Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660

Contemporary Review, Sept, 2004

Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660. Trevor Royle. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvii 888 pages. ISBN 0-316-86125-1. The author has made a name for himself in recent years as a writer on military history and in this massive study he tackles the civil wars that rent England, Scotland and Ireland in the seventeenth century.

He begins with an account of Charles I's life and then turns to the troubles he faced with a powerful clique in the Commons. He follows a chronological approach and shows a reasonable balance when discussing opposing sides in this most complicated period of history. He is however more critical of the King than of the pseudo-king, Cromwell. In a short Epilogue he shows the connexion, obvious to historians but not so much to general readers, between the rebellious minority in the eighteenth-century American colonies and the rebellious minority who rose against Charles I. In both cases a relatively small group took upon itself the role of representing what it said were the demands of the majority, clothed them in suitably high-blown language and plunged their fellow countrymen into war. (T.B.)