So, if you followed the recent developments with the British royals, you know that Queen Elizabeth II died after a long reign and was succeeded by King Charles III. It also includes rather a lot about Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, which although interesting, read as though inserted to introduce a female voice. Cavendish’s achievements were considerable, including a early work of speculative/utopian fiction, The Blazing World and Other Writings, and being the first female inducted into the Royal Society (discussed natural philosophy, which is the contemporary description of scientific knowledge). However, Cavendish comes across as very much unique because of her social position, ahead of her time, and not part of some larger feminist movement. Jonathan Healey's book reveals how Britain was in a state of flux in the 17th century. Its people were still very primitive and violent with fabricated witch trials and executions commonplace. Vengeance was still in charge - Healey writes how after the monarchy was restored, Charles II had Cromwell's body dug up, his head chopped off and placed on a pike at Westminster for thirty years. An admirably even-handed account. . . . For those new to the subject, Healey’s retelling is exemplary.” —Jerry Brotton, Financial Times Healy] makes a convincing argument that the turbulent era qualifies as truly ‘revolutionary,’ not simply because of its cascading political upheavals, but in terms of far-reaching changes within society.... Wryly humorous and occasionally bawdy”— The Wall Street Journal

A major new history of England's turbulent seventeenth century and how it marked the birth of a new worldIf I had a minor criticism of the book, it is that some of the analysis might have benefited from more fleshing out. In some cases, casual links and conclusions are drawn without a great deal of explanation. We are told that the so-called 'middling sort' (i.e., yeomen and lesser gentry) were drawn to Puritanism because its theology of pre-destination fitted with their own experience of worldly success 3. Elsewhere, the idea of Royal absolutism is described as a 'reaction' to the idea that monarchs were accountable to those they ruled. Over two paragraphs, a series of casual connections are made connecting economic change to a more widespread belief in common law civil liberties: as economic growth outpaced the growth of the money supply, credit became more commonplace; that resulted in greater litigation in relation to unpaid debt, and that 'in a culture so saturated with lawyers and litigants, legal ideas inevitably seeped into politics', including ideas about civil liberties. 4 To be fair to the author, they are all interesting ideas worth considering, and there may be a lot of research and thought underlying them. But they are dealt with in a cursory fashion in the book, whilst appearing to justify closer inspection. Conclusion Healey vividly describes all the political and social upheavals of the 1600s: from the Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot of 1605, through the chaos of the civil wars, the execution of King Charles I, the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, the Restoration of the monarchy, to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. It was a century of revolutions which set the stage for the modern concept of representative government. A very readable, comprehensible, and always engrossing account of the monumental seventeenth Century in England – one which is ideal for (and I think aimed at) the interested amateur historian/reader rather than the academic/expert. Of course I knew about the stunning execution of King Charles in the Banqueting House, which I have had the opportunity to tour in the past decade after a recent restoration, and I knew about Oliver Cromwell's everyman reign. But I wanted to learn more about the drivers behind these great events. And Healey's history open my eyes to a century of much broader and deeper change than I had imagined. "[The] gentry and middling sort were becoming more engaged with law, politics,and government. It meant that any ruler, or administration, that wanted to succeed in governing England would have to work with and through these groups." (p. 39). Although the "age of revolution" in America and France was a century in the future, the ferment was rising in England now, driven in part by rising literacy and an explosion in the publishing of pamphlets for popular consumption. "There are just over 600 surviving titles per year in the 1630s. . . . In 1641, there are 2,042" (p. 145), driving the "politicisation of the English population" (p. 171) in a "clash of ideologies, as often as not between members of the same class." (p. 182) Well the book covers the events from King James death in 1604 to the crowning of William of Orange in, the core of the book is focused on the events leading up to and through out the English Civil War. A fascinating time when Parliament deposed King Charles, put him on trial and then executed him. The king's death would usher an almost 10 year of republican rule in England. Many of the most radical factions in Parliament had wanted to bring about universal male sufferage and other political reforms. The civil war also had a strong religious aspect with the King's downfall bringing a very strict strain of Protestantism in the form of Puritanism. The Puritans not only swept away much of the most formal trappings of the Church of England, they also banned or limited more popular religious culture such as Christmas

Reading Jonathan Healey's The Blazing World, it's a wonder that there were many people left alive in England come the end of the 1600's ! The plague, the fire of London, the civil war, the witch trials, the persecution and execution of Protestants, Catholics, Quakers and other religious followers, wars with European neighbours! The 17th century sure wasn't the most peaceful hundred years in our history. Jonathan Healy does a magnificent job of telling this story. He focuses on trying to explain what it was like. He does not go deeply into the military tactic of the battles or the minutia of Court or Parliamentary wrangling. He does try to explain the mind set of this religion-soaked world where fine points of theology were matters of life and death. The threat of international Catholicism was more powerful than the communist threat of the 1950s or the recent Islamophobia. Their equivalent to 9/11 was Guy Fawkes' almost successful attempt to blow up Parliament and the King. A sparkling account of a period that is crucial for any understanding of the history of the UK, Europe and the world beyond.” —Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

Though “an absolutist by nature”, James was canny enough to realise the limits of ambition in his wealthy new kingdom. His son, Charles – the spare who became the heir following the death of his glamorous brother Henry in 1612 – was less flexible. Healey is scathing in his judgment (and, refreshingly, never afraid to judge) about this “man of blood” who in the 1640s led his country into two needless civil wars, describing him as a “stuffy authoritarian… never ruthless enough to be a successful tyrant”, though he concedes, as did Rubens, that the king had a good eye for a painting. Despite the radical changes that transformed England, few today understand the story of this revolutionary age. Leaders like Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, and William of Orange have been reduced to caricatures, while major turning points like the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution have become shrouded in myth and misunderstanding. Yet the seventeenth century has never been more relevant. The British constitution is once again being contested, and we face a culture war reminiscent of when the Roundheads fought the Cavaliers. Healey’s book is refreshing for its energetic writing, engaging wit and sound foundation in recent historical scholarship. . . . Rather than advancing a new interpretation, Healey captures the vitality and turbulence of 17th-century England in an effective retelling, with many more players than the typical cast of kings and queens. . . . While narrating this tempestuous past, Healey has an eye on the present. He regards key stages in the political and intellectual history of revolutionary England as ‘steps on a longer journey’ toward modern democracy. . . . This readable and informative overview evokes a lost world which, for better or worse, ‘was blazing a path toward our own.’” —David Cressy, The New York Times

Lucy Hughes-Hallett The radicals of 17th-century England began to think the unthinkable Jonathan Healey describes how Diggers, Levellers and other revolutionary sects started proposing universal male suffrage, legal aid and even a national health service It’s a cliché to say that history repeats itself, especially since it often doesn’t. Oxford professor Jonathan Healey makes it clear in The Blazing World that the figures discussed within — Oliver Cromwell, William Laud, and the Stuart monarchs from James I to Charles II, among a cast of many more — could only have existed during their unique time. And yet, “The echoes of seventeenth-century England are still with us,” he writes, “in our society, in the built environment and in the very landscape.”

Charts th[e] extraordinary course from the Tudors to the Hanoverians. . . . Healey channels the inquiring spirit which came to define this revolutionary age, creating his own survey as rich and wide-ranging as the pioneering work of the seventeenth-century characters he so admires.” —Miranda Malins, The Critic I read Devil Land last year and thought it was excellent (I would have given it four stars out of five, the same as this book review) but didn't review it at the time as I was a bit occupied with other things (moving house). ↩︎ If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.

The most interesting parts to me were the glimpses of the impact on every day people, and I do wish that we had learnt a bit more about what the government of the day was doing outside of the various plots to get either Protestants or Catholics in power - e.g how was healthcare provided, how was literacy going? Etc… but maybe that would have made it a ridiculously long book. Perhaps the most important evolution which the civil war helped to bring about was the end of absolutism and the divine right of kings. Even though the kings, and indeed Cromwell, dismissed Parliament several times, by the end of the century Parliament was in the ascendancy with power in the hands of the people and the monarch's wings clipped. Yet even today at the recent coronation we saw the bizarre spectacle of the Archbishop of Canterbury anointing Charles III as if he really believes, perhaps he does, that God has put Charles on the throne. So this book is about raw politics, but it is also about the social change that conditioned those politics. It is narrative history, and for this it makes no apologies, but it’s also about how those two forces combined to create nearly a hundred years of turbulence, out of which arose a remarkable new world, one which – for better or worse – was blazing a path towards our own. I am also glad to see more and more historians drawing attention to what a nasty, repressive, cruel regime the Restoration was. Most of what we were taught in school was essentially Royalist propaganda. The seventeenth century began as the English suddenly found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and ended in the shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, the country suffered terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide. For a short time – for the only time in history – England was a republic. There were bitter struggles over faith and no boundaries to politics. In the coffee shops and alehouses of plague-ridden London, new ideas were forged that were angry, populist and almost impossible for monarchs to control.A fresh, exciting, “readable and informative ” history ( The New York Times ) of seventeenth-century England, a time of revolution when society was on fire and simultaneously forging the modern world . • “Recapture[s] a lost moment when a radically democratic commonwealth seemed possible.”—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker It was not to be. Following the execution of the stubborn and slippery king, a Commonwealth was proclaimed. Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland – here given no more and no less space than required – and of Scotland secured these isles in preparation for experiments in government. First, there was the fundamentalist Nominated Assembly, or Barebone’s Parliament, which Cromwell disbanded in favour of the settlement devised by the soldier and intellectual John Lambert – for whom Healey, a fellow Yorkshireman, cannot disguise his admiration. Lambert’s Instrument of Government, Britain’s first and only written constitution, reimagined the old trinity of King, Lords and Commons as Protector, Council of State and Commons. Cromwell took top spot in 1653, though the Protectorate was doomed from the afternoon of September 3 1658, when “Cromwell died, people not much minding it,” as an Essex clergyman wrote in his diary.