People, events and ideas of the British Civil Wars explored and explained by leading historians

Quakerism emerged in England in the social and religious tumult of the Civil Wars.

Distinguished historians looking at events and individuals – famous and unknown – in the key years before, during and following the civil wars in Britain and Ireland.

Religious divisions between the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland were a fundamental cause of the Civil Wars and throughout the Interregnum sectarianism between Protestant factions constantly challenged the republican government and ultimately destroyed it.

The Rump Parliament intended the trial to serve propaganda purposes. However, this aim was subverted by the king’s surprisingly fluent defence in which he recast himself as a defender of the people’s liberty in the face of a new, arbitrary power.

Historians now recognise that the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century must be viewed in a British and Irish context and not exclusively from an English perspective.

By the 1640s, Parliament was at the very centre of British history. The accession of Charles the First to the throne in 1625 began a bitter rivalry for dominance with a King whose political and religious views brought him into head-to-head conflict with an increasingly assertive Parliament.

An introductory step-by-step guide to the causes, conflicts and consequences of the British Civil Wars. With Professor Peter Gaunt in three 30-minute podcasts.

How culpable was Charles I in causing the British Civil Wars? Why did his army lose and why was he executed? Answering these questions are two noted historians, Edward Vallance and Andrew Hopper.