professor Akkerman tells publisher, Mike Gibbs, how she uncovered the extent ... Read more

The British civil wars were largely played out around numerous fortified strongpoints at locally important strategic sites throughout the three Kingdoms. Such “fortresses” ranged from purpose-built artillery platforms known as sconces which can still be seen in places such as Newark in Nottinghamshire, through to medieval castles such as Corfe in Dorset or local homes ... Read more