This War without an Enemy - A History of the Englich Civil War

The English civil wars have never ceased to fascinate both the historian and the common reader. Was the struggle in essence over religion, over law, over politics, or over constitutional development? And were its causes primarily social and economic, or are they to be found in the conflict of principles or the clash of personalities?

Between the autumn of 1640, when the Long Parliament met, and the spring of 1660, when Charles II was restored, the King's Chief Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury were beheaded, the country divided and ravaged by two civil wars, the King himself tried and executed, the House of Lords was abolished, and the Commons themselves, in spite of all that purging and packing could do, were turned out to make room for a military dictatorship.

Richard Ollard's book takes a fresh view of the unparalleled series of events that led up to Cromwell's astonishing period of ascendancy at home and abroad. He describes what life was like during the war and how the impact of these national shocks was felt in family and neighborhood, in social and professional life.

The portrayal of individuals is given prominence, for, whatever it may or may not have been, the civil war was not faceless. It took place in the great age of English portrait painting and was followed by the flowering of English biography and memoirs, including Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion, that matchless gallery of likenesses taken from the life.