England on Edge: Crisis and Revolution 1640-1642

England on Edge deals with the collapse of the government of Charles I the disintegration of the Church of England and the accompanying cultural panic that led to civil war. Focused on the years 1640 to 1642 it examines stresses and fractures in social political and religious culture and the emergence of an unrestrained popular press. Hundreds of people not normally seen in historical surveys make appearances here in a drama much larger than the struggle of king and parliament. Historians commonly assert that royalists and parliamentarians parted company over issues of principle constitutional scruples and religious belief but a more complex picture emerges from the environment of anxiety mistrust and fear. . Rather than seeing Englands revolutionary transformation as a product of the civil war as has been common among historians David Cressy finds the world turned upside down in the two years preceding the outbreak of hostilities. The humbling of Charles I the erosion of the royal prerogative and the rise of an executive parliament were central features of the revolutionary drama of 1640-1642. The collapse of the Laudian ascendancy the splintering of the established church the rise of radical sectarianism and the emergence of an Anglican resistance all took place in these two years before the beginnings of bloodshed. The world of public discourse became rapidly energized and expanded in counterpoint with an exuberantly unfettered press and a deeply traumatized state. . These linked processes and the disruptive contradictions within them made this a time of shaking and of prayer. Englands elite encountered multiple transgressions some more imagined than real involving lay encroachments on the domain of the clergy lowly intrusions into matters of state the city clashing with the court the street with institutions of government and women undermining the territories of men. The simultaneity concatenation and cumulative compounding effect of these disturbances added to their ferocious intensity and helped to bring down Englands ancien regime. This was the revolution before the Revolution the revolution that led to civil war.