Bøger om British Civil Wars & Interregnum

This book tells the early life of Samuel Dunche. He was born in the late sixteenth century into a well-respected family who had sat at the heart of Government since the times of Henry VIII. He was the third son and, as such, expected to play a supporting role of the family future. He lived in incredible times. A change of royal dynasty from Tudor to Stuart. Intense poverty and taxation at a time the middle classes began to emerge. The ever-present threat of plague and pestilence that culled swathes of the popula tion. A New World being discovered and the world's most famous playwright, William Shakespeare, at his peak. Conflicting religious beliefs between Catholicism and Protestantism fuelling national paranoia and the rise of extremist Puritanism and the ever-present fear of witches. Disillusion with the monarchy, leading to dissolu tion of the monarchy, regicide and Civil War. Through these times, Samuel survives and thrives despite family opposition and finds himself thrust into the heart of great events, shaping his perspective on what is right and wrong, just and unjust. He experiences torturous loss, becomes uncle to a young Oliver Cromwell and finds a love he could never have imagined. My motivation for this story lies not only in writing about the fascinating times that shaped modern Britain, but in a person al connection with Samuel. The first house he built and lived in with his wife, where he started his family, is called Hall Place in Sparsholt, Oxfordshire. It was built in 1623 and celebrates its quatercentenary this year. I own and live in this house today. 'If the walls could talk, what a story they would tell, ' I often say to myself. I hope to try and tell his story

Until this book was published in 1974, many of the letters in this book between Charles I Prince Rupert his nephew and the leading Royalist commander had never been published. From a mainly private collection, the letters give a fascinating insight into the stormy relationship between the monarch and his nephew.

Between 1639 and 1660, more than 1,000 places across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales were fortified. These included towns and villages, castles and manor houses, as well as new places of strength. They ranged in complexity from the simple strengthening of existing medieval walls to the sophisticated re-fortification of major towns. Often overlooked in the context of European military engineering, and in terms of the so-called 'military revolution' of the period, the design and construction of the Civil War fortress progressed during the period, evolving from the basic ditch and rampart of the early years of the fighting to the massive stone-built citadels of the Protectorate. Over half of these so-called 'fortified places' witnessed some sort of military action, although it is wrong to conclude that the fortress warfare of the period was purely about sieges. The Town Well Fortified is a brand-new study which looks at the strategic and tactical importance of fortifications, and their influence on the respective war effort of all sides, particularly in terms of logistics, and the concept of 'protected corridors' which connected key locations and dominated campaigns. The book also places the fortress in its geographical context, and considers how the local topography influenced placement and design. Given the years of peace enjoyed by much of the Three Kingdoms prior to the Civil Wars, it is no surprise that fortress construction was heavily influenced by European practice, although the fortified landscape prior to 1639, including a heritage stretching back as far as Roman times (and beyond), was also important.The design and construction of the fortifications is also considered, both in terms of the theory, especially from the military manuals of the time, and then the practice, including several contemporary and eyewitness accounts. The book also examines actual numbers, locations, and types of fortresses, including an assessment of the type of fort known as a 'sconce'.Secondary sources have been re-examined, and brought together with ongoing research, including recent archaeological investigations (which, among other things, consider just how earthworks were built), in this ground breaking-study which offers a fresh interpretation of the subject of fortresses during the Civil Wars. The use of up-to-date research is reflected in the book's spotlight on the current and yet largely unpublished investigations at King's Lynn, London, and the Isle of Man. But the inclusion of findings from the Civil War Fortifications Register project ensures this book genuinely encompasses the whole of Britain and Ireland.This is the result of more than thirty years of research, including the author's thorough and ongoing study of London's fortifications, the King's Lynn under Siege archaeological project, and the results from the development of a register identifying every place fortified during the Civil Wars across the entire British Isles.

Suitable for specialists in the area and students taking courses on early modern English, European and American history as well as those with a more general interest in the period.

The ways in which women have historically authorized themselves to write on war has blurred conventionally gendered lines, intertwining the personal with the political. Women on War in Spain's Long Nineteenth Century explores, through feminist lenses, the cultural representations of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spanish women's texts on war.Reshaping the current knowledge and understanding of key female authors in Spain's fin de sicle, this book examines works by notable writers - including Rosario de Acua, Blanca de los Rios, Concepcin Arenal, and Carmen de Burgos - as they engage with the War of Independence, the Third Carlist War, Spain's colonial wars, and World War I. The selected works foreground how women's representations of war can challenge masculine conceptualizations of public and domestic spheres. Christine Arkinstall analyses the works' overarching themes and symbols, such as honour, blood, the Virgin and the Mother, and the intersecting sexual, social, and racial contracts. In doing so, Arkinstall highlights how these texts imagine outcomes that deviate from established norms of femininity, offer new models to Spanish women, and interrogate the militaristic foundations of patriarchal societies.