The King's Peace 1637-1641 Author:C.V. Wedgwood The brilliant English historian C. V. Wedgwood worked for many years on her most ambitious undertaking--the tremendous story of the Great Rebellion that cost Charles I his life and turned England into a republic. This volume presents the first act of that historic drama, vividly relating the stirring events of the four years that preceded the C... more »ivil War, years that transformed Charles's peaceful dominions into a land torn with mistrust and menaced by fire and sword. The thrilling episodes in the mounting tragedy are narrated with superb skill; the uprising of the Scottish Covenanters under such leaders as the gallant Montrose and the mysterious ARgyll; John Pym's shrewd direction of Parliament in defiance of the King; the terrible fate of Strafford and its link with the bloody Irish insurrection.
While eh author gives careful consideration to the familiar religious, political, and economic elements in the struggle, her intention is not so much to analyze the causes of the Civil War as to reveal how the men and women of the time thought and felt, and, why, in their own estimations, they acted as they did. Miss Wedgwood shows remarkable objectivity throughout==as she seeks to understand the sources of human error and misjudgment, she respects truth and nobility in each of the factions.
The noted historian A. L. Rowse commented: "Miss Wedgwood has written a superb book . . . If she goes on like this she is going to achieve one of the historical masterpieces of her generation and our time."« less